Maladministration

“ Whenever the responsible branches of government may hesitate to venture upon an act of doubtful character, they will entrench themselves behind the irresponsible department and the latter may serve as a screen to the most glaring usurpations of authority. ”

“ A disappointment which makes further hope appear like mockery. This Administration, which commenced its career under such happy auspices, has in so alarming a degree developed some of the very worst tendencies of our political life, that its continuance in authority appears as a danger and menace to our free institutions. ”

“ 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. ”

“ No doubt the organization and management of those insitutions by government are liable, as are all things human, to great abuses. The multiplication of public placeholders, which they imply, is a serious evil. ”

“ No thinking man denies that corruption and profligacy, the tendency to make the Government an agency for private support and the loose methods of doing the Government's business which minister to such evil practices are among the gravest dangers besetting democratic institutions. ”

“ The defeat of the Administration is owing neither to your proclamations, nor to the financial policy of the Government, nor to a desire of the people to have peace at any price. I can speak openly, for you must know that I am your friend. The defeat of the Administration is the Administration's own fault. ”

“ A bon mot may alleviate the loss of a battle, and a lampoon on the court solace under the burthen of a new impost; but the most thoughtless or improvident can find nothing very facetious in the prospect of absolute want—and those who have been used to laugh under a circumscription of their political liberty, feel very seriously the evil of a government which endows its members with unlimited power, and enables a Deputy, often the meanest and most profligate character of his department, to imprison all who, from caprice, interest, or vengeance, may have become the objects of his persecution. ”

“ There can be no reason why the government may not, by legislation, protect each department against such evils, indeed, against everything from whatever source it proceeds, that tends or may tend to corruption or inefficiency in the management of public affairs. ”

“ Each is in charge of a department, and if there is inefficiency, it is easy to place the blame where it properly belongs.
“Under such a system the administration of public affairs becomes at once, simple, direct and business-like. If any outside corrupt influences seek to creep in, they are easy of detection and the punishment can be made swift and certain.” ”

“ Sir, the crime of exasperating the people against their governours, of raising discontent, and exciting murmurs in a time of general danger, and of attempting to represent wise and salutary measures, which have received the approbation of the whole legislature, as mean artifices, contrived only to raise the fortunes of some favourites of the minister, and aggrandize the officers of state, by the miseries of the people, is a crime too enormous to require or admit any aggravation from rhetorick, and too dangerous to hope for any excuse from candour and lenity. ”

“ Office is considered as a species of property, and government rather as a means of promoting individual interests than as an instrument created solely for the service of the people. Corruption in some and in others a perversion of correct feelings and principles divert government from its legitimate ends, and make it an engine for the support of the few at the expense of the many. ”

“ But much more drastic measures on the part of the Administration, to demonstrate its earnestness as to the maintenance of the merit system, will be required to cure that deterioration of the atmosphere in the public service which has been brought about by the multiplication of places filled by political influence as well as by the impunity with which in so many conspicuous cases the rules have been circumvented and the spirit of the law has been openly defied—an impunity which but too easily is taken for approval. ”

“ Far from being lessened, the evil is even aggravated by an additional circumstance. The title of country commandant is conferred by the rulers of the cities; but as the city is destitute of power, influence, and supporters in the country, the administration lays hold of the men it most fears, and confers this office upon them in order to retain their obedience—a well known procedure of all weak governments, which put off the evil of the moment only to allow it to appear later in colossal dimensions. ”

“ By the frame of the Government under which we live, this same people have wisely given their public servants but little power for mischief, and have with equal wisdom provided for the return of that little to their own hands at very short intervals. While the people retain their virtue and vigilance, no administration, by any extreme wickedness or folly, can very seriously injure the Government in the short space of four years. ”

“ If a Government Department, under cover of an Order in Council made for a wholly different purpose, is to shield itself from an exposure of its inefficiency, a dangerous precedent is set up, dangerous alike to the community and the Press. ”

“ There are a few other departments of minor consequence, but all are carried on so noiselessly and quietly that the evidence of a government seems to vanish altogether, and social order to be as regular and unobtrusive as if it were a law of nature. ”

“ Not only do they throw out of their consideration the conduct of the Administration, but they are resolved to accomplish its destruction, without being prepared to substitute any stronger Government in its room, and with a perfect knowledge that its dissolution must necessarily produce a state of extraordinary embarrassment, from which they do not pretend to have the power of extricating the country. ”

“ A government office is, in short, a microcosm of society, with its oddities and hatreds, its envy and its cupidity, its determination to push on, no matter who goes under, its frivolous gossip which gives so many wounds, and its perpetual spying. ”

“ Yet, as fast as there come proofs of mal-administration, there come demands that administration shall be extended. Just as, in societies made restive by despotism, we see that, for the evils and dangers brought about, the remedy is more despotism; just as we see that, along with the failing power of a decaying Papacy, there goes, as the only fit cure, a reassertion of Papal infallibility with emphatic obligato from a Council; so, to set right the misdoings of State-agency, the proposal is always more State-agency. ”

“ As soon as the State recognizes the right of existence of this dung-heap, by its toleration and organization, corruption hitherto hidden and ashamed raises its head and becomes more and more bold, even dragging public organs into its sink. ”

“ Opposed to Corrupt Administrators of Law—I do not lift my voice against the great and glorious Government guaranteed to every citizen by our Constitution, but against those corrupt administrators who trample the Constitution and just laws under their feet. ”

“ To us bureaucracy is hateful. We protest as a people against an office-holding class. Every citizen feels that he too may become an office-holder—is looking forward, possibly, to that consummation. This may explain the indulgence with which we regard the faults of those actually in office. If at the end of its term in office an administration is able to account in some way for all the money it has handled, [Pg 22] no further questions are asked. ”

“ With the government, men are discharged and disgraced only when they do act. Unless a clerk or bureau chief or head of a department is caught red-handed, so there can be no question of guilt, there is no way to rid the department of an incubus without great difficulty. ”

“ Their long train of dependents: the needy and obsequious followers of every minister. All who suck in, thro' its remotest or minutest channels, the foul stream of corruption—These are all ranged on one side. They are making ready for battle. ”

“ If a dozen state officials are elected, the average citizen is uncertain who is to blame for inefficiency; each official shoves the responsibility on to the others' shoulders, and it is not plain what can be done except to depose them all, one by one. If a governor only is elected, and is required to appoint his subordinates, the entire blame rests upon his shoulders. If dishonesty or misadministration is discovered, he must take the shame; he may be recalled from office if he is not quick enough in removing the guilty man and remedying the evil. ”

“ Administration, my lords, appears to me a term without a meaning, a wild indeterminate word, of which none can tell whom it implies, or how widely it may extend: a charge against the administration may be imagined a general censure of every officer in the whole subordination of government, a general accusation of instruments and agents, of masters and slaves: my charge, my lords, is against the minister, against that man, who is believed by every one in the nation, and known by great numbers, to have the chief, and, whenever he pleases to require it, the sole direction of the publick measures ”

“ April 29th.—Every day the position of the Government gets worse and worse. The disposition there was to give them a fair opportunity of carrying on public affairs as well as they could has given way to disgust and contempt at their blundering and stupidity, and those who have all along resented their attempt to hold office at all are becoming more impatient and more anxious to turn them out. ”

“ And, therefore, to neglect any department or branch or truth, is to neglect our interests. And to pursue and embrace one branch of truth, or only some of them, is a line of conduct that it suicidal to our interests and welfare, identified in that path which is neclected. ”

“ It is plainly unjust that the law-abiding citizen and faithful officer should be charged with the burthens of Government, and the dishonest and unpatriotic be permitted, by the defects of our statutes, to be relieved from the contribution of their fair proportion. ”

“ But the great danger to our institutions does not appear to me to be in a usurpation by the Government of power not granted by the people, but by the accumulation in one of the departments of that which was assigned to others. Limited as are the powers which have been granted, still enough have been granted to constitute a despotism if concentrated in one of the departments. ”

“ When you come to the recall, the principle is that if an administrative officer,—for we will begin with the administrative officer,—is corrupt or so unwise as to be doing things that are likely to lead to all sorts of mischief, it will be possible by a deliberate process prescribed by the law to get rid of that officer before the end of his term. You must admit that it is a little inconvenient sometimes to have what has been called an astronomical system of government, in which you can't change anything until there has been a certain number of revolutions of the seasons. ”

“ Details in an administration cannot be examined and criticised without examining the conduct and bearing of the administrators. The fatal fault in a Bureaucracy is that the administrators believe they are the rulers and construe all that is said against themselves as being said against the Government and when one of the administrators combines in himself a judicial function as well he becomes thoroughly and personally interested. ”

“ In every branch of the administration one is constantly stumbling upon abuses or defects that have long been recognized, that have been commented upon for years, that are apparently prejudicial to the interests of everybody, and that, nevertheless, continue to exist. ”

“ If the Ministry blunders so far as to come down into the arena, we can give them a drubbing. If they are nettled by it, the thing will rankle in people's minds, and the Government will lose its hold on the masses. ”

“ I committed the political blunder of attempting to introduce and carry on reformatory measures in an Administration which was under influences altogether adverse to all reform, and for this cause incurred the displeasure of the men whose friends were touched, and the sincere hostility of the Executive head of the Nation who was made to believe by cunning and unscrupulous men that I was moved by selfish and unworthy motives. ”

“ I have heard in highest places the shameless doctrine avowed by men grown old in public office, that the true way in which power should be gained in the Republic is to bribe the people with the offices created for their service, and the true end for which it should be used when gained is the promotion of selfish ambition and the gratification of personal revenge. ”

“ For their actions, by reason of their eminency in the world, being more conspicuous than others, their faults and miscarriages likewise are more obvious. Therefore, let none in such places of power and authority, think to avoid the censures and reproaches, if they are corrupt and unjust in their administration. ”

“ Although a large experience would seem to warrant the argument, we will not insist on the tendency of the voluntary system to render the administrative officers venal and corrupt; for, in all civilized countries, the restraints of conscience and opinion are sufficiently strong to prevent the frequent occurrence of so gross a consequence. ”

“ Another thing, too, has great weight with me, that if, in this manner, the faults of individuals are laid to the charge of their office, all authority will collapse, and the people will be without ruler, law, or order. ”