Sublime

At the Freedom School, Charles became particularly enamored of the work of two laissez-faire economists, the Austrian theorist Ludwig von Mises and his star pupil, Friedrich Hayek, an Austrian exile, who visited the Freedom School. Hayek’s book The Road to Serfdom had become an improbable best seller in 1944, after Reader’s Digest published a conde

If Foreign Relations was going to be the main point of the Republican attack, Lyndon Johnson said, Democratic defenses on that committee should be especially strong, but they were, in fact, weak. They should be shored up by senators with the expertise in foreign affairs, and the force, to stand up to Taft. He had two senators in mind who fit that d

Laughlin’s credo was simple: “To purify the breeding stock of the race at all costs.” As journalist Edwin Black notes in his 2003 book, War Against the Weak, Laughlin’s plan of attack was threefold: “sterilization, mass incarceration and sweeping immigration restrictions.” In furtherance of these goals, Laughlin created the imposingly named, feroci

A number of younger senators had accumulated sufficient seniority to expect seats on major committees, seats for which they were well qualified—in some cases, extremely well qualified. But their committee assignments were not going to be made on the basis of seniority or of qualifications. Their assignments were going to be made on the basis of the

At the close of Russell’s 1938 speech against lynching legislation, Borah of Idaho walked over to him and congratulated him—and then took the floor himself to echo Russell’s argument that the bill was a violation of states’ rights. (Whereupon Russell rose in his turn to say, “The people of the South will ever revere the name of William E. Borah.”)

while 85 percent of children born to upper-class families are raised by both of their birth parents, only 30 percent of those born to working-class families are.

In their eyes, reform was entirely enlightened policy, and in advocating it, they repeatedly invoked the rhetoric of "freedom," "modernity," and "liberty."