Works Progress Administration

“ It is time to bring back the government to its true character as an agency for the people. It is time to declare that offices, created for the people, are public trusts, not private spoils. It is time to bring each and every department within its true original limits. It is time to assent, on one hand, to the just powers of Congress, in their full extent, and to resist, on the other, the progress and rapid growth of executive authority. ”

“ Through its efforts legislation has been secured. Through its efforts public opinion has been shaped, and it is to its efforts that we must look primarily for future betterment of labor’s condition.
The first step, therefore, is one of organization; and, this step once taken, our [Pg 209] subsequent progress follows logically. As the strength of the organized workers increases, more demands can be made, and with a much better prospect that they will be recognized. Legislatures, like parliaments, are no longer deaf and blind to the requirements of the workers. ”

“ He will therefore have every inducement to lend a helping hand in the introduction of a thorough and permanent reform of the civil service, which, proceeding upon the idea that established character, knowledge and capability ought to be the only test of fitness for office, will at last give the country an able, honest and economical administration of the public business. ”

“ Political fortunes of parties will ebb and flow; top policy men in administrations will come and go; new laws will be passed and old ones amended or repealed. But those who give continuity to administration, those who contribut the basic skill and efficiency to the daily work of government, and those on whom the new as well as the old administration is dependent for smooth functioning of the complicated machinery of modern government are the core of the civil service. ”

“ But administration it is which organizes between the capacities of the people on the one hand, and the enlightened wishes of the government on the other—that intermediate nexus of social machinery without which both the amplest powers in a nation and the noblest policy in a government must equally and continually fall to the ground. ”

“ If industry is to progress, Capital must elevate its conception of the duties of the Administrative Staff and recognize that administration, even in its lowest branches, is work as skilled as that of an expert craftsman. ”

“ So that Federal workers and agencies can take the lead in providing high-quality service, my Administration has also initiated the National Performance Review to improve efficiency and promote excellence in every sector of our Government. ”

“ It is a priority of my Administration to ensure that the Federal Government, as the Nation’s largest employer, serves as a model employer by encouraging and facilitating Federal employees’ civic participation. ”

“ With this statement of the hopes, principles and purposes of the Democratic party, the great issue of reform and change in administration is submitted to the people, in calm confidence that the popular voice will pronounce in favor of new men and new and more favorable conditions for the growth of industry, the extension of trade and employment and due reward of labor and of capital, and the general welfare of the whole country. ”

“ Our third objective is priorities, to move ahead on the priorities that we have established within the resources that are available.
I wish, of course, that we could do all that should be done--and that we could do it now. But the Nation has many commitments and responsibilities which make heavy demands upon our total resources. No administration would more eagerly utilize for these programs all the resources they require than the administration that started them. ”

“ No great business organizations are built up through continual variations of policy. Similarly, in the building up of a university, a government department, a state, or a social order, consecutive and disciplined persistence in established ways is a requisite of progress. ”

“ In public administration, the most pressing need is for legislative action of the Reorganization Bill and the Revised Administrative Code, already submitted to Congress. We need to transform our administrative structure into the dynamic and synchronized machinery needed to perform effectively its role in economic development. ”

“ With respect to ourselves, there is so universal and rooted a diffidence of the government, that, if we could be assured the future measures of Congress would be dictated by the most perfect wisdom and public spirit, there would be still a necessity for a change in the forms of our administration, to give [Pg 224] a new spring and current to the passions and hopes of the people. ”

“ It is that we want to get as the product of our work as much public good as possible. We wish that at the close of your Administration we may stand fully justified before ourselves and before the country, and speak with pride of the results of what we have done. ”

“ How this progress may be quickened, is a question which this Society should keep constantly in view.—To devise the means of acceleration, should be their study.—To the first great step towards general improvement, the organization of societies in every part of the state, we have one what was in our power, by petitioning the legislature to take the subject into consideration, and aid the undertaking with necessary funds. ”

“ I ask the attention of the public to the paramount necessity of reform in our civil service—a reform not merely as to certain abuses and practices of so-called official patronage which have come to have the sanction of usage in the several Departments of our Government, but a change in the system of appointment itself; a reform that shall be thorough, radical, and complete ”

“ To select from the miscellaneous heap which each day's exigencies present to our choice those points on which the general welfare of your affairs most essentially depends, to provide expedients for future advantages and guard against probable evils, are all that your administration can faithfully promise to perform for your service with their united labors most diligently exerted. ”

“ The institutions which insure the best management of public affairs practicable in the existing state of cultivation tend by this alone to the further improvement of that state. A people which had the most just laws, the purest and most efficient judicature, the most enlightened administration, the most equitable and least onerous system of finance, compatible with the stage it had attained in moral and intellectual advancement, would be in a fair way to pass rapidly into a higher stage. ”

“ I am counting on our civil servants to seize upon that order and make our Government dramatically more accountable, effective, and efficient, by going beyond the modernization efforts of the past and re-examining the operational core of our executive departments and agencies. Together, through these and other efforts, we will fulfill our responsibilities to make our Government work better for the American people. ”

“ In one word, if you want to have a reform Administration, you must have, at least at the head of the three great “patronage” Departments, the Treasury, the Post-Office and the Interior, men who understand reform as you do, who believe in it as you do, who are willing to fight for it as you are and who will not be swerved from their purpose by any political seduction, even if they should be prospective candidates for the Presidency—the severest trial to which the political virtue of a public man can be exposed. ”

“ But public works activities are closely inter-related and have a substantial influence on the growth of the country. Moreover, in times of threatening economic contraction, they may become a valuable sustaining force. To these ends, efficient planning and execution of the nation's public works require both the coordination of Federal activities and effective cooperation with State and local governments. ”

“ These stories seem, indeed, well-nigh incredible nowadays, when the nation is alert and eager to foster and encourage every stirring of the inventive spirit, and every one with any sort of new idea can command the offices of the administration without cost to safeguard his claim to priority and to furnish him all possible facilities of information, material, and appliances to perfect his conception. ”

“ It is time that we made a clean-cut effort to bring about that united action of management and labor, which is one of the high purposes of the Recovery Act. We have passed through more than a year of education. Step by step we have created all the Government agencies necessary to insure, as a general rule, industrial peace, with justice for all those willing to use these agencies whenever their voluntary bargaining fails to produce a necessary agreement. ”

“ I think the economy, purity, and efficiency of the public service would be greatly promoted by their systematic introduction, wherever practicable, throughout the entire civil service of the Government, together with ample provision for their general supervision in order to secure consistency and uniform justice. ”

“ It has its constructive program by means of which it develops its power and its capacity, step by step, seizing upon every bit of vantage to advance and strengthen its position, but never for a moment mistaking reform for revolution and never losing eight of the ultimate goal. ”

“ This can be done by developing and maintaining upon an adequate scale the admirable organization created by the Department of Labor for placing men seeking work; and it can also be done, in at least one very great field, by creating new opportunities for individual enterprise. ”

“ On the part of the Government, the executive and legislative branches are especially called upon to formulate wisely and, more than that, to implement determinedly, once and for all, the most effective courses of action. On the part of the people, the most productive efforts, thrift, and consistently sustained willingness to contribute to the common weal must become a reality. ”

“ A large and responsible part of the duty of restoring the civil service to the desired purity and efficiency rests upon the President, and it is my purpose to do what is within my power to advance such prudent and gradual measures of reform as will most surely and rapidly bring about that radical change of system essential to make our administrative methods satisfactory to a free and intelligent people. ”

“ We will standardize government administration, ensure that our administration is based on law and reason, executed through proper procedures, highly efficient, convenient for the public, honest and trustworthy, and that authority and responsibility are united. We will thoroughly implement the Administrative Permit Law, continue to carry out reform of the administrative examination and approval system, reduce the number of items it covers, especially investment examination and approval and project approval, and ensure that enterprises make their own investment decisions. ”

“ Their labors are not yet complete, but it is believed that they will succeed in devising a plan that can be adopted to the great relief of the Executive, the heads of Departments, and members of Congress, and which will redound to the true interest of the public service. At all events, the experiment shall have a fair trial. ”

“ The Administration will, through future messages either directly from me or from heads of the departments and agencies, transmit to the Congress specific recommendations. These will involve our financial and fiscal affairs, our military and civil defenses; the administration of justice; our agricultural economy; our domestic and foreign commerce; the urgently needed increase in our postal rates; the development of our natural resources; our labor laws, including our labor-management relations legislation, and vital aspects of the health, education and welfare of our people. ”

“ I believe there is much that we can do to improve the quality of government itself—its machinery, its manpower and its methods?so that our programs may truly touch the lives of our people and our communities. ”

“ The advocates of this theory point out that the functions of the Government change with progress, and that in our complex modern industrial life it should seek to improve conditions positively, and not leave the people to the mercies of a blind competitive struggle; practically, it should regulate industry, conditions of work, housing, etc., and should manage all public utilities which affect the life or well-being of the citizens, as railroads, telegraphs, industrial insurance, etc. ”

“ Meanwhile, the Department of Labor is at once beginning work to devise further specific recommendations for your consideration.
In the careful working out of legislation, I know you will give thoughtful consideration--as will we in the executive branch--to the views of labor, and of management, and of the general public. In this process, it is only human that each of us should bring forward the arguments of self-interest. But if all conduct their arguments in the overpowering light of national interest--which is enlightened self-interest--we shall get the right answers. ”

“ It is clear that we must reorganize our administrative machinery with a view to securing greater efficiency, the improvement of the public service, and economy of means and effort in the discharge of the government's responsibilities, in order to make that machinery more responsive to public need within the limits of our available resources. ”

“ I think the Government can aid in passing good and wholesome laws—laws fixing the length of a labor day; laws preventing the employment of children; laws for the safety and security of workingmen in mines and other dangerous places. But the laboring people must rely upon themselves; on their intelligence, and especially on their political power. They are in the majority in this country. They can if they wish—if they will stand together—elect Congresses and Senates, Presidents and Judges. They have it in their power to administer the Government of the United States. ”