and ask: "Gentlemen, in considering these things suppose you consider the
whole country? Suppose you consider the citizens of the United States?"

I don't want a smug lot of experts to sit down behind closed doors in
Washington and play Providence to me. There is a Providence to which I am
perfectly willing to submit. But as for other men setting up as Providence
over myself, I seriously object. I have never met a political savior in
the flesh, and I never expect to meet one. I am reminded of Gillet
Burgess' verses:

I never saw a purple cow,
I never hope to see one,
But this I'll tell you anyhow,
I'd rather see than be one.

That is the way I feel about this saving of my fellow-countrymen. I'd
rather see a savior of the United States than set up to be one; because I
have found out, I have actually found out, that men I consult with know
more than I do,--especially if I consult with enough of them. I never came
out of a committee meeting or a conference without seeing more of the
question that was under discussion than I had seen when I went in. And
that to my mind is an image of government. I am not willing to be under
the patronage of the trusts, no matter how providential a government
presides over the process of their control of my life.

I am one of those who absolutely reject the trustee theory, the
guardianship theory. I have never found a man who knew how to take care of
me, and, reasoning from that point out, I conjecture that there isn't any
man who knows how to take care of all the people of the United States. I
suspect that the people of the United States understand their own