Franklin D. Roosevelt Quotes
The Congress also passed legislation authorizing the sale of beer in such states as desired. This has already resulted in considerable reemployment and, incidentally, has provided much needed tax revenue.
To this day efforts to regulate alcohol, the nation’s most frequent drug of choice and cause of addiction and violence, are met with the same “virtues” of employment and tax revenue. It was not until the 1990s that we learned that the revenue from alcohol taxes was far less than the cost of society coping with the problems of drinking and addiction.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1882-1945, 32nd President of the United States (Democrat, NY), Second Fireside Radio Chat, May 7, 1933
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
The charge was made that the wealthy, who paid the larger proportion of an income tax, could get the poor and the middle class to pay the taxes via a Federal Alcohol Tax which would be paid proportional to the alcohol consumed—not even the cost of the alcohol. A quart of cheap whiskey was taxed at the exact same amount as a quart of fine, aged, double malt liquor—about the most regressive tax that has been and still is in force in America. If Prohibition were still in force, the Federal Government would have to raise the income tax to make up for the loss of an alcohol tax. It is debated to this day, how much of a factor this played in the repeal of prohibition.
The country was in the midst of the Great Depression with a huge part of the nation unemployed. President Hoover and the Republicans had refused to provide any direct assistance to the unemployed—there was no unemployment insurance then. They actually believed that there was a danger of corrupting workers by providing assistance and ruining the American workforce. FDR probably saved the nation from massive violence by providing direct help to the unemployed but notice the way that he had to phrase such a notion which was then regarded as radical and socialistic by many conservatives.
Lippmann was one of the most educated and respected men of his day. Yet he erroneously thought that alcohol would help depression. It actually is a depressant and should be avoided by all who are suffering from depression.
Samuel Langhorne Clemens, 1835-1910. The Congressmen who voted for Prohibition in the next century had not read or believed this quotation of Twain’s.
This historical quotation is surprising to us over a century later. We are surprised at the very large revenue from the then relatively low tax rates on alcohol and tobacco and many people who did not pay their taxes at the time. Also, the incredibly small appropriation for the military. WWI was only 4 years away. Generally, until the Second World War, the Democratic party did not advocate large military expenditures and the Republicans were more isolationist and opposed almost all defense spending. After WWII, the Republican Party flip flopped and became the champion of military readiness and defense spending.
The poem was his summary of the Wickersham Commission’s (National Commission on Law Observance and Enforcement) conclusion regarding Prohibition.
The authenticity of this quotation has been in contention for years. While many sources attributed this statement to Lincoln, no one has ever found a document in which it appears. Further, it was so clearly consonant with the anti-Prohibition argument that we suspected it as a “Phantom Quotation” (See http://politicalquotes.org/node/4063). As a result, we did not include this quotation until March of 2014. The reason we changed our mind was a newspaper article that was pointed out to us, and after reading it, we tilted in favor of inclusion. The article is http://druglibrary.org/schaffer/LincolnQuote/lpq0001.jpg
Father of Harriet Beecher Stowe and Henry Ward Beecher. Father of Harriet Beecher Stowe and Henry Ward Beecher
Father of Harriet Beecher Stowe and Henry Ward Beecher. Father of Harriet Beecher Stowe and Henry Ward Beecher
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American politician who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. A member of the Democratic Party, he won a record four presidential elections and became a central figure in world events during the first half of the 20th century. Roosevelt directed the federal government during most of the Great Depression, implementing his New Deal domestic agenda in response to the worst economic crisis in U.S. history. As a dominant leader of his party, he built the New Deal Coalition, which defined modern liberalism in the United States throughout the middle third of the 20th century. His third and fourth terms were dominated by World War II, which ended shortly after he died in office.
