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That armor was as strong as ever. The Coinage Act of 1873 pleased bondholders and bankers, the well-to-do, by making gold the monetary standard, completely eliminating silver as a standard. But farmers and working people, debtors of all types—“those who labor under all the hardships of life,” in Madison’s words—were infuriated by the “Crime of
... See moreRobert A. Caro • Master of the Senate: The Years of Lyndon Johnson III
Elmer M. Ellsworth, a special assistant to Governor Winship, was a member of this hand-picked jury.
Nelson Denis • War Against All Puerto Ricans: Revolution and Terror in America's Colony
The election of public officers, or the inalienability of their functions, the absence of a gradation of powers, and the introduction of a judicial control over the secondary branches of the administration, are the universal characteristics of the American system from Maine to the Floridas.
Alexis de Tocqueville • Democracy in America, Volume I and II (Optimized for Kindle)
JSTOR: Access Check
A small band of legislators didn’t live at the Driskill, where the bills were routinely picked up by lobbyists, but at small boardinghouses below the Capitol; the members of this band didn’t accept free lodging from the lobbyists, and they didn’t accept the “Three B’s” (“beefsteak, bourbon and blondes”) which the lobbyists provided to other
... See moreRobert A. Caro • The Path to Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson I
Thinking about government as an economic unit that sells protection led Lane to analyze the control of government in economic rather than political terms. In this view, there are three basic alternatives in the control of government, each of which entails a fundamentally different set of incentives: proprietors, employees, and customers.
James Dale Davidson, Lord William Rees-Mogg • The Sovereign Individual: Mastering the Transition to the Information Age
In the French commune there is properly but one official functionary, namely, the Maire; and in New England we have seen that there are nineteen.
Alexis de Tocqueville • Democracy in America, Volume I and II (Optimized for Kindle)
With approval from a dozen different bureaus required for each contract, contracts from other districts might be stalled for months. Johnson would show up at each bureau—and contracts from the Fourteenth District were approved and back in the mail within days. In a White House ceremony on July 28, 1933, President Roosevelt presented the first AAA
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