Moderation offers a healthier pathway for America.

Reflecting on the tumultuous American political landscape of the late 1960s, an eminent American statesman believed that his country faced a genuine danger from the “extremes of the Far Left and the Far Right.” He believed that the nation could do better by following a pragmatic course “great enough to accommodate all reasonable citizens, from the moderate conservative to the moderate liberal.” These are the people, he reminded readers, “who get things done.”

This appeal to sanity and bipartisanship sounds a lot like something former vice president Joe Biden might have said in the opening weeks of his presidential campaign. But it was penned by Republican former president Dwight Eisenhower in the final article he wrote shortly before his death, published in Reader’s Digest 50 years ago.