Quotes

The Cry Wolf Quote Bank chronicles the false predictions and hyperbole by opponents of these laws and protections.  While the issues and specific policies change over time, the rhetoric and themes remained the same.  You can search the Quote Bank for what opponents said to prevent these laws from passing. Using the drop down menus on the right their statements by issue, by specific law, by who said it and by the core themes they evoke.   Elsewhere on the site, you can find articles, studies, and other material that debunks their claims. 

E.g., 2024-03-28
E.g., 2024-03-28

I want to say that a bakery that conducts their business in what you term a cellar can keep it just as clean as though they were in any other part of the building. I believe it entirely depends upon the person who is running the place.

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Leslie A. Ware, baker.
03/01/1912 | Full Details

You are putting a lot of people out of business and perhaps raising the price of bread….things are getting a little bit better [without “drastic” reforms], slowly, and I am not certain whether or not that would not be a pretty drastic remedy, not against the worst ones, but against the best of that class.

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P. Tecumseh Sherman. Attorney, and previously held the position of Commissioner of the Labor Department of New York. Only date available: 1912.
01/01/1912 | Full Details

This night work has been rendered necessary largely because of the Government’s perfectly unreasonable attitude towards large corporations, which has made it impossible for managers of large concerns to know whether….they could expand their plans to keep up with increasing demands or not.

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George W. Perkins, director of the Harvester Company.
08/22/1911 | Full Details

We have laws that in a crisis we find are no laws and we have enforcement that when the hour of trial comes we find is no enforcement.

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Rabbi Stephen Wise, 1911
04/01/1911 | Full Details
Law(s): Triangle Factory Laws | Themes:

[A federal income tax would be an invitation to D.C.] to invade its territory, to oust its jurisdiction and to establish a Federal dominion [in Virginia]. A hand from Washington will be stretched out and placed upon every man’s business. The eye of the Federal inspector will be in every man’s counting house.

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Speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates, Richard E. Byrd.
01/01/1911 | Full Details

[The income tax would] divide the population into two classes, the class which contributes to the support of the Government, and the class which does not contribute.

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In 1910, the Albany Evening Journal, a partisan Republican paper.
01/01/1910 | Full Details

When a man has accumulated a sum of money within the law, that is to say, in the legally correct way, the people no longer have any right to share in the earnings resulting from the accumulation.

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John Davison Rockefeller.
07/27/1909 | Full Details

If once you give the power to the nation to tax all the incomes…you give them the power to tax the states, not out of their existence, but out of their vitality.

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Associate Justice Stephen Brewer. 1909.
01/01/1909 | Full Details

[Taxing the rich] was supported by the Socialist party, the Populist party, and by the Democratic party with a few honorable exceptions, simply as a means of re-distributing the wealth.

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Senator Nelson Aldrich (R-RI), 1909
01/01/1909 | Full Details
Law(s): Tax: Income | Themes: Socialism!

Legislation cannot remedy the evils which result from the perversity of human nature.

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Industry publication Coal Trade Bulletin.
09/15/1908 | Full Details

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