The New York Times's Week in Review: "Democrats, Lend Me Your Ears"

For out this modern civilization economic royalists carved new dynasties. New kingdom were built upon concentration of control over material things. Through new uses of corporation, banks and securities, new machinery of industry and agriculture, of labor and capital--all undreamed of by the fathers--the whole structure of modern life was impressed into this royal service.

There is a mysterious cycle in human events. To some generations much is given. Of other generations much is expected. This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny.



--Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Don't expect any speeches like this this week in Boston. Over the past 20 years, political speakers, particularly on the Democratic side of the aisle, have forsaken the art. Listening to a political speech now is like listening to a public administrator read a jay walking statute in a dry, accented monotone: Forget lyrical prose; forget eloquence. There is no Romanticism or passion left in our politics, and, sadly, no poetry left in our political voices.

I can't tell you how sorry I am about that.