Winston Churchill? Michael A. Chary? Katharine Elizabeth Crane? Jay E. House? John Ward Studebaker? Apocryphal?
Question for Quote Investigator: The following cynical remark about the electorate has been attributed to British statesman Winston Churchill:
The best argument against Democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.
I have never seen a solid citation, and I am skeptical. Would you please explore the provenance of this statement?
Reply from Quote Investigator: Churchill quotation expert Richard M. Langworth has found no substantive evidence supporting this attribution. Langworth published the important reference work “Churchill By Himself: The Definitive Collection of Quotations” which contained the following analysis of this misquotation:1
Commonly quoted, but without attribution. Though he sometimes despaired of democracy’s slowness to act for its own preservation, Churchill had a much more positive attitude towards the average voter.
Winston Churchill died in 1965, and the earliest strong match known to QI appeared many years later in August 1992 within a message posted to the Usenet newsgroup rec.arts.comics.misc by Michael A. Chary of Case Western Reserve University. This instance used the word “talk” instead of “conversation”. No source was specified for the quotation. Boldface added to excerpts by QI:2
“The best argument against democracy is a five minute talk with the average voter.” -Winston Churchill
Below are additional selected citations in chronological order.
The notion that familiarity with the common people of society produces an uncomplimentary viewpoint has a long history. For example, in 1906 the “Latrobe Bulletin” of Latrobe, Pennsylvania printed the following addled conversation between two “typical” voters. This dialogue uses eye dialect, e.g., “spose” is used for “suppose”, “yer” for “your”, and “allers” for “always”:3
It was our pleasure, recently, to listen to the following conversation between two typical American voters. They were returning from Latrobe in a trolley car and judging from the flow of oratory they had evidently been indulging in some liquid compensation for votes. After filling his mouth with a wad of mail pouch, the one man said: “’Spose yer goin’ to the ’lection Bill?” “Yep,” said Bill, “I allers vote.”
After working the wad to a convenient location in his mouth the first man started in again. “I tell yer what Bill, we’re votin’ fer Monopoly every year.” “Well,” answered Bill, “what’s he runnin’ fer this year? I don’t know the gent, but if you say so he’ll get my vote.”
In 1914 an uncharitable view of the common people appeared in a Topeka, Kansas newspaper which printed a column by Jay E. House containing the following remark. The “chair car” was a long-distance railroad passenger coach:4
A man loses much of his love for the common people after he has spent a night with them in a chair car.
In 1936 the U.S. Commissioner of Education John Ward Studebaker published the book “Plain Talk”. Studebaker raised a thematically pertinent question:5
QUESTIONS AND TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION
1. Does the fact that our society contains a large number of uninformed and politically uneducated voters constitute an argument against democracy?
In 1938 Katharine Elizabeth Crane published an article in the journal “Social Education”. Crane discussed criticisms targeting democracy. Her comments included a quotation from philosopher Sidney Hook:6
The first, the practical, argument against democracy “from the time of Plato down stresses the imperfections in the actual functioning of democracy”—the bungling, the inefficiency, and the disasters due to demagogy and prejudice.
Yet the alternative is of course some kind of benevolent despotism, of a man, a class, or a party.
In August 1992 Michael A. Chary posted a Usenet message containing the quotation attributed to Churchill as mentioned previously:7
“The best argument against democracy is a five minute talk with the average voter.” -Winston Churchill
Im February 1993 Christopher Stone posted to the Usenet newsgroup alt.fan.rush-limbaugh a message containing an instance using the word “conversation” instead of “talk”:8
Winston Churchill, a 20th century politician, said “the best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter,” and that “democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others.”
In 1997 the compilation “Insights, Insults and Insanity: The Best of Gary W. Tooze’s Quotations of the Day!” contained the following entry:9
The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter. Winston Churchill
In 2000 Vincent Fu published the “Quote This!!!: Mainstream Quotes as Answers to Life’s Questions and Current Issues” which contained the same entry.
In 2003 “The Arizona Republic” newspaper of Phoenix, Arizona printed a letter to the editor containing a variant which used “10-minute” instance of “five-minute”:10
I remember reading the best argument against a democracy is “a 10-minute conversation with the average voter.”
In conclusion, the attribution to Winston Churchill is incorrect. Currently, the earliest known matches occurred in 1992. That was than 25 years after the death of Churchill.
Image Notes: Illustration of a ballot box from Element5 Digital at Unsplash. The image has been cropped and retouched.
Acknowledgements: Great thanks to Cole Mitchell, Gnorrn, Peter Household, Jan Freeman, Brian Zack, and Charles Sheehan whose inquiries and comments led QI to formulate this question and perform this exploration. Also, thanks to previous researchers including Richard M. Langworth, Nigel Rees, Barry Popik, Caroline Wazer at Snopes, and the volunteers at Wikiquote.
- 2008, Churchill By Himself: The Definitive Collection of Quotations by Winston S. Churchill, Compiled and Edited by Richard M. Langworth, Appendix I: Red Herrings, Topic: Democracy, Quote Page 573, PublicAffairs, New York. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
- Usenet discussion message, Timestamp: Aug 13, 1992, 1:20:38 PM, Newsgroup: rec.arts.comics.misc, From: Michael A. Chary @po.CWRU.Edu, Subject: Best and Worst Villain Names. (Google Groups Search; Accessed July 9, 2026) link ↩︎
- 1906 November 5, Latrobe Bulletin, Latest News from Derry, Quote Page 6, Column 3, Latrobe, Pennsylvania. (Newspapers_com) link ↩︎
- 1914 January 1, The Topeka Daily Capital, On Second Thought by Jay E. House, Quote Page 4, Column 3, Topeka, Kansas. (Newspapers_com) link ↩︎
- 1936, Plain Talk by John W. Studebaker (United States Commissioner of Education), Chapter 1: Questions and Topics for Discussion, Quote Page 31, National Home Library Foundation, Washington. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
- 1938 September, Social Education, Volume 2, Number 5, Have You Read? by Katharine Elizabeth Crane, Start Page 420, Quote Page 420, Published by the American Book Company, New York, for the American Historical Association and the National Council for Social Studies. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
- Usenet discussion message, Timestamp: Aug 13, 1992, 1:20:38 PM, Newsgroup: rec.arts.comics.misc, From: Michael A. Chary @po.CWRU.Edu, Subject: Best and Worst Villain Names. (Google Groups Search; Accessed July 9, 2026) link ↩︎
- Usenet discussion message, Timestamp: Feb 19, 1993, 1:31:26 PM, Newsgroup: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, From: christopher stone, Subject: Clinton’s Foreign Policy. (Google Groups Search; Accessed July 9, 2026) link ↩︎
- 1997, Insights, Insults and Insanity: The Best of Gary W. Tooze’s Quotations of the Day! by Gary W. Tooze, Topic: Smart Ideas, Quote Page 119, Southdowne Press, Victoria, B.C. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
- 2003 August 17, The Arizona Republic, Section: Letters to the Editor, Letter title: Choosing between evils, Letter from: Howard Hood of Phoenix, Quote Page V4, Column 1, Phoenix, Arizona. (Newspapers_com) link ↩︎