E.B. White on What Should Be Done About Crackpots

From an essay, “Crackpots,” by E.B. White in the September 13, 1942 New Yorker:

We noticed, with some misgivings, that the American Federation of Teachers put out a warning the other day that there would be no “crackpots” admitted to its membership. Only those teachers would be admitted who would be a credit to the Federation and instill in boys and girls an abiding loyalty to the ideals and principles of democracy. But as we understand it, one of the noblest attributes of democracy is that it contains no one who can truthfully say, of two pots, which is the cracked, which is the whole. That is basic. The Federation better welcome all comers, and let pot clink against pot.