“The American People will take Socialism, but they won't take the label.”

Letter to Norman Thomas (25 September 1951) http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAsocialismP.htm
Context: The American People will take Socialism, but they won't take the label. I certainly proved it in the case of EPIC. Running on the Socialist ticket I got 60,000 votes, and running on the slogan to "End Poverty in California" I got 879,000. I think we simply have to recognize the fact that our enemies have succeeded in spreading the Big Lie. There is no use attacking it by a front attack, it is much better to out-flank them.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The American People will take Socialism, but they won't take the label." by Upton Sinclair?
Upton Sinclair photo
Upton Sinclair 50
American novelist, writer, journalist, political activist 1878–1968

Related quotes

Martin Sheen photo

“Once you follow a path of nonviolence and social justice, it won't take you long before you come into conflict with the culture, with the society.”

Martin Sheen (1940) American actor

2000s, Progressive magazine interview (2003)
Context: Once you follow a path of nonviolence and social justice, it won't take you long before you come into conflict with the culture, with the society. You can't know what is at stake or how much it is going to cost you until you get in the game. That's the only way, and the level of cost is equal to the level of involvement.

“The message of Vietnam is not that Americans will not take casualties; it is that the American people do not want the lives of their sons and daughters wasted.”

Ralph Peters (1952) American military officer, writer, pundit

Source: 2000s, Beyond Terror: Strategy in a Changing World (2002), p. 287

Rush Limbaugh photo
Alan Charles Kors photo

“Socialism is easily understood by any child; it is taking other people's stuff.”

Alan Charles Kors (1943) American academic

2010s, Socialism's Legacy (2011)

William Ewart Gladstone photo

“All the people who pretend to take your own concerns out of your own hands and to do everything for you, I won't say they are imposters; I won't even say they are quacks; but I do say they are mistaken people.”

William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) British Liberal politician and prime minister of the United Kingdom

Speech to the Hawarden Amateur Horticultural Society (17 August 1876), as quoted in "Mr. Gladstone On Cottage Gardening", The Times (18 August 1876), p. 9
1870s
Context: I am delighted to see how many young boys and girls have come forward to obtain honourable marks of recognition on this occasion, — if any effectual good is to be done to them, it must be done by teaching and encouraging them and helping them to help themselves. All the people who pretend to take your own concerns out of your own hands and to do everything for you, I won't say they are imposters; I won't even say they are quacks; but I do say they are mistaken people. The only sound, healthy description of countenancing and assisting these institutions is that which teaches independence and self-exertion... When I say you should help yourselves — and I would encourage every man in every rank of life to rely upon self-help more than on assistance to be got from his neigbours — there is One who helps us all, and without whose help every effort of ours is in vain; and there is nothing that should tend more, and there is nothing that should tend more to make us see the beneficence of God Almighty than to see the beauty as well as the usefulness of these flowers, these plants, and these fruits which He causes the earth to bring forth for our comfort and advantage.

Martina Navrátilová photo

“Labels are for filing. Labels are for clothing. Labels are not for people.”

Martina Navrátilová (1956) American-Czech tennis player

Source: Queer Notions, A Fabulous Collection of Gay and Lesbian Wit and Wisdom, 1996, p. 18.

Ronald David Laing photo
Christine O'Donnell photo

Related topics