Word: claptrap
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...Alas, alas, that knowledge, in itself so hateful and mawkish a thing, should yet be necessary for Power! Sometimes I am almost in despair. All that sustains me is the conviction that our Realism, our rejection (in the face of all temptations) of all silly nonsense and claptrap, must win in the end. Meanwhile, I have you to settle with. Most truly do I sign myself...
...Washington priest pondered the shape of the world to come. On one matter he was convinced. "The millions of returning soldiers and sailors will not be satisfied or fooled by the old claptrap concerning 'rugged individualism,' 'American opportunity' or 'American equality.' . . . They will not be lulled to sleep by commonplaces about the limitations and difficulties of distribution, nor by promises of 'prosperity just around the corner.' They will demand jobs here and now. I do not believe that an economy dominated by the philosophy of 'free enterprise' will be able...
While gullibles rolled their eyes, responsible Negroes hoped such claptrap would not find fertile soil. Said Mr. U. S. Falls, vice president of the National Negro Business League: "America need have no fear of the Negro turning traitor if the true principles of democracy are applied to us as to every other minority group...
...though its value was lessened by the sensational and politically tinged charges made by Senator Truman in his summary of it to the Senate. The Missourian, perhaps out of his anxiety to get a new $100,000 appropriation to continue his probe, weakened his own work by resorting to claptrap generalizations, even by gross errors-such as an assertion that more than half of U.S. total pursuit-plane production in 1942 would be of mediocre models...
...public test tribunal for youthful dissenters. Questions put included such traditional pacifist posers as "Did not Jesus whip the money-changers out of the temple?" As the nation went, so went Eleanor Roosevelt. Turning on her old friends, the American Youth Congress and the American Newspaper Guild, for their "claptrap" talk decrying the draft, she offered up her four strapping sons, should the country need them-like Cornelia, who had no jewels to give for Rome but her sons, the Gracchi. From Washington came word that Son Elliott, who has a wife and three small children, had obtained a captain...