Quote of the Day (Adlai Stevenson, on ‘Those Who Corrupt the Public Mind’)

“Those who corrupt the public mind are just as evil as those who steal from the public purse.”—Adlai Stevenson Jr. (1900-1965), Illinois governor, two-time Democratic Presidential candidate, and American ambassador to the United Nations, in the campaign speech, “On Communism,” delivered in Albuquerque, N.M., on Sept. 12, 1952, in Speeches (1952)

Gov. Stevenson could hardly have conceived that at least one corrupter of “the public mind”—i.e., a demagogue-- could do so preciselyas a means of stealing from the public purse—through violating the emoluments clause of the U.S. Constitution, that is.