Bureaucracy

“ But where everything is done through the bureaucracy, nothing to which the bureaucracy is really adverse can be done at all. The constitution of such countries is an organisation of the experience and practical ability of the nation, into a disciplined body for the purpose of governing the rest; and the more perfect that organisation is in itself, the more successful in drawing to itself and educating for itself the persons of greatest capacity from all ranks of the community, the more complete is the bondage of all, the members of the bureaucracy included. ”

“ The truth is, that a skilled bureaucracy—a bureaucracy trained from early life to its special avocation—is, though it boasts of an appearance of science, quite inconsistent with the true principles of the art of business. ”

“ Our civil service, which you are pleased to describe as a Bureaucracy, is distinguished among all others existing at the present time, by the calibre of its members, by its efficiency and honesty, by its poverty, and not less by the honour in which it is held notwithstanding its poverty. ”

“ This bureaucracy was the core of the consolidated mass called the Empire; it was the embodiment of money, the ultimate expression of force, and it recognized and advanced men who were adapted to its needs. When such men were to be found, the administration was thought good ”

“ As a result, we find that the prospects and powers of the bureaucracy become more important than even the purposes for which it exists. It is a commonplace of politics that a state exists for the people comprising it, and that the servants of the state are the servants of the people. ”

“ A bureaucracy—that is, a body of permanent officials, entrenched in Government departments, according to whose piping ministers themselves have willingly or unwillingly to dance—is totally incompatible with the very elementary conditions of Socialistic administration. ”

“ The civil officials with which the public is most familiar are postal employees, officers of the federal courts, and revenue officials. Such persons usually hold office while their party is in power or during good behavior. Long tenure of office tends to conservative measures and the spirit of bureaucracy, while a system by which civil office is regarded as party spoil tends to corruption and inefficiency. The business of administration is becoming increasingly important in the modern state. ”

“ The State is a collection of officials, different for different purposes, drawing comfortable incomes so long as the status quo is preserved. The only alteration they are likely to desire in the status quo is an increase of bureaucracy and of the power of bureaucrats. ”

“ "Remember, the inevitable inefficiency of a huge bureaucracy will be working for you." ”

“ A bureaucracy always tends to become a pedantocracy. ”

“ One class of men whose special function it is to conceive, plan and direct in the affairs of state, and who therefore constitute its head. And in well-organized governments this head must consist of a deliberative and an executive department—a law-making and a law-executing power—functions corresponding perfectly to those of the cerebrum and cerebellum in the head of every individual. This head of the government or state, too, is in the thought of ends. ”

“ On the Nation we can put our hand as a definite social group, with attitudes and qualities exact enough to mean something. On the Government we can put our hand as a certain organization of ruling functions, the machinery of lawmaking and law-enforcing. The Administration is a recognizable group of political functionaries, temporarily in charge of the government. But the State stands as an idea behind them all, eternal, sanctified, and from it Government and Administration conceive themselves to have the breath of life. ”

“ Thus it will be seen that all departments of the government, legislative, judicial, and executive, are placed entirely beyond any responsibility to the people, whose agents they profess to be, and whose rights they assume to dispose of at pleasure. ”

“ The second class of limitations upon official power provided in our constitution prescribe and maintain the distribution of power to the different departments of government and the limitations upon the officers invested with authority in each department. This distribution follows the natural and logical lines of the distinction between the different kinds of power—legislative, executive, and judicial. ”

“ The Organization of Government.—The political organization depends upon the functions that the state has to perform, as the structure of any group corresponds to its functions. The modern national machinery is a complicated system, and is becoming more so as constitutional conventions define more in detail the powers and forms of government, and as legislatures enter the field of social reform, but the simplest attempt at regulation involves several steps, and so naturally there are several departments of government. ”

“ While the public mind is agitated and wild excitement tramples upon reason, the Executive has a right to look to the legislative department of the Government for wise and sagacious counsels. Representing the creative power of law, the high responsibilities upon you demand that you indignantly frown upon any and every attempt to subvert the laws, and substitute in their stead the will of revolutionary leaders. ”

“ Each executive department has certain public functions and duties, the performance of which is absolutely necessary to the existence of the government, but it may temporarily, at least, operate with seeming harshness upon individuals. ”

“ The various departments of Government should, in my opinion, be made, as far as possible, self-sustaining, and where it is impossible, from their nature, to make them so, a rigid exaction of duty at the hands of all those who are in the employ of the Government should be required. ”

“ The functions or activities and powers of governments, which were formerly vested in the patriarchal chief, or king, and later in king, people, and council, gradually became separated and were delegated to different authorities, though the sharp division of legislative, judicial, and executive functions which characterizes our modern governments did not exist. These forms of government were more or less blended, and it required centuries to distribute the various powers of government into special departments and develop modern forms. ”

“ Sir, the theory of our institutions is plain; it is, that government is an agency created for the good of the people, and that every person in office is the agent and servant of the people. Offices are created, not for the benefit of those who are to fill them, but for the public convenience ”

“ The requisition of the public force within the interior of the realm belongs to the civil officers, according to the regulations determined by the legislative power.
11. If disorders disturb an entire department, the king, under the responsibility of his ministers, shall give the necessary orders for the execution of the laws and for the re-establishment of order, but subject to informing the legislative body thereof, if it is assembled, and of convoking it, if it is in recess.
12. The public force is essentially, obedient; no armed body can deliberate. ”

“ The very idea of a government composed of executive, legislative, and judicial departments necessarily comprehends the power to do all things, through its appropriate officers and agents, within the scope of its general governmental purposes and powers, requisite to preserve its existence, protect it and its ministers, and give it complete efficiency in all its parts. ”

“ The administrative organs shall enforce the law, carry out the social plans and other decisions of the assembly, execute the established policy, follow the state of affairs in particular fields of life, organize and discharge particular services, deliberate on administrative matters, exercise administrative supervision and perform other administrative business, prepare acts, and perform other expert services for the assemblies and their political-executive organs. ”

“ The Public Administration shall serve the general interest in a spirit of objectivity and shall act in accordance with the principles of efficiency, hierarchy, decentralization, deconcentration and coordination, and in full subordination to the law. ”

“ But further.—This central government itself, like the nation which it serves, is a compound body; a unit composed of parts, each of which in its own sphere is independent, yet beyond that sphere is limited by the functions of the other parts. This government is a triple compound, and consists of the legislative, the judicial, and the executive departments.
The legislative, or Congress, declares the will of the nation. ”

“ So too the officers of the state derive their commission from the people, albeit the king, in conformity with law, decides the detail of their appoint ment, together with the other necessary arrangements of the executive government. Once establish the principle, and the consequences are easy to draw. ”

“ The executive power cannot make any law, even provisionally, but only proclamations in conformity with the laws to order or call to mind the execution of them.
Section II. Of the internal administration.
1. In each department there is a superior administration, and in each district a subordinate administration.
2. The administrators do not have any representative character.
They are agents elected at stated times by the people to exercise, under the surveillance and authority of the king, the administrative functions. ”

“ The office of the Executive falls into my hands at a peculiar period in our history as a State. Contemplating alone the vastness of its extent, the diversified interests of its people, and the character of its resources, yet undeveloped, there is enough to demand continued labor and attention, in order to apply the benefits of government with sound discretion, and a proper regard to the relative demands of each interest ”

“ In many minds State control is synonymous with government by inspectors and other officials of the central authority. But bureaucratic control in a nation whose government is founded on a representative basis is a disease rather than a normal condition of such government. In a country where the sovereign power is vested in an individual or in a limited number of individuals, bureaucratic control is and must be an essential feature of its government. ”

“ The powers of the government shall be divided into three distinct departments—the legislative, executive, and judicial; and no person, belonging to one of these departments, shall exercise any of the powers properly belonging to either of the others, except in cases herein directed or permitted. ”

“ Government departments and officials would be multiplied in order to cope with the necessary increase of routine work, the executive and judicial functions would be carefully separated, and the individual civil servant would become a mere member or mouthpiece of a single department, instead of uniting in his own person—as he does at present—half a dozen different executive functions and wide discretionary powers with regard to general administration. ”

“ A complete reform in Executive and Departmental conduct, by which the President and the Secretaries of the United States, and the Governors and State Officers shall be forced to recognize that they are the servants of the people, appointed to attend to the business of the people, and not for the purpose of perpetuating their official positions, or of securing the plunder of public trusts for the enrichment of their political adherents and supporters. ”

“ But the public know little of the permanent official who keeps the traditions and experience of the department, whose judgment is always an element, often a preponderating element, in eventful decisions, and whose pen drafts the despatches which go forth in the name of the Government. ”

“ By reason, also, of its popular origin, and the frequency with which the short term of office of its members requires the renewal of their authority at the hands of the people,-the great source of all power in this country,-encroachments by that body on the domain of co-ordinate branches of the government would be receive with less distrust than a similar exercise of unwarranted power by any other department of the government. ”

“ And here it must be acknowledged that a bureaucratic government has, in some important respects, greatly the advantage. It accumulates experience, acquires well-tried and well-considered traditional maxims, and makes provision for appropriate practical knowledge in those who have the actual conduct of affairs. But it is not equally favorable to individual energy of mind. The disease which afflicts bureaucratic governments, and which they usually die of, is routine. ”

“ The officers of the Government were then a set of quiet, industrious, modest and unobtrusive gentlemen who did not try to control party politics, and did not steal, but did, as a general rule, studiously endeavor, by strict attention to their official business, to win the approval of the Government which employed them, and an honorable name for themselves. ”

“ In the course of ages, there arises, as among ourselves, a highly complex political organization of monarch, ministers, lords and commons, with their subordinate administrative departments, courts of justice, revenue offices, &c., supplemented in the provinces by municipal governments, county governments, parish or union governments—all of them more or less elaborated. ”

“ One great step toward such a form of government was made in the establishment of our federal and state governments by giving effect to the theory of the tripartite nature of governmental powers, entrusting each of the three to a different person or group of persons, or, in other words, to a different department, each restraining the other departments from exceeding their defined powers, so that the government, however democratic, shall not run wild. ”