Rutherford B. Hayes Quotes

Partisanship should be kept out of the pulpit ... The blindest of partisans are preachers. All politicians expect and find more candor, fairness, and truth in politicians than in partisan preachers. They are not replied to
no chance to reply to them ... The balance wheel of free institutions is free discussion. The pulpit allows no free discussion.

One thing you may be sure of, I was not a party to covering up anything.

All appointments hurt. Five friends are made cold or hostile for every appointment; no new friends are made. All patronage is perilous to men of real ability or merit. It aids only those who lack other claims to public support.

In church it occurred to me that it is time for the public to hear that the giant evil and danger in this country, the danger which transcends all others, is the vast wealth owned or controlled by a few persons. Money is power. In Congress, in state legislatures, in city councils, in the courts, in the political conventions, in the press, in the pulpit, in the circles of the educated and the talented, its influence is growing greater and greater. Excessive wealth in the hands of the few means extreme poverty, ignorance, vice, and wretchedness as the lot of the many. It is not yet time to debate about the remedy. The previous question is as to the danger - the evil. Let the people be fully informed and convinced as to the evil. Let them earnestly seek the remedy and it will be found. Fully to know the evil is the first step towards reaching its eradication. Henry George is strong when he portrays the rottenness of the present system. We are, to say the least, not yet ready for his remedy. We may reach and remove the difficulty by changes in the laws regulating corporations, descents of property, wills, trusts, taxation, and a host of other important interests, not omitting lands and other property.

Universal suffrage is sound in principle. The radical element is right.

Conscience is the authentic voice of God to you.

Wars will remain while human nature remains. I believe in my soul in cooperation, in arbitration; but the soldier's occupation we cannot say is gone until human nature is gone.

Disunion and civil war are at hand; and yet I fear disunion and war less than compromise. We can recover from them. The free States alone, if we must go on alone, will make a glorious nation. Twenty millions in the temperate zone, stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific, full of vigor, industry, inventive genius, educated, and moral; increasing by immigration rapidly, and, above all, free
all free
will form a confederacy of twenty States scarcely inferior in real power to the unfortunate Union of thirty-three States which we had on the first of November.

These semi-traitors [Union generals who were not hostile to slavery] must be watched.
Let us be careful who become army leaders in the reorganized army at the end of this Rebellion. The man who thinks that the perpetuity of slavery is essential to the existence of the Union, is unfit to be trusted. The deadliest enemy the Union has is slavery
in fact, its only enemy.

It is a government by the corporations, for the corporations.

I would honor the man who give to his country a good newspaper.

[T]his free and easy old-bachelor sort of life is quite full of fun and jollity. Pease and myself room together; and everything like order and neatness is banished from our presence as a nuisance
old letters and old boots and shoes, duds clean and duds dirty, books and newspapers, tooth-brushes, shoe-brushes, and clothes-brushes, all heaped together on chairs, settees, etc., in dusty and "most admired confusion." Now, what is there imaginable in clean, tidy private life equal to this?

Shall the railroads govern the country, or shall the people govern the railroads? Shall the interest of railroad kings be chieflyregarded, or shall the interest of the people be paramount?

Every age has its temptations, its weaknesses, its dangers. Ours is in the line of the snobbish and the sordid.

I regard the inflation acts as wrong in all ways. Personally I am one of the noble army of debtors, and can stand it if others can. But it is a wretched business.

There can be no complete and permanent reform of the civil service until public opinion emancipates congressmen from all control and influence over government patronage. Legislation is required to establish the reform. No proper legislation is to be expected as long as members of Congress are engaged in procuring offices for their constituents.

My wish for the American woman is that she may always be an elevating influence-man's inspiration. Let him go forth to duty while she weaves the spell which makes home a paradise to which he may return, ever welcome, whether he is victor or vanquished.

I see no reason why Indians who can give satisfactory proof of having by their own labor supported their families for a number of years, and who are willing to detach themselves from their tribal relations, should not be admitted to the benefit of the homestead act and the privileges of citizenship, and I recommend the passage of a law to that effect. It will be an act of justice as well as a measure of encouragement.

Fighting battles is like courting girls: those who make the most pretensions and are boldest usually win.

My policy is trust peace and to put aside the bayonet.

There are good points about all ... wars. People forget self. The virtues of magnanimity, courage, patriotism, etc., are called into life. People are more generous, more sympathetic, better, than when engaged in the more selfish pursuits of peace.

I too mean to be out of politics. The ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment gives me the boon of equality before the law, terminates my enlistment, and discharges me cured.

The filth and noise of the crowded streets soon destroy the elasticity of health which belongs to the country boy.

Let every man, every corporation, and especially let every village, town, and city, every county and State, get out of debt and keep out of debt. It is the debtor that is ruined by hard times.

You know I am given to antiquarian and genealogical pursuits. An old family letter is a delight to my eyes. I can prowl in old trunks of letters by the day with undiminished zest.

I do not think a revival of business will be greatly postponed by [Samuel J.] Tilden's election. Business prosperity does not, inmy judgment, depend on government so much as men commonly think.

No person connected with me by blood or marriage will be appointed to office.

The best hopes of any community rest upon that class of its gifted young men who are not encumbered with large possessions ... I now speak of extensive scholarship and ripe culture in science and art ... It is not large possessions, it is large expectations, or rather large hopes, that stimulate the ambition of the young.

Strikes and boycotting are akin to war, and can be justified only on grounds analogous to those which justify war, viz., intolerable injustice and oppression.

For character, to prepare for the inevitable I recommend selections from [Ralph Waldo] Emerson. His writings have done for me far more than all other reading.

My ambition for station was always easily controlled. If the place came to me it was welcome. But it never seemed to me worth seeking at the cost of self-respect, or independence. My family were not historic; they were well-to-do, did not hold or seek office. It was easy for me to be contented in private life. An honor was no honor to me, if obtained by my own seeking.

It is now true that this is God's Country, if equal rights-a fair start and an equal chance in the race of life are everywhere secured to all.

It is the desire of the good people of the whole country that sectionalism as a factor in our politics should disappear.

Do not let your bachelor ways crystallize so that you can't soften them when you come to have a wife and a family of your own.

I have a talent for silence and brevity. I can keep silent when it seems best to do so, and when I speak I can, and do usually, quit when I am done. This talent, or these two talents, I have cultivated. Silence and concise, brief speaking have got me some laurels, and, I suspect, lost me some. No odds. Do what is natural to you, and you are sure to get all the recognition you are entitled to.

The man of large and conspicuous public service in civil life must be content without the Presidency. Still more, the availability of a popular man in a doubtful State will secure him the prize in a close contest against the first statesman of the country whose State is safe.

Honesty, good intentions and industry, you will have of course. Without these your career would soon end with the loss of your good name. But you must be ambitious to be a good deal more. Webb Hayes, his son, went on to found what had become the Union Carbide Corporation.

Abolish plutocracy if you would abolish poverty. As millionaires increase, pauperism grows. The more millionaires, the more paupers.

The bold enterprises are the successful ones. Take counsel of hopes rather than of fears to win in this business.

In the great and deep qualities of mind, heart, and soul, there is no change. Homer and Solomon speak to the same nature in man that is reached by Shakespeare and Lincoln. but in the accidents, the surroundings, the change is vast. All things now are mobile
movable.

General education is the best preventive of the evils now most dreaded. In the civilized countries of the world, the question is how to distribute most generally and equally the property of the world. As a rule, where education is most general the distribution of property is most general ... As knowledge spreads, wealth spreads. To diffuse knowledge is to diffuse wealth. To give all an equal chance to acquire knowledge is the best and surest way to give all an equal chance to acquire property.

He serves his party best who serves the country best.

It will be the duty of the Executive, with sufficient appropriations for the purpose, to prosecute unsparingly all who have been engaged in depriving citizens of the rights guaranteed to them by the Constitution.

We can travel longer, night and day, without losing our spirits than almost any persons we ever met.

While I am in favor of the Government promptly enforcing the laws for the present, defending the forts and collecting the revenue,I am not in favor of a war policy with a view to the conquest of any of the slave States; except such as are needed to give us a good boundary. If Maryland attempts to go off, suppress her in order to save the Potomac and the District of Columbia. Cut a piece off of western Virginia and keep Missouri and all the Territories.

I saw the man my friendwants pardoned, Thomas Flinton. He is a bright, good-looking fellow ... Of his innocence all are confident. The governor strikes me as a man seeking popularity, who lacks the independence and manhood to do right at the risk of losing popularity. Afraid of what will be said. He is prejudiced against the Irish and Democrats.

The best religion the world has ever known is the religion of the Bible. It builds up all that is good.

To vote is like the payment of a debt, a duty never to be neglected, if its performance is possible.

One of the tests of the civilization of people is the treatment of its criminals.

I am succeeding very well so far with my legging, but it is a very mean business for a man that has been well brought up to engage in. It is the only way to get a bill from Cincinnati through, so it must be done.

Law without education is a dead letter. With education the needed law follows without effort and, of course, with power to execute itself; indeed, it seems to execute itself.

Let me assure my countrymen of the Southern States that it is my earnest desire to regard and promote their truest interest the interests of the white and of the colored people both and equally and to put forth my best efforts in behalf of a civil policy which will forever wipe out in our political affairs the color line and the distinction between North and South, to the end that we may have not merely a united North or a united South, but a united country.

We people in camp are merely big children, wayward and changeable.

I know I am going where Lucy is.

The most noticeable weakness of Congressmen is their timidity. They fear the use to be made of their "record." They are afraid ofmaking enemies. They do not vote according to their convictions from fear of consequences.

The progress of society is mainly the improvement in the condition of the workingmen of the world.

If a liberal policy towards the late Rebels is adopted, the ultra Republicans are opposed to it; if the colored people are honored, the extremists of the other wing cry out against it. I suspect I am right in both cases.

Is this not true
That in proportion to the value of their estates the extremely wealthy pay far less taxes than those of moderatemeans? Compare the amount paid by millionaires with the amount paid by ordinary citizens. I believe that in proportion to their estates they pay less than half as much as ordinary citizens, whereas they ought to pay more.

In avoiding the appearance of evil, I am not sure but I have sometimes unnecessarily deprived myself and others of innocent enjoyments.

No political party can ever make prohibition effective. A political party implies an adverse, an opposing, political party. To enforce criminal statutes implies substantial unanimity in the community. This is the result of the jury system. Hence the futility of party prohibition.

Free government cannot long endure if property is largely in a few hands, and large masses of people are unable to earn homes, education, and a support in old age.

In Sumter and other counties [in South Carolina] the whites are resorting to intimidation and violence to prevent the colored people from organizing for the elections. The division there is still on the color line. Substantially all the whites are Democrats and all the colored people are Republicans. There is no political principle in dispute between them. The whites have the intelligence, the property, and the courage which make power. The negroes are for the most part ignorant, poor, and timid. My view is that the whites must be divided there before a better state of things will prevail.

We all agree that neither the Government nor political parties ought to interfere with religious sects. It is equally true that religious sects ought not to interfere with the Government or with political parties. We believe that the cause of good government and the cause of religion suffer by all such interference.

The sacred obligation to the Union soldiers must not
will not be forgotten nor neglected ... But those who fought against the Nation cannot and do not look to it for relief ... Confederate soldiers and their descendants are to share with us and our descendants the destiny of America. Whatever, therefore, we their fellow citizens can do to remove burdens from their shoulders and to brighten their lives is surely in the pathway of humanity and patriotism.

The gloomy theology of the orthodox
the Calvinists
I do not, I cannot believe. Many of the notions
nay, most of the notions
which orthodox people have of the divinity of the Bible, I disbelieve. I am so nearly infidel in all my views, that too, in spite of my wishes, that none but the most liberal doctrines can command my assent.

It is a government of the people by the people for the people no longer it is a government of corporations by corporations for corporations

The study of tools as well as of books should have a place in the public schools. Tools, machinery, and the implements of the farmshould be made familiar to every boy, and suitable industrial education should be furnished for every girl.

Nobody ever left the presidency with less regret, less disappointment, fewer heart burnings, or any general content with the result of his term (in his own heart, I mean) than I do. Full of difficulty and trouble at first, I now find myself on smooth waters and under bright skies.

Perhaps the happiest moment of my life was then, when I saw that our line didn't break and that the enemy's did.

Evening attend two "fandangos." Girls not very pretty but exceedingly graceful. [You] pay a dime for a figure and refreshments foryour doxy, who instead of eating prudently stores her cakes, etc., in a basket to be taken home for the family.

The independence of all political and other bother is a happiness.

The truth is, this being errand boy to one hundred and fifty thousand people tires me so by night I am ready for bed instead of soirees.

So far as laws and institutions avail, men should have equality of opportunity for happiness; that is, of education, wealth, power. These make happiness secure. An equal diffusion of happiness so far as laws and institutions avail.

My father and mother in 1817 were forty-nine days on the road with their emigrant wagons [from Vermont] to Ohio. More than two days for each hour that I spent in the same journey.

The real difficulty is with the vast wealth and power in the hands of the few and the unscrupulous who represent or control capital. Hundreds of laws of Congress and the state legislatures are in the interest of these men and against the interests of workingmen. These need to be exposed and repealed. All laws on corporations, on taxation, on trusts, wills, descent, and the like, need examination and extensive change. This is a government of the people, by the people, and for the people no longer. It is a government of corporations, by corporations, and for corporations.

The climate of Ohio is perfect, considered as the home of an ideal republican people. Climate has much to do with national character ... A climate which permits labor out-of-doors every month in the year and which requires industry to secure comfort
to provide food, shelter, clothing, fuel, etc.
is the very climate which secures the highest civilization.

The President of the United States should strive to be always mindful of the fact that he serves his party best who serves his country best.

No man, however benevolent, liberal, and wise, can use a large fortune so that it will do half as much good in the world as it would if it were divided into moderate sums and in the hands of workmen who had earned it by industry and frugality. The piling up of estates often does great and conspicuous good ... But no man does with accumulated wealth so much good as the same amount would do in many hands.