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., 2024-03-29
E.g., 2024-03-29

[Such laws are] a communistic effort to nationalize children, making them primarily responsible to him and the government instead of to their parents. It strikes at the home. It appears to be a definite positive plan to destroy the Republic and substitute a social democracy.

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Clarence E. Martin, President American Bar Association. Only date available: 1933.
01/01/1933 | Full Details
Law(s): Child labor | Themes: Socialism!

Income and inheritance taxes which are in effect confiscatory destroy themselves by transferring capital in private hands, essential to private enterprise, to unproductive public funds.

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Chicago Daily Tribune.
01/17/1932 | Full Details

Confiscation of private wealth does not make the public or even its agent, the government, rich. It does not create equality of wealth, but an equality of poverty.

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Chicago Daily Tribune.
01/17/1932 | Full Details

They increased inheritances to the point where cash must be hoarded to pay the tax collector in case of death.

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Chicago Daily Tribune.
01/08/1932 | Full Details
Law(s): Tax: Estate | Themes: Bad for business

In defense of the Federal estate tax it is said that it will tend to check the growth of large fortunes. But is not such a Federal death tax a penalty on industry, thrift, and business success? The estate tax is communistic in essence; and no party except the Socialist party endorses the Federal estate tax.

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Washington Post.
02/07/1926 | Full Details
Law(s): Tax: Estate | Themes: Socialism!

[The estate tax] represents a real tax on capital, and such a tax is necessarily unsound and unscientific because it tends to defeat itself as a revenue producer.

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F.W. Denio, American Bankers Association, Washington Post.
10/24/1925 | Full Details

Personally I can quite agree with Dr. Thompson’s wholesome point of view, but still I am afraid human progress cannot go on under such restrictions and…they must be allowed to proceed if we are to survive among the nations.

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Emery Hayhurst, an industry-linked scientist, Public Health Reports (date unknown).
05/14/1925 | Full Details

I do not believe that the Government should seek social legislation in the guise of taxation. If we are to adopt socialism, it should be presented to the people of this country as socialism, and not under the guise of a law to collect revenue.

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President Calvin Coolidge, Washington Post.
02/20/1925 | Full Details
Law(s): Tax: Estate | Themes: Socialism!

If America had not been free to any man to make his fortune within the law and within his abilities, we would not be the great nation we are today. To destroy incentive by excessive taxation is to lessen the production and the prosperity of the country.

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Calvin Coolidge, Los Angeles Times.
02/20/1925 | Full Details
Law(s): Tax: Estate | Themes: Government takeover

the essential thing necessary to safely handle [tetraethyl lead] was careful discipline of our men…[tetraethyl lead] becomes dangerous due to carelessness of the men in handling it.

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Thomas Midgley Jr. vice president of General Motors. 1920s.
01/01/1925 | Full Details

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