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To: Michael.SF.

I believe the quote (or some variation of it) was originally coined by Wendell Willkie who was running as the Republican candidate for President against FDR in the 1940 U.S. election. Your quote was as follows: “If you are not a liberal at twenty, you have no heart and if you are not conservative at thirty, you have no brain.” I can dig up the reference to the Willkie quote. But I recall also hearing some time back the quote came from someone other than Willkie, and then reading Willkie as having said it for the first time during the 1940 election in an historical biography of FDR. Recently, I also heard people say the quote was from Churchill (including just a few hours ago in a law school class from my professor). But that’s wrong, the quote definitely came from Wendell Willkie. I’m not sure where the Churchill attribution comes from. And if Churchill had said something like that he certainly would have referred to being a “socialist” since he is from the U.K. and not being a “liberal” which is the U.S. term (although Churchill’s mother was from the U.S.). It may be that only Democrats and liberals would be sufficiently familiar with the source for the quote since it’s most closely associated with the election of FDR — but then again, liberals might not be too anxious to bring the quote up considering its sentiment. Where the attribution to Churchill came from, I just don’t know. But certainly Churchill is an easier historical figure to remember and refer to for any quote rather than trying to recall the name of Wendell Willkie who is now largely unknown and forgotten. I hope that helps.


37 posted on 12/01/2009 9:03:09 PM PST by Pine Hill
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To: Pine Hill

Check out the link provided in post 26 for what seems to be the most complete explanation of the origin of the quote and it’s many variations.


38 posted on 12/01/2009 10:03:53 PM PST by Michael.SF. (At least Hitler got the Olympics for Germany)
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