[Ads-l] Saying: Democracy Is the Worst Form of Government Except For All Others Which Have Been Tried

[ADSGarson O'Toole]

The Quote Investigator article about the remark mentioned in the
subject line is now available. The primary advance presented in the
article is a citation for the target saying dated May 1946 which
antedates the instance spoken by Winston Churchill on November 11,
1947.

Quote Origin: Democracy Is the Worst Form of Government Except For All
Others Which Have Been Tried
https://quoteinvestigator.com/2023/12/08/democracy-worst/

[Begin acknowledgement]
Great thanks to Tomasz Radko, Dick Margulis, Stephan McCrea, John Duz
Dusenbury, and Nigel Rees whose inquiries led QI to formulate this
question and perform this exploration. Additional thanks to Rees whose
reference work “Cassell’s Humorous Quotations” contains an entry for
the quotation ascribed to Churchill. Further thanks to Fred R. Shapiro
whose reference work “The New Yale Book of Quotations” contains
entries for the quotations ascribed to Churchill and Robert Briffault.
Special thanks to the kind librarian at the University of Illinois at
Urbana Champaign who retrieved “A Report On Provincial Support of
Adult Education in Nova Scotia” from storage to help verify the
citation.
[End acknowledgement]

Garson

On Mon, Nov 27, 2023 at 11:42 AM ADSGarson O'Toole
<adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Back on November 16, 2023 I posted a request to verify a quotation in
> a volume with a Google Books assigned date of 1946. Now, this request
> has been satisfied. Many thanks to a helpful librarian at the
> University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign who obtained the target volume
> from offsite storage. She found the quotation and scanned the
> pertinent pages. An article on this topic will be posted in the coming
> days/weeks.
> Garson
>
> > Here is a candidate for an earlier close match in 1946. Would you
> > please help me to verify this citation with scans or hardcopy?
> > Carefully verifying the date is crucial.
> >
> > Year: 1946
> > Title: Journal of Education (for Nova Scotia)
> > Supplement: Provincial Support of Adult Education in Nova Scotia: A Report
> > Author: Guy Henson
> > Quote Page 25 (According to Google Books)
> > Publisher: Education Office, Halifax, Nova Scotia.
> > Description: A magazine provided by the Dept. of Education for the use
> > of Nova Scotian teachers and their co-workers
> > Database: Google Books Snippet: This data may be inaccurate and must
> > be verified with scans or hardcopy
> >
> > https://books.google.com/books?id=BwpsdWFZeBQC&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=worst
> >
> > [Begin excerpt]
> > This dilemma in education depends for solution on the meaning of
> > democracy in practice. This is commonly called the most difficult form
> > of government in the world; it has even been called the worst form of
> > government, except for all others which have been tried. Certainly it
> > is the form of government which our people are agreed to make work.
> > [End excerpt]

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