Frank Lloyd Wright on Thomas Jefferson

Chicago Dynamic, "A Conversation with Carl Sandburg & Frank Lloyd Wright": WTTW (Chicago, IL), 10/28/1957.

"Any enterprise depreciating American idealism to an abject level no higher than the concept of "the common man" is either communistic or some low form of socialism that our brave progenitors feared and our friends abroad sometimes prophesy. For when the free man our forefathers conceived falls under the regime of the committee-mind, individuality is lost in the average of averages. By playing down to the idea of the common man, dogmatic political authority exploits him; and has gone far to destroy for everyone reverence for distinction and individual achievement by personal virtue and sacrifice. So the ideal of innate aristocracy of which our forefathers dreamed is betrayed for votes in the name of democracy." - FLW

"The greater a man's income, the greater has been his service to others. Therefore, were one to take a lower, more modest job and income because they believe it's wrong to take a higher one, they are acting selfishly, and not serving their fellow man by providing him things he would like to have..." - Kel Kelly

"If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the general welfare, and are the sole and supreme judges of the general welfare, they may take the care of religion into their own hands; they may appoint teachers in every State, county and parish and pay them out of their public treasury; they may take into their own hands the education of children, establishing in like manner schools throughout the Union; they may assume the provision of the poor; they may undertake the regulation of all roads other than post-roads; in short, every thing, from the highest object of state legislation down to the most minute object of police, would be thrown under the power of Congress. ... Were the power of Congress to be established in the latitude contended for, it would subvert the very foundations, and transmute the very nature of the limited Government established by the people of America." --James Madison

"Under the specious pretext of effecting "the happiness of the whole community," nearly all the wrongs and intrusions of government have been carried through. . . . Indeed, sensible men have long seen that "the best government is that which governs least." And we are surprised that the spirit of this maxim is not oftener and closer to the hearts of our domestic leaders." - Walt Whitman

• Category

  Education

[MacPro8CoreMan]

How about that... FLW was a conservative! Very cool!

[kingreich22]

What's fascinating is that both Wright and Sandburg were born in the century that Jefferson was president. It really wasn't that long ago. 

[Toastergod44]

We live in Hamilton's america

[vigwig]

Well said. The founders valued leaders who were merit driven, value driven, not greed driven.

[Xander Taylor]

I love this guy (FLW). He was articulate, very dignified and yet very much a free spirit. It's great to have him on television archives, but too bad we don't have more.

[coltsowl]

Work by merit is indeed earned and reveals the freedom that drives the engine to succeed.... I would hope that a kind heart comes from the yield of ones labor and all that is obtained is shared... These acts would propel the move to leadership, which is sorely needed in times that we now find ourselves in

[Shlomo von Glickstein]

aristocracy via meritocracy... if only the meritocracy could be authentic, and the aristocracy granted could be restrained by grace and good manners and mutual respect between aristocrat and democrat, there might be a good to come out of this...