Frederick Allen Quotes
It is easier to tear down a code than to put a new one in its place.
Allen, Frederick Lewis. Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the Nineteen-Twenties. Harper & Brothers, 1931, p. 113.
Television had been used very effectively in the 1952 and 1956 Presidential elections, particularly by the Republicans, and by 1960 both parties were planning extensive use of TV in the coming election.
![La Prensa [Argentina]](https://images.quote.org/63671_La Prensa [Argentina]_0_thumbnail_47x47.jpg){kind=small}
This was three weeks after the coup that began the Dirty War that ended with tens of thousands of Argentines tortured and murdered.
This is a very important historical, political quotation. The conservatives have since the Russian Revolution conflated socialism and communism. However, here in 1932 the leader of the American Socialist Party had already described the Communist Revolution in Russia as a failure of founding an acceptable modern state. Nonetheless, even into the 21st century many conservatives describe Thomas as a Communist. See {626692} for his distinction between Communism and Socialism. The difficulty of modern nation building was explained by Thomas and others but was really not accepted until the many attempts of the early 21st century, some supported by America like Iraq and Afghanistan and the Balkans and others like the “Arab Spring.” Then his early wisdom on this point became more appreciated.
While this is very true in the long term, the Church in the short term has almost always supported actively or by its neutrality, the ruling class as opposed to those who would make revolutionary change even to the extent of participating in the torture, murder, and intimidation of most of the Catholics in the society. The ruling class, in turn, supported the Church and used the power of the state to enforce religious doctrine and prevent alternative religious views and practices to prevail even if only with small minorities. See {632407} for another Mises quotation articulating examples of this.
Frederick Lewis Allen was the editor of Harper's Magazine and also notable as an American historian of the first half of the twentieth century. His specialty was writing about recent and popular history.
