Matthew Algeo > Quotes

“Kofi Anan, who was once asked why God was able to create the world in seven days while it has taken the UN more than sixty years to achieve what it has. “The good Lord,” replied Anan, “had the advantage of working alone.”
― Matthew Algeo, Harry Truman's Excellent Adventure: The True Story of a Great American Road Trip

“Truman said. “They cheered as if I were still president. So I pretended I was still president and waved back.”
― Matthew Algeo, Harry Truman's Excellent Adventure: The True Story of a Great American Road Trip

“He spoke of how he enjoyed reading the morning papers now, “without having to make plans for handling the problems that appear there.”
― Matthew Algeo, Harry Truman's Excellent Adventure: The True Story of a Great American Road Trip

“Cleveland was “the kind of man who would rather do something badly for himself than to have somebody else do it well.”
― Matthew Algeo, The President Is a Sick Man: Wherein the Supposedly Virtuous Grover Cleveland Survives a Secret Surgery at Sea and Vilifies the Courageous Newspaperman Who Dared Expose the Truth

“he said anybody who voted for his bitter enemy Richard Nixon “ought to go to hell.” John Kennedy was asked about the comment in one of his famous televised debates with Nixon. “Well,” he said, “I must say that Mr. Truman has his methods of expressing things…. I really don’t think there’s anything I can say to President Truman that’s going to cause him at the age of seventy-six to change his particular speaking manner. Maybe Mrs. Truman can, but I don’t think I can.”
― Matthew Algeo, Harry Truman's Excellent Adventure: The True Story of a Great American Road Trip

“In 1962 less than 2 percent of all motels were affiliated with a national chain. Today more than 70 percent are.”
― Matthew Algeo, Harry Truman's Excellent Adventure: The True Story of a Great American Road Trip

“Keen had no difficulty reconciling science and religion. Evolution did not shake his faith. “To me,” he wrote, “the Bible is the Book of Books. It is a precious manual of Religion but not a textbook of science.”
― Matthew Algeo, The President Is a Sick Man: Wherein the Supposedly Virtuous Grover Cleveland Survives a Secret Surgery at Sea and Vilifies the Courageous Newspaperman Who Dared Expose the Truth

“Harry called Bess “the Boss.” Margaret was “the Boss’s Boss.”
― Matthew Algeo, Harry Truman's Excellent Adventure: The True Story of a Great American Road Trip

“the ninety-first psalm: “With long life will I satisfy him, and shew him my salvation.”
― Matthew Algeo, The President Is a Sick Man: Wherein the Supposedly Virtuous Grover Cleveland Survives a Secret Surgery at Sea and Vilifies the Courageous Newspaperman Who Dared Expose the Truth

“he also warned Americans not to expect a handout: “The lessons of paternalism ought to be unlearned and the better lesson taught that, while the people should patriotically and cheerfully support their Government, its functions do not include the support of the people.”
― Matthew Algeo, The President Is a Sick Man: Wherein the Supposedly Virtuous Grover Cleveland Survives a Secret Surgery at Sea and Vilifies the Courageous Newspaperman Who Dared Expose the Truth

“The lessons of paternalism ought to be unlearned and the better lesson taught that, while the people should patriotically and cheerfully support their Government, its functions do not include the support of the people.”
― Matthew Algeo, The President Is a Sick Man: Wherein the Supposedly Virtuous Grover Cleveland Survives a Secret Surgery at Sea and Vilifies the Courageous Newspaperman Who Dared Expose the Truth

“On the one side stand the corporate interests of the United States, the moneyed interests, aggregated wealth and capital, imperious, arrogant, compassionless. . . . On the other side stand an unnumbered throng, those who gave to the Democratic Party a name and for whom it has assumed to speak. Work-worn and dust-begrimed, they make their mute appeal, and too often find their cry for help beat in vain against the outer walls, while others, less deserving, gain ready access to legislative halls. Bryan held the chamber spellbound, and word of his oration spread instantly throughout the Capitol and even the city itself. Senators were drawn to the House chamber, and the public galleries filled. Though he’d planned to speak for only an hour, Bryan went on to speak for three, pausing only to sip a concoction of beef broth for refreshment. When he finally concluded, exhausted, an unusually loud and long ovation filled the chamber. Even a few goldbugs were moved to applaud. Pro-silver representatives mobbed Bryan as if he’d just scored the winning goal in overtime. Bryan’s soaring rhetoric launched a political career that would last a generation. He would become the unquestioned leader—the anti-Grover—of the pro-silver wing of the Democratic Party. But there would be no come-from-behind victory for silver in the House. Bryan’s eloquence was not enough to save the Silver Purchase Act from repeal”
― Matthew Algeo, The President Is a Sick Man: Wherein the Supposedly Virtuous Grover Cleveland Survives a Secret Surgery at Sea and Vilifies the Courageous Newspaperman Who Dared Expose the Truth

“politics has changed since 1953, how it seems to have become more personal and less personable.”
― Matthew Algeo, Harry Truman's Excellent Adventure: The True Story of a Great American Road Trip

“Dana said Cleveland had a “plodding mind, limited knowledge and narrow capacities.” After the Maria Halpin story broke, Dana wrote, “We do not believe that the American people will knowingly elect to the Presidency a coarse debauchee who would bring his harlots with him to Washington and hire lodgings for them convenient to the White House.”
― Matthew Algeo, The President Is a Sick Man: Wherein the Supposedly Virtuous Grover Cleveland Survives a Secret Surgery at Sea and Vilifies the Courageous Newspaperman Who Dared Expose the Truth

“Harry replaced all the fifty-cent words with much cheaper ones.”
― Matthew Algeo, Harry Truman's Excellent Adventure: The True Story of a Great American Road Trip

“The falsehoods daily spread before the people in our newspapers,” he wrote, “are insults to the American love for decency and fair play of which we boast.” In a letter to the New York Evening Post, he condemned “keyhole correspondents.” “They have used the enormous power of the modern newspaper to perpetuate and disseminate a colossal impertinence, and have done it, not as professional gossips and tattlers, but as the guides and instructors of the public in conduct and morals.”
― Matthew Algeo, The President Is a Sick Man: Wherein the Supposedly Virtuous Grover Cleveland Survives a Secret Surgery at Sea and Vilifies the Courageous Newspaperman Who Dared Expose the Truth