Charles Dudley Warner Quotes
It isn't an easy thing to cater to a public that gets tired of anything in about three days.
Charles Dudley Warner, 1829 –1900, Essayist & Novelist, That Fortune
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
This quotation appears to be typical of critics’ complaints about modern media and political reform movements lowing their standards and just trying to provide entertainment for the masses. The reason that it is noteworthy is that it was written in 1909. It is typical of the same class of complaints of 100 years later.
In 2011 much of the business world complained that they were apprehensive because they did not know how the polarization between the two parties would be resolved. Uncertainty was they felt bad. In this quotation, the president, speaking to business men, assured them that there would be no unexpected changes. His party controlled Congress and fiscally they were very conservative and pro business. Therefore the president could boast that he would not change anything even though the nation was in the midst of a depression. In the 21st century, almost no politician could be successful unless he/she promised to change things. Ironically, within three years, the businessmen of America would be greatly disturbed by change. McKinley was assassinated and Theodore Roosevelt became President and started reforming much of American business from Anti-Trust to government regulation of food. Not all Republicans were committed to no change, and the Roosevelt era was one of great
He was concerned about the possible “tyranny of the majority.”
Majority public opinion does not always prevail in a modern democracy as there are Constitutional limits on the prerogatives of the majority. Also leadership has played a strong role in America’s development where strong leaders have been able to do the right thing despite contrary public opinion.
See Eddie Bernice Johnson {605259} & Otis Singletary {585931} for similar views and John Stuart Mill {607508} for an earlier expression. The earliest expression of the idea can be found in the Bhagavad Gita {594723}
Samuel Langhorne Clemens, 1835-1910
It was only a short time before the public attitude of Americans on homosexual marriage went from hardly anyone approving to a majority of the public approving.
See {595376} for a related view.
Madison wrote this essay for publication in New York. That state, one of the largest and most important of the 13 colonies, was polarized about the proposed Constitution and Madison, Hamilton and John Jay produced this great set of essays to convince Americans to vote for ratification. Madison acknowledged that many people had complained about various aspects of the proposed constitution and in this essay he deals with the complaints about political parties—“factions”.
The railroads were nationalized for WWI and he ran them all as a government official. There have been political situations like this one where public opinion was so intense and extreme that any action that satisfied public opinion would have very negative aspects and/or be unrealistic or impossible while realistic solutions are unacceptable to public opinion. Usually, the reaction of the politicians is to punt and simply not deal with the issue or problem but claim that they are seeking a solution.
Charles Dudley Warner was an American essayist, novelist, and friend of Mark Twain, with whom he co-authored the novel The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today.
