Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations. 1989.
NUMBER:
1897
AUTHOR:
Alben William Barkley (1877–1956)
QUOTATION:
I would relate to the crowds how I called on a certain rural constituent and was shocked to hear him say he was thinking of voting for my opponent. I reminded him of the many things I had done for him as prosecuting attorney, as county judge, as congressman, and senator. I recalled how I had helped get an access road built to his farm, how I had visited him in a military hospital in France when he was wounded in World War I, how I had assisted him in securing his veteran’s benefits, how I had arranged his loan from the Farm Credit Administration, how I had got him a disaster loan when the flood destroyed his home, etc., etc.
“How can you think of voting for my opponent?” I exhorted at the end of this long recital. “Surely you remember all these things I have done for you?”
“Yeah,” he said, I remember. But what in hell have you done for me lately?”
ATTRIBUTION:
ALBEN W. BARKLEY, That Reminds Me—, p. 165 (1954).
Barkley first told this story during his 1938 campaign for renomination as Kentucky’s Democratic candidate for the United States Senate.
