Helpless and Contemptible

Matt Fink, a lawyer turned historian, sends this quotation:

“A little group of willful men, representing no opinion but their own, have rendered the great Government of the United States helpless and contemptible.”

A description of the last few weeks in Congress? No, President Woodrow Wilson’s statement (March 4, 1917) on a successful filibuster by antiwar senators against a bill to arm merchant ships.