Word: franklin
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...Franklin created a similar character in Poor Richard Saunders, the pseudonym he used when he began to publish an annual almanac. The beauty of inventing a fictional author was that he could poke fun at himself by admitting, only half in jest, that money was his main motivation. "I might in this place attempt to gain thy favor by declaring that I write almanacks with no other view than that of the public good; but in this I should not be sincere," Poor Richard began his first preface. "The plain truth of the matter is, I am excessive poor...
...Franklin, though plagued with fumbling age, Needs nothing to excite him, But is too ready to engage, When younger arms invite...
Modern election campaigns are often criticized for being negative, and today's press is slammed for being scurrilous. But the most brutal of modern attack ads pale in comparison with the barrage of pamphlets in the 1764 Assembly election. Pennsylvania survived them, as did Franklin, who never considered suing. And America's democracy learned that it could thrive in an atmosphere of unrestrained, even intemperate, free expression. Indeed, its democracy was built on a foundation of unbridled free speech. In the centuries since then, the nations that have thrived, economically and politically, have been those, like America, that are most...
...creating Silence Dogood, Franklin invented what became the quintessential genre of American folksy humor: the wry and self-deprecating homespun character whose feigned innocence and naivete are disarming but whose wicked little insights poke through the pretensions of the elite and the follies of everyday life. "I am courteous and affable, good humored (unless I am first provoked) and handsome, and sometimes witty," she declares, flicking in the word "sometimes" with a dexterity uncommon in a 16-year-old. "I have likewise a natural inclination to observe and reprove the faults of others, at which I have an excellent faculty...
Among the things Mrs. Dogood dared to make fun of was the college Franklin had planned to attend until his father decided it wasn't worth the cost. She recounts falling asleep under an apple tree while considering whether to send her son to Harvard. As she journeys in her dream toward this temple of learning, she notices that the gate is guarded by "two sturdy porters named Riches and Poverty," and only those who met the approval of the former could get in. Most of the students are content to dally with the figures called Idleness and Ignorance. "They...