"We are socialists because we believe this income which we all cooperate in making isn’t divided as it ought to be. [...] We do reward men according to deed. We do reward or give to people according to need. No religion would be possible in which that wasn’t done. There are the young, there are the old, there are many whom we have to reward according to their need. But in spite of improvements that have been made, and especially perhaps by my liberal friends who aren't just sure how far to go...we still have a society where there's a great deal of reward not according to deed, not according to need, but according to breed - the choice of your grandfather is very important. And according to the successful greed, which operates not in terms of great contributions to men, but in terms of manipulations of one sort of another."
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United States presidential candidates, 1948Socialists from the United StatesPoliticians from New York CityUnited States presidential candidates, 1944United States presidential candidates, 1940
Original Language: English
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Debate with Barry Goldwater, University of Arizona campus, Tucson, Arizona, November 1961
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Norman_Thomas
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Norman Thomas
Norman Mattoon Thomas (November 20, 1884 – December 19, 1968) was an American Presbyterian minister who achieved fame as a socialist, pacifist, and six-time presidential candidate for the Socialist Party of America.
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