Words of Wisdom

Having soberly pondered ever since election, the only living ex-President last week offered in the Atlantic Monthly some words of political wisdom. Excerpts fron Herbert Hoover on ''The Crisis and the Political Parties":

P: ''Most public men fight for re-election to office only because they are not quiters. If the voters are good enough to relieve them, there comes in time a great sense of gratitude for freedom and a determination to hold on to that blessed state And this state develops objectivity. . . .'

P: "The first political party in the U. S in its Declaration adopted as part of its platform the demand for 'life, liberty, am the pursuit of happiness.' The Fathers were intellectually honest. They did not promise happiness. They only asserted that for pursuers of happiness freedom would be safeguarded."

P: "The issue may be stated . . .: Shall coercion be limited to criminals and men of ill-will who would encroach upon the freedom of others? Or shall centralized personal government undertake to plan the lives of upright men and coerce and compel them to comply?"

P: "In optimistic or even artificially happy times every economic warning is from a Jeremiah. And Jeremiah may have been the one especially referred to as being without honor in his own country."

P: "The last national campaign was greatly confused. . . . Both parties campaigned largely with bait to particular groups and sections. In this confused situation the Republican Party attempted to outdo some of the New Deal baits. As one cynic over stated it, 'It promised every measure of the New Deal but said it would do it cheaper.' "

P: "We chatter today of reactionaries conservatives, liberals, and radicals. . . . A 'reactionary' in ordinary times is a gentleman who wants to re-establish the status quo ante. The New Deal wants to do precisely that--as a matter of fact it is status quo George III or Diocletian. The process has not attained the label of 'liberal.' . . . They are dumdum words used to assassinate men and then to plant bitter onions on their graves."

P: "Universal denunciation of business men is one of the most cruel and destructive tendencies in our politics."

P: ''America needs a new and flaming declaration of the rights and responsibilities of free men."

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