This by Dean Russel is a 1951 analysis of how French revolutionary fervor went wrong after just two years, as freedom from government restraint was replaced by embracing another kind of constraint. It includes this from “a holder of high political office” in 1936:
[I]n 34 months we have built up new instruments of public power. In the hands of a people’s government this power is wholesome and proper. But in the hands of political puppets of an economic autocracy, such power would provide shackles for the liberties of the people.
Power to the people, but which people? FDR knew. The ones he gathered in Washington.
So it is today, as we hear regularly from “demagogues who promise us something for nothing.”
Blithe Spirit 