It would be hard to find a single instance of a direct assault by positive effort upon poverty, vice, and misery which has not either failed or, if it has not failed directly and entirely, has not entailed other evils greater than the one which it removed.
William Graham SumnerIn England pensions used to be given to aristocrats, because aristocrats had political influence, in order to corrupt them. Here pensions are given to the great democratic mass, because they have political power, to corrupt them.
William Graham SumnerThe real danger of democracy is, that the classes which have the power under it will assume all the rights and reject all the duties-that is, that they will use the political power to plunder those-who-have.
William Graham SumnerThe Forgotten Man... works, he votes, generally he prays-but he always pays-yes, above all, he pays. He does not want an office; his name never gets into the newspaper except when he gets married or dies. He keeps production going on.... He does not frequent the grocery or talk politics at the tavern. Consequently, he is forgotten.... All the burdens fall on him, or on her, for it is time to remember that the Forgotten Man is not seldom a woman.
William Graham Sumner