Policymaker

“ Here is the leader of a great party engaged in a most important contest. The character of the government, the welfare of the greatest city of the republic, one of the greatest cities of the world, is at stake. But this is nothing to him. All he things of is not the interest of three and a half millions of people, not the prosperity and good name of one of the world's most important emporiums of commerce and industry—what he thinks of is simply the spoils of office—patronage. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I count myself one of those who think it vastly more important that the Government be well administered, than that it be administered by this or that set of men; and who, while recognizing the usefulness of party as a means to a good end, support whatever appears to them of public benefit, and oppose whatever they consider bad, no matter what party label it may bear. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Every enlargement of the powers of the government which may be made, every measure which may be adopted to aggrandize the dominant combination which may control the government for the time, must necessarily enlarge, in a greater or less degree, his patronage and influence. With their enlargement, his power to control the other departments of the government, and the organs of public opinion, and through them, the community at large, must increase, and in the same degree. ”

“ One of the conditions precedent to any real and lasting reform of the civil service, in a country whose public service is moulded by the conditions of self-government, is the drawing of a sharp line of distinction between those offices which are political and those which are non-political. The strictest rules of business discipline, of merit-tenure and earned promotion, must rule every office whose incumbent has naught to do with choosing between policies ”

“ 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. ”

“ For the average statesman does from day to day the business which has to be done, takes affairs as he finds them, and makes the best of them. Many who deliberately selected the questions with which they dealt have yet shrunk from the responsibility of their choice, and have preferred to represent their actions as inevitable. Few can claim the credit of choosing the sphere of their activity, of framing a connected policy with clear and definite ends, and of applying their ideas to every department of national organisation. ”

“ In spite of the elaborate solar system of local, state, and national units of government that encircle our lives, most of us tend to regard ourselves as the objects of governmental policy and not the makers. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But politics, as a profession, as a separate and independent function of activity, has ceased to exist. The state or Government is run on the great universal principle of reciprocity which governs the entire community. It exists for the people, is administered by the people, and acts for the people. ”

“ When the people have approved a policy at a national election, confidence on the part of the officers they have selected and of the advisers who, in accordance with our political institutions, should be consulted in the policy which it is their duty to carry into effect is indispensable. ”

“ How illogical, then, and incongruous, to suppose, that a set of limited human agents briefly trained to purely political action, and liable to be turned out of office by every change in party administration, can be competent at the same time and in addition to perform economical functions for the people! ”

“ The more complex and extravagant government becomes, the more it becomes a power distinct from and independent of the people, the greater is the difficulty of bringing questions of real public policy to a popular decision. ”

“ the laws and the entire scheme of our civil rule, from the town meeting to the State capitals and the national capital, is yours. Your every voter, as surely as your Chief Magistrate, under the same high sanction, though in a different sphere, exercises a public trust. Nor is this all. Every citizen owes to the country a vigilant watch and close scrutiny of its public servants and a fair and reasonable estimate of their fidelity and usefulness. Thus is the people's will impressed upon the whole framework of our civil polity—municipal, State, and Federal; ”

“ Our rulers are but our agents, chosen in obedience to the convictions which govern the policy of the selection, and mere political success is no enduring constituent of greatness. The public servant, and the private citizen, will alike be honored or condemned, as they are faithful or unfaithful to their responsible duties. ”

“ In retaining the power of deciding for itself these broad questions of public legislative policy, it is exercising a function, adapted to the popular intelligence and both disciplinary and formative in its effect on those who take the responsibility seriously. Under any system of popular government—even under a parliamentary system—such general questions are eventually submitted to popular decision ”

“ Then in no other hands can be more safely lodged this greatest trust in the gift of a great people. Was public office created for the welfare of the people and the prosperity of the country? Then under his leadership in the coming campaign may we confidently hope to achieve these great ends in human government. ”

“ Men of integrity, force, and ability would be tempted to run for office by the stimulating opportunity offered for effective achievement. Such a government would, consequently press into its service whatever public-spirited and energetic men the community possessed ”

“ Moreover, the adoption of social policies has increased the powers of government and, therefore, it has more and more come to be seen that popular control of government is necessary. At the same time the making of campaign issues out of social policies has at once in itself made all the people more important in politics. ”

“ The impartial arbitrament of enlightened public opinion, present and future, will determine how far the public policy I have maintained and the measures I have from time to time recommended may have tended to advance or retard the public prosperity at home and to elevate or depress the estimate of our national character abroad. ”

“ I am not aware that history furnishes any example in which a number of these political atoms or corpuscles have coalesced into a body, and learned to feel themselves one people, except through previous subjection to a central authority common to all. [2] It is through the habit of deferring to that authority, entering into its plans and subserving its purposes, that a people such as we have supposed receive into their minds the conception of large interests common to a considerable geographical extent. ”

“ In contests of this nature, where a considerable body of people who have attempted to free themselves of the control of the superior government have reached such point in occupation of territory, in power, and in general organization as to constitute in fact a body politic; having a government in substance as well as in name; possessed of the elements of stability and equipped with the machinery for the administration of internal policy and the execution of its laws ”

“ Besides, you want not only to be elected, but, if elected, to do good service to the country and credit to yourself by your Administration. I think I am not entirely ignorant of politics. Let me make a prediction. No skill in nice balancing will save you from the necessity of choosing between two roads, one running in the reactionary tendencies and machine politics, and the other in the direction of intelligent, progressive and reformatory politics. ”

“ Policy is at the best but guess-work—steering by the current; the man who is governed by principle steers by the stars, and neither can be long misled, nor will he wilfully mislead others. Practical Application.—Never vote for any candidate for a public office, however clever he may be, if his integrity is doubtful. ”

“ One President of the United States and one Judge of its Supreme Court have already been solemnly impeached by the sovereign people themselves.
Government, then, is an Agent, and nothing more. Even nationalists will not contend for the divine right of kings. And the duties of every decent government on earth are political in their character. The agents are chosen and dismissed with a direct reference to that kind of action. Politics has a sphere wholly distinct from Economics. ”

“ Regarding government as an institution for the public good, they demand a knowledge of its operations, and a participation in its exercise. A call for the representative system, wherever it is not enjoyed, and where there is already intelligence enough to estimate its value, is perseveringly made. ”

“ You are in the majority, and the fault is your own if you do not make use of the power you possess. Nominate and elect your own men; if your first choice fails you, try again, and continue trying, until the right man for the position is found; and when found, while holding him strictly accountable, give him your cordial support while he is true to your interests. Most persons who occupy position now, feel compelled to yield principle to the demands of policy, in order to retain it. ”

“ A way has to be found to make more available and useful to the Government, in all its branches, the best intelligence and character in the country, now in great part excluded from public employment by the peculiar nature of our constituencies and the working of the party machinery, or withdrawn from it by the superior advantages of private pursuits. ”

“ 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 very meaning of party is that public men consider certain principles of government, certain lines of policy, the protection and development of particular interests, of capital importance to the nation, and they are therefore on purely public grounds fully justified in making it a main object to place the government of the country in the hands of their party. ”

“ One appeal which may be said to run through the whole of the speeches on the side of the Government is familiar to the readers and the audiences of all political debates, whore any manner of Reform is under discussion. "You are asked"—so runs the argument—"to adopt this sort of policy in order to satisfy the demands of a certain class of the population ”

“ Without doubt, an enlightened policy would contribute much to introduce, extend, and confirm the practice. It proves an intelligent government, one full of solicitude for the happiness of its subjects. ”

“ The real thing that we are after in making regulations as to political activity is to keep those who are in the employ of the Government from using their positions to further their personal ends or to serve some political party. ”

“ Populists should secure every advantage possible, strengthen their organizations, keep these patriots closely in touch, and at every possible point be ready should a reaction come.
Again and again we have seen great waves of reform sweep over the land, and again and again we have seen the monopolists catch a second breath, spit on their hands and tie these good men down with party thongs and convention rules and resolutions. ”

“ Now for that great multitude of prosperous people who find themselves at once deeply concerned in our present social and economic crisis, and either helplessly entangled in party organisation or helplessly outside politics, the elimination and cure of this disease of statecraft, the professional politician, has become a very urgent matter. ”