Henry F. Ashurst Quotes

… lobbyist-larded Washington

I want to thank the people of Texas for asking me to represent them in Washington.

There can be no complete and permanent reform of the civil service until public opinion emancipates congressmen from all control and influence over government patronage ... No proper legislation is to be expected as long as members of Congress are engaged in procuring offices for their constituents

Those members of Congress who want to bring back pork to their districts should stand up proudly and be counted.

In politics there are very few self-made men—most are machine-made.

For the sake of advantage which is to be gained from the public revenues and from office, men want to be always in office.

When I have to choose between voting for the people or voting for the special interests, I always stick with the special interests. They remember. The people forget.

The host of contractors, speculators, stockjobbers, and lobby members which haunt the halls of Congress, all desirous ... to get their arm into the public treasury, are sufficient to alarm every friend of this country. Their progress must be arrested.

Politics makes strange postmasters.

Money speaks louder than words in Washington.

The people of Montana want to send me to Washington - not to bring home the bacon but to slaughter the hog.

Every single administration in American political history has put cronies and pals and donors into political positions. But normally those people become the ambassador to Liechtenstein or the deputy undersecretary of commerce.

Enough to using Texas as a political laboratory for testing far-right ideas. Enough to using Texas as a workshop for fattening the wallets of their special interest friends and supporters. And enough of politicians listening only to each other, rather than real Texans.

We work for the families back home, we do not work for the lobbyists that prowl the halls of the capital building, do not forget who we work for.

An honest politician has no goodies to toss around. This limits his effectiveness profoundly, because political power in India is dispersed throughout a multi-tiered federal structure; a local official who has not been paid off can sometimes stop a billion-dollar project.

Every man who takes office in Washington either grows or swells, and when I give a man an office, I watch him carefully to see whether he is growing or swelling.

He [Donald Trump] buys and sells politicians of all stripes.

All the anxious politicians of his party have been looking upon him as certainty, at no distant day, to be the President of the United States. They have seen in his round, jolly, fruitful face, post offices land offices, marshalships, and cabinet appointments, chargeships and foreign missions, bursting and sprouting out in wonderful exuberance ready to be laid hold of by their greedy hands.

The greatest beggar and the most troublesome of all the office seekers during my Administration was General Harrison.

Sooner or later you have to reach down into that old pork barrel.

When I left government, it appeared I could get some rather unusual things done from the inside.

Congress is the great commanding theater of this nation, and the threshold to whatever department of office a man is qualified to enter.

If you got something [legislation] you want to slip through here, just give it to me, old pal. I'll make it Irish for you.

Washington can be a very lonely place for Congressman and Senators. Many acquaintances almost all of whom want something and very few friends.

Members of Congress don’t want anyone to have more influence than they have—that’s why they hated Harry Hopkins.