“He had realized that many people were emotionally involved with the cause of the nominee, but he had not realized quite the fanaticism that seemed capable of flaring from it at an instant’s notice. He still, after seven years in office, retained some slight, idealistic belief that if you treated people in Washington and the great world of politics and the press fairly, they would accord you the same fairness; he was still shocked occasionally at the extremes of bitterness which often cropped out on what sometimes seemed the slightest of provocations. ‘You know,’ Stanley Danta had once remarked wryly, when his unexpected criticism of some proposal put forward by one of the more popular favorites had suddenly brought an avalanche of personal attack upon his own head, ‘I think I’ll introduce a resolution to change the motto of the Republic from “E pluribus unum” to “It all depends on whose ox is gored.” That would be more fitting, I think.’”
Allen Drury, Advise and Consent (published in 1959)