Policyholder

“ To the people every department of the Government and every individual in each are responsible, and the more full their information the better they can judge of the wisdom of the policy pursued and of the conduct of each in regard to it. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It must always be remembered that in the working of a [Pg 218] monopoly by the State, the interest of the public as a whole is the paramount consideration, and every economy consistent with efficiency must be adopted. ”

“ The legislature, in making demands for such honorary services, has usually proceeded on the theory which views all those who may be called upon to render them, as persons qualified to understand the whole subject intuitively, and having no other interest or views than to perform the services zealously for the common weal; whereas, in the locality they are viewed in a totally different light, not as public officers, but in their private capacities, as owners or tradesmen, competitors for advantages of various kinds. ”

“ 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. ”

“ To decide for what public objects local superintendence is best suited, and what are those which should be kept immediately under the central government, or under a mixed system of local management and central superintendence, is a question not of political economy, but of administration. ”

“ The decisions having been made with regard to matters of policy, the next and equally important question arises: "Who shall be entrusted with the duty of seeing that policies once decided upon are carried out? Who shall be entrusted with leadership in economic affairs?" [Pg 86]
Those who are entrusted with the carrying out of economic policy in a producers' society may be divided, roughly, into two classes: the executive and the expert. The executive is the director of general policy. The expert is the specialist, selected to do a particular piece of work. ”

“ Long range requisitions, approved by distant authority, may result in false economy, in a lack of clearly defined responsibility. The essence of good administration consists in dealing with men and things, in giving them greater value than their paper symbols. ”

“ We count, in the future as in the past, on the driving power of individual initiative and the incentive of fair private profit, strengthened with the acceptance of those obligations to the public interest which rest upon us all. ”

“ The Realm may further legislate, in case of urgent necessity and in the interest of the national economy, to oblige business undertakings or associations to combine, on the basis of self administration, with a view to securing the co-operation of all the productive forces of the nation, to associating employers and employed in the administration, and to regulating production, manufacture, distribution, employment, prices, as also import and export of goods on principles of public economy. ”

“ But it was a pleasure to see the growing manifestation of a commonwealth spirit, the organization of public opinion, and the clearer vision of the demands of public service. Even among the officials the idea that the Government was merely a taxing and office-holding organization was giving way, especially among the younger men, to a desire that the functions of government should be used for developmental purposes, in helping the people towards better methods in agriculture and industry, in encouraging improved communications and public works of many kinds. ”

“ Every other function of proper government—the organization of industry, the regulation of standards the subsidizing of research, the control of prices, and so on—are left to the Belt Companies or to the people. ”

“ The topics of informal discussion [Pg 31] among the men and of talks from their leaders may be no longer matters of antagonism toward their employer but rather those of common industrial and community interest. And as industry is sure some day to realize how dependent it is on the integrity, wisdom and statesmanship of the public officials chosen by the people to make and administer the laws, so it will surely come to take an active part in selecting these public officials and in determining the policies they are to further. ”

“ There is need for coordination of the policies and operation of our government corporations to increase their usefulness to the national economy. It may be necessary to’ re-examine their structure and organiza­tion, their policies and their objectives, the scope and nature of their activities, and to gear all these to new goals set by a coherent development program. I recommend serious consideration of the advisability of creating a national central body or department that can more effectively direct, supervise and control the operations of government corporations. ”

“ Management, instead of being regarded as the servant of Capital exclusively, ought to be in a position to regard itself, as in fact it is, one of the necessary parties to industry, and as such entitled to a voice in matters which pertain to its administrative functions ”

“ Arguments on almost all public questions—direct election of senators, direct primaries, commission form of government, tariff, currency, control of corporations, or, in local matters, the size of a school committee, the granting of franchises to street railroads or water companies, the laying out of streets, the rules governing parks—are all questions of policy in which the greatest practical advantage to the greatest proportion of those who are interested is the controlling force in the decision. ”

“ The representatives of the people in Congress, charged with the duty and entrusted with the power of taking care of the people's convenience and of the people's money, deliberately put aside a proposition submitted to them by a faithful officer of the Government to promote the people's convenience and to save the people's money—nay, they tell that officer that he shall not go on promoting the people's convenience, improving the people's service and saving the people's money. ”

“ Some idea of the possibility for individual and community good which these agencies hold in their power may be gained when one considers that one company alone has millions of policy holders in the United States and Canada. ”

“ The management by officials, however those officials are appointed, [pg 277] is not necessarily wiser, more efficient or more benevolent than the management by interested men, whose life is in natural contact, through business relations, with employés. Those who have had experience with official control under popular government are not likely to expect a readjustment of all interests from the standpoint of politicians to be marked by either universal good will or universal common sense. ”

“ If the interest of the Government in private companies is subordinate to that of individuals, the management and control of a portion of the public funds is delegated to an authority unknown to the Constitution and beyond the supervision of our constituents ”

“ The management of purely local business by the localities, and of the great enterprises of industry by the union of those who voluntarily supply the pecuniary means, is further recommended by all the advantages which have been set forth in this Essay as belonging to individuality of development, and diversity of modes of action. Government operations tend to be everywhere alike. With individuals and voluntary associations, on the contrary, there are varied experiments, and endless diversity of experience. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Most earnestly, therefore, does this Society call upon all to whom a maintenance, out of the public purse, is dear, upon those who value the places they hold at the expense of the country, or the permanence of the present Administration, to join them in promoting these objects and principles. ”

“ Every consideration of care for the public interest and every sensible business reason dictate such management or disposal of this important source of public revenue as will except it from the general rules and incidents attending the ordinary disposition of public lands and secure to the Government a fair share at least of its advantages in place of its transfer for a nominal sum to interested individuals. ”

“ And so on the one hand, we know this has to be lead by the private sector. We do think that smart policy on our part can send the right signals to the private sector. And you guys are helping us do that. ”

“ The Aim of Regulation by the State.—An aim of a government, in all of its economic policy, is to insure the best use of the national resources, and this can often be done by keeping alive free competition. ”

“ Every one is taught a trade or a profession according to its bent and the demand for services in the several callings, it being the policy of the state to so regulate [118] these things that the value of services is about the same in all callings. ”

“ And the near interest, the direct agency which every citizen has in the performance of these duties, cause them to be attended to with an exactness and an efficacy which a government less local, never would attain. ”

“ Important among the necessary legislation is the regulation of the economic and social relations of individuals and corporations, provision for an adequate revenue by means of a system of taxation, appropriation for the maintenance of departments of government and necessary public works, and the determination of an international policy. ”

“ It would be an unduly restrictive view of the scope of the duties of a policy-making executive official to hold that a public statement of agency policy in respect to matters of wide public interest and concern is not action in the line of duty. ”

“ Foreigners who come to this country, foreign leaders, of course, who come to this country -- the administration believes it's important to listen to the causes of the American people, whether it's an individual or it's a business or whether it's labor. Q But is it appropriate for administration officials to meet with corporate executives who are seeking private action by the government -- seeking action to benefit their specific private interests? ”

“ My father and grandfather were brought up among City people and I am proud of it; but it is folly to suppose that starting and developing a great business is the same as initiating and conducting a great policy, or running a big Government Department. ”

“ When the managers of industry become responsible to Labor, Capital, and the Community for the manner in which their vast powers and opportunities are exercised, we shall have something in the government of industry closely resembling the responsible executive in the government of the State. ”

“ It is not a little extraordinary, that they should so strenuously urge this argument against those persons, who, while they propose the measure, are themselves responsible for the good management and protection of the revenue; and who must therefore be supposed to feel the necessity of providing means and regulations, adapted to the measure which they propose. ”

“ For it must be substituted an economic policy which will secure to the nation, and the individual the opportunities and the benefits of the existing organization, while at the same time seeking the diffusion of those benefits over a larger social area. ”

“ Others progressively inclined accept the principle of government regulation and believe that in that way the people, through their political representatives, can control the owners and managers. Others think that the best results can be obtained by giving a place on the governing board of an industry to working men alongside the representatives of capital and permitting them to work out their problems on a mutual basis. ”

“ A prudent and yet resolute readiness to undertake reasonable responsibilities, inseparable from the duties of a great commercial nation, should be the key-note of our national policy, and should be the badge of no particular party. ”

“ It cannot plead its inherently private character or its subordination to the market as cover for the pursuit of different goals of particular interest to itself. The public agency has an unquestioned tendency to pursue goals that reflect its own interest and convenience and to adapt social objective thereto. ”