Thomas C. Leonard > Quotes

“Mill was no apologist for capitalism. When he wrote, “laisser-faire should be the general practice,” he was not uncritically extolling the virtues of free markets, the manifold failures of which he had so scrupulously catalogued.15 Mill, rather, feared that government cures were worse than market diseases, and he spoke from experience.”
― Thomas C. Leonard, Illiberal Reformers: Race, Eugenics, and American Economics in the Progressive Era

“The roster of progressives who advocated exclusion of hereditary inferiors reads like a Who’s Who of American economic reform.”
― Thomas C. Leonard, Illiberal Reformers: Race, Eugenics, and American Economics in the Progressive Era

“Economic progressives either ignored the plight of African Americans during the brutal reestablishment of white supremacy in the Jim Crow South, or, as in the case of Woodrow Wilson, justified it.”
― Thomas C. Leonard, Illiberal Reformers: Race, Eugenics, and American Economics in the Progressive Era

“Interstate commerce grew so rapidly that hundreds of local clock conventions had to be replaced by a national system of standardized time in 1883.”
― Thomas C. Leonard, Illiberal Reformers: Race, Eugenics, and American Economics in the Progressive Era

“In 1880, the US government raised 90 percent of its tax revenue from customs duties (56 percent) and excise taxes on tobacco and alcohol (34 percent). By 1930, income taxes accounted for nearly 60 percent of US government receipts.”
― Thomas C. Leonard, Illiberal Reformers: Race, Eugenics, and American Economics in the Progressive Era

“The progressives gave us the professor of social science, the scholar-activist, the social worker, the muckraking journalist, and the economic expert advising or serving in government.”
― Thomas C. Leonard, Illiberal Reformers: Race, Eugenics, and American Economics in the Progressive Era