Public conveyance

“ Whether thus to allure the people upwards to the light—inciting rather than compelling them to ascend—would not be a measure of policy at once useful to the public service, promotive of popular education, and inexpensive to the State—a measure therefore worthy of this Conference to recommend, and of the Government to carry out—is the question which I now leave this meeting to discuss and determine. ”

“ Towns of this class possess the public spirit and the intelligent administration required for the success of such a public venture. They also possess a fund of gratuitous public service among the citizens which may be drawn upon when occasion requires. ”

“ Will any candid person tell me why respectable colored people should not be allowed to make use of public conveyances, open to all who are able and willing to pay for the privilege? Those who enter a vessel, or a stage-coach, cannot expect to select their companions. ”

“ When the most respectable citizens, and those most deeply interested in the restoration of the public tranquillity held a meeting in the Exchange, the mountain in labour brought forth only a long series of whereases on the advantage of public order, and a string of wordy resolutions which resolved nothing. ”

“ We may—and I for one do—think that a number of public services, an increasing number of public services, can be best administered as public concerns. Most of us here to-night are, I believe, pretty advanced municipalizers. ”

“ On the other hand a very small amount of public service freely and cheerfully given by every 89citizen, results in great benefits to the community which receives this service, and to the individuals who give it as well. ”

“ Conversely we make our errands to a city hall or court-house as few as possible, knowing that the “service,” offered at the people’s expense is of a different order, and public officials may not be approached in that confident spirit with which we carry our needs or complaints to the heads of a private business. ”

“ The paramount importance of the trade and industry of the country, and my anxiety that the exigencies of the public services should be provided for in the manner least burdensome to the community, have induced me to resort to the means which the constitution has entrusted to me, of ascertaining the sense of my people upon matters which so deeply concern their welfare. ”

“ I wish that all the citizens of my country could come into contact with the public men whom I have met, and catch something of the earnestness with which they are applying themselves to the solution of the municipal problems that press upon the present generation. ”

“ Therefore, in Part II a study is made of public servants, both those who are directly in the employ of the community and those who, although employed by private individuals, are, through contract, engaged in public service. Among these are the policeman, the postman, the fireman, the street cleaner, the garbage collector, and the ash and rubbish collector. In the study of these various people the threefold idea of dependence, interdependence and co-operation through community agencies finds ample illustration. ”

“ When brawny young factory-hands sit on a school committee, sturdy tradesmen assume direction of a municipal postal service, bankers become speakers in legislature, and journalists shift over to be cabinet ministers, the general citizen may sometimes find cold comfort in knowing that the public service is not roped off from private life, nor like to become effete through stale traditions. ”

“ In State capitals and other centres men meet, as though by chance, and in hotel-rooms debate matters of which the public hears only when differences have been reconciled and a harmonious plan of action has been adopted. ”

“ But herein we must consider that the laws look how to prevent by due examples that such things be not done, and not how to salve such things when they are done. For if the governors of justice shall take such a scope, as to measure the foot of the law by the show of conveniency, and measure that conveniency not by the public society, but by that which is fittest for them which offend: young men, strong men, and rich men, shall ever find private conveniences how to palliate such committed disorders, as to the public shall not only be inconvenient, but pestilent. ”

“ On the other hand, I, and the few who think with me, contend that justice alone is to be administered by the community in its corporate capacity; and that the practice of generosity is to be left to private individuals, and voluntarily-formed combinations of individuals. Insuring each citizen's safety in person and property, as well as insuring him such returns for his services as his fellow-citizens agree to give, is a public affair; while affording him help, and giving him benefits beyond those he has earned, is a private affair. ”

“ Those who stayed behind drew up a series of regulations that made any change a subject for universal discussion, and as the regulations were being continually altered, public gatherings took up most of the day's work. ”

“ All the witnesses who have had experience amongst the labouring classes, concur in the expression of confidence that the visits and intervention of a public officer would at such a time be well received by the poorest classes. ”

“ Session after session we work hard at all kinds of measures for the public welfare—devising plans for educating the people; enacting better arrangements for the health of towns; making inquiries into the impurity of rivers; deliberating on plans to diminish drunkenness; prescribing modes of building houses that they may not fall; deputing commissioners to facilitate emigration; and so on. You can go to no place that does not show signs of our activity. ”

“ Every society has a right to the services of its members, in places of public trust and duty. A town appoints, under the authority of the state, an overseer of the poor, or of the highways. He gives, reluctantly, his labor and services; he receives nothing in return, but the privilege of giving his labor and services. ”

“ The public to-day demands information and expects also to be accepted as judge and jury in matters that have a wide public import. The public, whether it invests its money in subway or railroad tickets, in hotel rooms or restaurant fare, in silk or soap, is a highly sophisticated body. ”

“ To strangers they are kind and polite; they keep them for three days at the public expense; after they have first washed their feet, they show them their city and its customs, and they honor them with a seat at the Council and public table, and there are men whose duty it is to take care of and guard the guests. But if strangers should wish to become citizens of their State, they try them first for a month on a farm, and for another month in the city, then they decide concerning them, and admit them with certain ceremonies and oaths. ”

“ This measure it was desirable to avoid, because it would occasion much public inconvenience and a considerable public expense and add to the calamities of the inhabitants of this city, whose sufferings must have excited the sympathy of all their fellow citizens. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Until we have developed and applied, much beyond present standards, the policy and practice of social agency on the part of individuals in the conduct of business, direct public control, and even public management of many kinds of business is the dictate of reason, of prudence and of patriotism. ”

“ A characteristic service of the settlement to the public grows out of its opportunities for creating and informing public opinion. Its flexibility as an instrument makes it pliant to the essential demands made upon it; uncommitted to a fixed programme, it can move with the times. ”

“ All of these facilities could be provided by the rich and powerful for themselves and members of their families. They could be supplied more effectively and apportioned more justly when they were public services open to all.
The countryside lacks the financial and the administrative means of providing a wide range of public services. ”

“ By public police and economy I mean the due regulation and domestic order of the kingdom, whereby the individuals of the State, like members of a well-governed family, are bound to conform their general behaviour to the rules of propriety, good neighbourhood, and good manners ”

“ Under the initiative and guidance of one or two energetic local leaders, inspired by an occasional outside lecturer, such as can be obtained at small expense from agricultural colleges and other public agencies, almost any American community ought to carry on a forum of public discussion for weeks, taking up first the most urgent questions of community interest and passing on gradually to matters of broader concern. ”

“ And may I say in addition that every public servant, whether in the national, provincial, city or municipal, or even the barrio, should remember that he is in the government to help the people and not to utilize his position to his personal benefit. ”

“ The population had doubled at one bound, rising from two to four hundred thousand souls, thanks to the arrival of the little world of employees and officials of the public services—all those who live on the State or hope to live on it, without mentioning the idlers and enjoyers of life whom a Court always carries in its train. ”

“ The Public is not this or that class, this or that type; the Public is an hypothetical average human being, endowed with average human qualities—a distillation, in fact, of all the people in this hall, the people in the street outside, the people of this country everywhere. ”

“ In every Court, ample and commodious provision is made for the accommodation of the citizens. This is the case all through America. In every Public Institution, the right of the people to attend, and to have an interest in the proceedings, is most fully and distinctly recognised. There are no grim door-keepers to dole out their tardy civility by the sixpenny-worth; nor is there, I sincerely believe, any insolence of office of any kind. Nothing national is exhibited for money; and no public officer is a showman. We have begun of late years to imitate this good example. ”

“ The public agency with an eye to permanency may be expected to move slowly in placing men on jobs, whereas the private agency will send anyone to any job that he says he can do and that he is willing to pay for. ”

“ 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; ”

“ All persons conversant with public business know the difficulties which, from this cause, have constantly been experienced in bringing commercial subjects, and even the condition of the population dependant on manufactures and commerce, under the consideration of government and parliament. ”

“ Such a change sometimes occurs, but when it does, it is because the social conditions, in generating a new public, have prepared the way for it; the state sets a formal seal upon forces already in operation by giving them a defined channel through which to act. ”

“ We meet every other week, at private residences, which we believe necessary to preserve that profitable informality which would be lost in a public hall or church. The president asks such questions as his judgment indicates to be most profitable, the object being to make the meetings as much as possible of a conversational character. ”

“ Community of goods again, private property being abolished, calls for a regulation whereby all citizens are to dine at the public expense in the various public halls of the city, the particular place of each being determined by lot ”

“ The relationship of tile service to public welfare, so intimately affected by State and Federal regulation, demands the effective correlation and a concerted drive to meet an insistent and justified public demand. ”

“ AS soon as public service ceases to be the chief business of the citizens, and they would rather serve with their money than with their persons, the State is not far from its fall. ”

“ Nor is any person who can, in whatever way, render service to the state kept back on account of poverty or obscurity of station. Thus liberally are our public affairs administered, and thus liberally, too, do we conduct ourselves as to mutual suspicions in our private and every-day intercourse ”

“ We have endeavored to assist the citizen in his efforts to build up a small competence for himself and his dependents. We have therefore emphasized the administra­tion of the public resources in a manner to provide work and earning opportunities for the citizen to secure him food, shelter, and clothing, as well as, if possible, a modicum of sustenance and comfort in sickness and old age. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The habits of private life are continued in public; and we ought carefully to distinguish that economy which depends upon their institutions from that which is the natural result of their manners and customs. ”