Herman Melville Quotes
Thus it often is, that the constant friction of illiberal minds wears out at last the best resolves of the more generous..
Herman Melville, 1819-91, Novelist, Bartleby, the Scrivener
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
Bennett, a staunch conservative, came under critical fire from the right for his position on gun control. He was asked what it was like being criticized by fellow conservatives:
Until the end of Harry Truman’s presidency, republicans and other conservatives tended to accuse democratic presidents and other leaders are being too aggressive and belligerent in foreign policy. Republicans tended to oppose defense spending and a strong military. After WWII the isolationist republicans tended to become hawks. They favored extensive military spending and an aggressive foreign policy. Since then, they have generally attacked democrats as being too weak. President Lyndon Johnson was very much intimidated by being perceived as weak, and many attribute his expansion of the Vietnam War to his desire to avoid this right wing criticism.
Most modern politicians are just the opposite. The political scene is rife with politicians impugning motives.
This quotation is classic as it was the first of a series of attacks that have been made on presidents and other politicians by the economic ultra-rightists when the conservatives had disliked the politician’s economic policies. To criticize the ultra-rich and their corporations was promoting class warfare. And that criticism being made public certainly upset the confidence of the rich in the President. When the president pointed out how the average person feels about the rich, to them it was he who was responsible for the mistrust and hatred by talking about them—not them by what they were doing. This same attack has been made against every Democratic President that came thereafter, but it was first used against Republican Theodore Roosevelt. For many Liberals, the way they know that they are starting to succeed with economic reform is when they get attacked for fomenting class warfare.
At the time most conservatives were very angry and hostile to liberals and attacked those who disagreed with them.
“Liberalism” was a catch all Chinese term at the time which was very derogatory in Communist vernacular very much like the negative connotation of liberalism to American Conservatives at the turn of the millennium 1990-2010.
Herman Melville was an American novelist, short story writer, and poet of the American Renaissance period. Among his best-known works are Moby-Dick (1851), Typee (1846), a romanticized account of his experiences in Polynesia, and Billy Budd, Sailor, a posthumously published novella. Although his reputation was not high at the time of his death, the centennial of his birth in 1919 was the starting point of a Melville revival and Moby-Dick grew to be considered one of the great American novels.
