Eamon de Valera Quotes
No man is worth more than 1,000 pounds a year.
Eamon De Valera, 1882-1975, Irish Revolutionary and President of Ireland, Founder, Fianna Fail Party, Statement justifying his policy of cutting the salaries of Irish civil servants
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
Ten cents a day was a very low wage—it was about the equivalent of a meal at a tavern at the time. Workers throughout the country were outraged and give him a derogatory nickname—see Quotation 643585.
This appears to be the first political use of the phrase. It would take a century for legislation in some states to mandate a living wage. Roosevelt, as a reformer was incredibly ahead of his time.
Ideally, public officials would be honest and work for average societal wages, but historically that has rarely occurred in history after revolutions or major changes where idealism was the major driver for public service. But this, when it exists, tends to fade.
Answering a question about the environmental Super Fund
The last 5 years of the 1990s were the last of the Clinton administration where he was the principle architect of economic policies for that period. While this statement was somewhat self serving, the economic and fiscal performance of the Clinton years were astoundingly superior to those before and after.
Éamon de Valera was a prominent statesman and political leader in 20th-century Ireland, serving several terms as head of government and head of state, with a prominent role introducing the Constitution of Ireland.
