James Freeman Quotes

I enjoyed my stay in the Congress. Most people do not. And too many people who have been elected really don't understand the nature of government.

Things said by political parties are different from the decisions of the government which are taken to uphold the rule of law. The government takes decisions that are best for the country.

If Truman wins, by God I'll make sure the President of the United States can speak to the country whenever he wishes.

If the American people are going to support a policy than they had better be made to understand the rationale.

No group in this country should be permitted to influence our policy to the point it could endanger our national security

We all know that in democracies, some of these [necessary] reforms are unpopular.

Political authorities should lead the way and not lag behind [public opinion].

In a political sense, there is one problem that underlies all of the others. The problem is making government sufficiently responsive to the people.

I'm sure that President Trump will do plenty of things that people don't like, plenty of things people do like, and the people who don't like it, at that point, certainly take advantage of your rights and protest it - and try to seek change or do whatever you want.

To some degree it matters who's in office, but it matters more how much pressure they're under from the public.

We can't have an intelligent foreign policy unless we have an intelligent public, because we're a democracy.

Governments almost never act with moral clarity and for very good reason. They are dealing with competing interests.

Our system of checks and balances .... The people keep the politicians from stealing too much, and the politicians keep the people from getting too crazy.

I was tempted to raise this issue in the Senate several weeks ago, but I decided that I would get more attention if I could get it printed in the papers.

As the power of the populace increases, the wisdom of its statesmen, who concern themselves with external affairs, decreases proportionately.

While the people retain their virtue and vigilance, no administration, by any extreme of wickedness or folly, can very seriously injure the government in the short space of four years.

Maintaining a continuity of foreign policy in the United States is not easy because it means that liberals and conservatives both shoot at you.

Public policies in our democracy are eventually a reflection of public opinion," so public opinion must be reshaped if we are to avoid disaster.

The national policy would be laid in the pure and immutable principles of private morality

There is something wrong with the way in which we make our decisions. The Government listen too much to the pollsters and the party managers. The trouble is that they are not even very good at politics, and they are entering too much into policy decisions. As a result, there is too much short-termism, too much reacting to events, and not enough shaping of events. We give the impression of being in office but not in power. Far too many important decisions are made for 36 hours' publicity.

A decent and manly examination of the acts of Government should be not only tolerated but encouraged.

There can be no doubt that criticism in time of war is essential to the maintenance of any kind of democratic government ... too many people desire to suppress criticism simply because they think that it will give some comfort to the enemy to know that there is such criticism. If that comfort makes the enemy feel better for a few moments, they are welcome to it as far as I am concerned, because the maintenance of the right of criticism in the long run will do the country maintaining it a great deal more good than it will do the enemy, and will prevent mistakes which might otherwise occur.

I trust the American People more than American Institutions.

Let us give our Republic not the best possible laws but the best which they will bear.

We don’t trust government, but we need government….Government didn’t land here from Mars. We elected them.