I’ve spent the better part of the day doing research for the policy paper that is due as part of my degree… Today’s project involved digging through pages of the Congressional Record from 1939. Thanks to an incorrect date in a certain report (which will go un-named here), rather than reading about the topic relevant to my paper, I read pages and pages of debate over the agriculture appropriations bill for FY1940. Totally useless as far as my policy paper is concerned, but it did allow for the discovery of this gem of a quote from Texas Congressman Sumners:
“I said to a friend of mine not long ago who asked me if I had read some books on economics, ‘I do not know much about the books that have been written on economics, but I know a little something about the economics that books are being written about.’ It is alright to read books about things, but it is better to look at the thing itself than to go stumbling over the thing with one’s face hidden in a third-rate book written by some fourth-rate theorist.”
To he fair, he did continue on to say:
“I do not want to be taken too literally about books. They are alright in their place, but their place is to inform and stimulate thinking – not substitute for either observing or thinking.”
–Mr. Sumners of Texas, March 23, 1939. U.S. House of Representatives.
So basically, get off your high horse books – would you please?
Here goes nothing... 