In no particular order, I thought I’d share some thoughts of deceased Presidents of the United States that might shed some light on the current race to the White House…
President Eisenhower confided to Sen. Everett Dirksen that he didn’t think anybody over the age of 70 should hold the office, a thing he learned first hand Eisenhower went on to say, “God help the nation when it has a president who doesn’t know as much about the military as I do.”
Harry Truman never went to college, but when Mark Twain died in 1910, Truman, then 29, purchased a 25-volume-set of Twain’s literature for $25. As president, along with, “The Buck Stops Here,” Harry kept on his desk his favorite Twain quote, “Always do right. This will gratify some people, and astonish the rest.”
When it was all said and done he allowed he didn’t see much difference. But let us ask a few of our other dead presidents to speak to us…
John Adams: “The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.”
Thomas Jefferson: “Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.”
James Madison: “Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.”
James Monroe: “The best form of government is that which is most likely to prevent the greatest sum of evil.”
Andrew Jackson: “It is to be regretted that the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their own selfish purposes.”
James Polk: “One great object of the Constitution was to restrain majorities from oppressing minorities or encroaching upon their just rights.”
Zachary Taylor: “I hope my real friends will never have to blush for me, so far as truth, honesty & fair dealings are concerned.”
Millard Fillmore: “May God save the country, for it is evident that the people will not.”
Abraham Lincoln: “A house divided against itself cannot stand.”
Theodore Roosevelt: “To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society.”
Franklin Roosevelt: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”
John Kennedy: “Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate.”
Lyndon Johnson: “If one morning I walked on top of the water across the Potomac River, the headline that afternoon would read: ‘President Can’t Swim.’”
And finally we hear this from Ronald Reagan: “Tear down this wall!”
Learn more about McAvoy Layne at www.ghostoftwain.com.
