the lunatic fringe, then and always
It is vitally necessary to move forward and to shake off the dead hand, often the fossilized dead hand, of the reactionaries; and yet we have to face the fact that there is apt to be a lunatic fringe among the votaries of any forward movement. In this recent art exhibition the lunatic fringe was fully in evidence, especially in the rooms devoted to the Cubists and the Futurists, or Near-Impressionists.
Theodore Roosevelt, reviewing the International Exhibition of Modern Art Amory Show of 1913. The chief culprit for Roosevelt’s criticism of the “lunatic fringe” is evidently this one.