Affairs

“ What we want is that in public affairs men shall reason about questions of finance, trade, national wealth, legislation, and administration, with the same consciousness of the practical side that they reason about their own interests. ”

“ It is expressed in the first mode by those who, as the highest free Leaders of men, originally guide and order their affairs:—their relations with each other, or the legal condition,—and their relation to passive nature, or the dominion of reason over the irrational world;—who possess the right and calling, either by themselves or in concert with others, to think, judge, and resolve independently concerning the actual arrangement of these relations. ”

“ Secondly, That people every where may better understand the Circumstances of Publique Affairs, both abroad and at home; which may not only direct their Thoughts at all times, but at some times also to assist their Businesses and Negotiations. ”

“ There are enterprises, military as well as civil, which sometimes check the current of events, give a new turn to human affairs, and transmit their consequences through ages. We see their importance in their results, and call them great, because great things follow. ”

“ Concentration is the secret of strength in politics, in war, in trade, in short, in all management of human affairs. ”

“ Man and his affairs, church and state and school, trade and commerce, and manufactures and agriculture even politics, the most alarming of them all,—I am pleased to see how little space they occupy in the landscape. ”

“ Every topic in the wide range of our public affairs, whether past or present,—every thing, general or local, whether belonging to national politics or party politics,—seems to have attracted more or less of the honorable member’s attention, save only the resolution before us. ”

“ Your next duty is to your fellow Men, more especialy to your employer, his interest demands your justice, your diligence and utmost attention to his business and interest, your secrets & his relating to your affairs you must religiously keep, mind his business only, do not intermedle with that of other peoples, and avoid entering into any dispute with them: you may gain much observation & society, but nothing by disputetation. ”

“ Yet in business affairs, it is the manner in which even small matters are transacted, that often decides men for or against you. ”

“ We are concerned in public affairs, but immersed in our private ones. ”

“ To see how things stand, apart from personal and national interests, is essential before there can be reached those balanced judgments respecting the course of human affairs in general, which constitute Sociology. ”

“ To be effective, it should be the fruit and outcome of a tendency, natural or acquired, by which the individuals of a nation identify themselves with surrounding 'interests and willingly take part in the duties and burdens of local affairs. ”

“ You have been told that you would see, on the one side, men who hope either for advancement in the arm„ or to be employed in transacting foreign affairs, men connected with the ministers and their agents ”

“ We mean that great art of production and exchange which through the centuries has increased human comfort, cherished peace, fostered the fine arts, developed the pregnant principle of associated action, and promoted both public security and public liberty.
With this understanding of what we mean by education on the one hand and business on the other, let us see if there can be any doubt as to the nature of the relations between them. The business man in large affairs requires keen observation, a quick mental grasp of new subjects, and a wide range of knowledge. ”

“ Think of your duties—not your supposed duties as a landowner to your estate, as a merchant to your business, as emperor, minister, or official to the state, but of your real duties, the duties that follow from your real position as a being called into life and endowed with reason and love. ”

“ What will you think of yourselves, what will the world think of your business judgment and your sense of honesty, if in something far greater than your shop or your bank, if in the Government of your country you promote the man who has done this, to the highest place of honor and trust? ”

“ Next to this I should place Government, understanding this word in its widest sense, as embracing the terms on which man agrees to live with his fellow man and with woman, family, therefore, as well as society ties. This includes the legal standards of duty, the rules of relationship and descent, the rights of property and the customs of commerce, the institutions of castes, classes and rulers, and those international relations on which depend war and peace. ”

“ Is it not a feeling of obligation, of being in debt, to some person, or persons, or institution, or society, or even to some invisible Power;—to a friend, for example, a relative, a dependent, an employer, a "contracting party," a commanding officer,—or, again, to one's trade or profession, to one's political party, to one's church, to one's country,—or, in the last resort, to God? ”

“ You have yourselves witnessed these things, as I have. it is too soon to assess them; and we who stand in the midst of them and are part of them are less qualified than men of another generation will be to say what they mean, or even what they have been. But some great outstanding facts are unmistakable and constitute, in a sense, part of the public business with which it is our duty to deal. ”

“ It is a business, standing far ahead of petty politics and hunting after place, or the worship of Mammon; a business that, when nobly done, brings bountiful return in love of order, law, right, and truth. ”

“ Can it be controverted that the great mass of the business of Government—that involved in the social relations, the internal arrangements of the body politic, the mental and moral culture of men, the development of local resources of wealth, the punishment of crimes in general, the preservation of order, the relief of the needy or otherwise unfortunate members of society—did in practice remain with the States ”

“ You business men, you are in business to look after God’s interests and to promote His kingdom! You professional men—doctors, lawyers, schoolmasters—you are in your professions to look after God’s interests and to promote His kingdom! You politicians, you are in politics to look after God’s interests and to promote His kingdom! ”

“ The more attentively, sir, we look upon the world, the more strongly shall we be convinced of the truth of these assertions, and the more evidently shall we discover the influence which operates, in a degree scarcely credible, even to those who have experienced its power, and which is, indeed, one of the chief means of subordination, by which society is held together. ”

“ He considers your circumstances—your little peculiarities of constitution—your habits, and then passes his arm under your own, and, with soft expressions of sympathy and commiseration, blandly edges you into your grave. He knows that the business in hand is a ticklish one. ”

“ Of all the branches of political knowledge, the most important, and the most applicable to the purposes of government, is that which considers the nature and the origin of wealth. It is true that the ultimate object of government, and indeed the ultimate object of every individual, is happiness. ”

“ I know your activity and ability in business,—the whole is at stake,—exert your authority,—lengths must be gone,—and rules and common course of business must yield to the necessity of the times, or it may soon be too late. ”

“ You know your own interest, but who has told you our interests, and what do you know about them?" For the business of every leader of government is to hear what the nation is saying and to know what the nation is enduring. ”

“ I do not mean that the transaction of public business has esoteric mysteries, only to be understood by the initiated. Its principles are all intelligible to any person of good sense, who has in his mind a true picture of the circumstances and conditions to be dealt with ”

“ You have power, you have wealth, you have rank, you have station, you have organization. What have we? We think that we have the people's heart; we believe and we know we have the promise of the harvest of the future. ”

“ Our present business is to establish a mutual understanding,—as we say in politics, to prepare a platform,—and I think you will agree with me that the circumstances of the case require frank dealing, as between man and man. ”

“ The conditions of the life of the present-day, the current habits of thought, the social relationships of men, the economic situation of the country, the welfare of family and Church, and the relations of those institutions and groups that make their conflicting claims upon the loyalty and cover so much of the activity of individuals, are rich with problems and anomalies, and situations and combinations of circumstance which are peculiar to the age, and are the source of most of the issues of the novel of the present-day. ”

“ Under a full conviction of this, we then saw the people of these States, engaged in a transaction, which is, undoubtedly, the greatest approximation towards human perfection the political world ever yet experienced; and which, perhaps, will forever stand on the history of mankind, without a parallel. ”

“ What sort of better social order are you making for? What sort of world order are you creating? Let them open their minds to us, let them put upon permanent record the significance of all their intrigues and manœuvres. ”

“ But if, omitting all these things in which we are rich and of which he is destitute, the senate, the Roman knights, the people, the city, the treasury, the revenues, all Italy, all the provinces, foreign nations,—if, I say, omitting all these things, we choose to compare the causes themselves which are opposed to one another, we may understand from that alone how thoroughly prostrate they are. ”

“ When any one acknowledges a moral governor of the world; perceives that domestic and social relations are perpetually operating and seem intended to operate, to retain and direct men in the path of duty ”

“ The grounds of this truth are expressed with tolerable exactness in the popular dictum, that people understand their own business and their own interests better, and care for them more, than the government does, or can be expected to do. ”

“ For, having become rulers, we set ourselves next to develop the country, and restore, or create, its prosperity, thus pursuing, on the one hand, our original business object, and, on the other, fulfilling the obligations of our new governmental position. ”

“ When, in the domestic relations, we meet with such varieties of law, of custom, of sentiment, of belief, thus indicated by a few examples which might be indefinitely multiplied, it may be imagined how multitudinous are the seeming incongruities presented among the social relations at large. ”

“ But if, without carrying him into the thought, I look over into his plot, and, guessing how it is with him, ordain this or that, he will never obey me. This is the history of governments,—one man does something which is to bind another. ”

“ Then came the men of wealth, of intellect, of industrial enterprise, and the seed-bearers of the ethical new ordering, members of economic committees from the United States, Britain, Italy, Poland, Russia, India, and Japan, representatives of naphtha industries and far-off coal mines, pilgrims, fanatics and charlatans from all climes, priests of all religions, preachers of every doctrine, who mingled with princes, field-marshals, statesmen, anarchists, builders-up and pullers-down. ”

“ But, the most astounding thing is, that some of the very same facts which are appealed to by one party as evidence of our abounding prosperity, are held up by the other as the certain proofs of our decay! ”

“ They can speak positively on matters, of which I have little recollection. My faculties were on the stretch to further our business, remove impediments, obviate objections, and conciliate jarring opinions. ”

“ Should you ask me how it is in the future to use its influence for the benefit of humanity at large, I would say, look at the work now going on in these precincts, and study its spirit. Here are the agencies which will make "the voice of law the harmony of the world." Here is the love of country blended with love of the race. Here the love of knowledge is as unconfined as your commercial enterprise. ”

“ We scarcely furnish the chapter of contents to a work which would comprise subjects so important and delicate, as the causes of the diffusion and intensity of secret influence, the machinery and state intrigue of marriages, the overbalance of the commercial interest ”

“ But the very last time I attended their meeting they were guilty of a transaction still more mean and more dastardly than the one I have above described, and which I shall record in its proper place, when that period of my history arrives. I think, however, that what I have stated above will give my readers a pretty fair specimen of the character of that society, and it will be a warning to the public how they place any reliance upon their proceedings. ”