Public force

“ The soldier is relieved from every care but that of his service; statesmen divide the business of civil government into shares; and the servants of the public, in every office, without being skilful in the affairs of state, may succeed, by observing forms which are already established on the experience of others. They are made, like the parts of an engine, to concur to a purpose, without any concert of their own: and equally blind with the trader to any general combination, they unite with him, in furnishing to the state its resources, its conduct, and its force. ”

“ To coordinate with public security force, armed police and security departments in their efforts to handle demonstrations, assembly and petitions that voice group complaints and call for intervention from government at a higher level. ”

“ But the strengthening of the police force of the city, its efficient organization under wise and competent leadership, is a policy that public sentiment has inaugurated and that it will sternly enforce. ”

“ Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined. ”

“ A public officer is justified in using force in performing his duty, so is a private individual in defending himself, his family or his property, or in enforcing lawful discipline at home, in school, on board a ship, or other public conveyance, or in restraining one mentally or physically incapacitated. ”

“ In effect, to follow, not to force, the public inclination,—to give a direction, a form, a technical dress, and a specific sanction, to the general sense of the community, is the true end of legislature. ”

“ All these tendencies are observable, and civil service reform is to be studied in connection with them and with all other political reform movements. Eternal vigilance, and not merely the mechanical selection of public officers, is the price of liberty. ”

“ He whose office it is to govern a supine or an abject people, cannot, for a moment, cease to extend his powers. Every execution of law, every movement of the state, every civil and military operation, in which his power is exerted, must serve to confirm his authority, and present him to the view of the public as the sole object of consideration, fear, and respect. ”

“ We saw those in authority with tyrannical insolence thrust the hand of power through the vast machinery of the public service into local and private affairs, and we saw the innumerable mass of their adherents accept those encroachments upon their independence without protest or resentment. ”

“ Take, for instance, the most essential function of all—that of maintaining order. A state government which could not escape and had the courage to meet its responsibilities would necessarily demand from the people a police force which was really capable of keeping the peace. ”

“ Let the officers of the Government understand that they can violate the laws of the land and the orders of their superiors with entire security, and what will become of their respect for the law and of their obedience to superior authority? Where will their lawless assumptions stop if we with thoughtless levity defend and justify them? Where will the safety of our public concerns be if we teach our public servants they can do what they please and we shall not hold them to account? ”

“ State authority must serve the welfare of the people, liberty, peace and the progress of democracy.
(6) Those active in public service are servants of the community as a whole and not of any one party. Their activity is supervised by the popular representative body. ”

“ Your former situation in the army, the present situation of that very army, your connections in the State, your perfect knowledge of men and measures, and the abilities which heaven has blessed you with, will give you a fine opportunity to forward the public service, by convincing the Legislature of the necessity of copious supplies, and by convincing all who have claims on the justice of Congress, that those claims exist only by that hard necessity which arises from the negligence of the States. ”

“ 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 ”

“ As you have permitted me to believe, it is your opinion no less than mine that to keep in place, or to reappoint, without regard to party affiliation, officers who have been conspicuously efficient in the discharge of their duties, who have maintained a good general character and who have not meddled with party politics beyond the ordinary exercise of a citizen's right, is a good rule, in fact a rule demanded by the public interest. ”

“ If the demand for military organization and a military establishment seems to come not from the officers of the State but from the public, it is only that it comes from the State-obsessed portion of the public, those groups which feel most keenly the State ideal. ”

“ The question before us now is law enforcement. As the constitution and statute stand, they are the express mandate of the people and must be respected by public officers and citizens as long as they remain. ”

“ From all the public servants responsibility is secured, by their being representatives, mediate or immediate, for short terms, and their powers defined. It is, on the whole complexion of it, a government of laws, not of men. ”

“ In civil matters even a change for the better is suspected on account of the commotion it occasions, for civil government is supported by authority, unanimity, fame, and public opinion, and not by demonstration. In the arts and sciences, on the contrary, every department should resound, as in mines, with new works and advances. ”

“ Because the government is established for his benefit. All the officers of the government are the agents of the citizens. The government is made for man, not man for the government, as Mr. Webster said. Public officers are trustees for the citizens, who are the cestuis que trustent—the beneficiaries. An individual born in a country becomes, so to speak, a citizen thereof by operation of law. ”

“ A public officer of state, whose business was to enquire into the private lives of the citizens, and to punish offences against morals, is a phenomenon which we have seen only once on this planet. There was never a nation before, and there has been none since, with sufficient virtue to endure it. ”

“ We have assumed so great a responsibility in necessary regulation that we unconsciously have assumed the responsibility for maintained service; therefore the lawful power for the enforcement. of decisions is necessary to sustain the majesty of government and to administer to the public welfare. ”

“ They had so long seen the public policy more or less directed by views of party, and often even of personal advantage, as to be ready to suspect the motives of a chief magistrate compelled, for the first time in our history, to feel himself the head and hand of a great nation, and to act upon the fundamental maxim, laid down by all publicists, that the first duty of a government is to defend and maintain its own existence. ”

“ Finally, it has control over the vast domain known as the police power, under which it makes regulations concerning public health, morals, and welfare, devises rules for the conduct of business and professions, and in other ways restrains the liberty of the citizen to do as he pleases. ”

“ But between the sovereign authority and arbitrary government there sometimes intervenes a mean power of which something must be said.
15. Deputies or Representatives 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. When it is necessary to march out to war, they pay troops and stay at home: when it is necessary to meet in council, they name deputies and stay at home. ”

“ Beyond all these departments of government are other tools at the service of the ruling class to help it maintain political dominance, regiment public opinion, terrorize and repress dissenters, employ and reward servants and agents of all kinds, to the end of constantly increasing its profits, intensifying its exploitation of the population and extending its enormous powers. ”

“ But what will happen if men who persist in regarding public place as the mere spoil of party warfare, and their official power as a legitimate means for serving the “machine,” are put at the head of public departments and entrusted with the management of civil service examinations? ”

“ In determining the course to be adopted on the demand thus made for a recognition of belligerency the liberal and peaceful principles adopted by the Father of his Country and the eminent statesmen of his day, and followed by succeeding Chief Magistrates and the men of their day, may furnish a safe guide to those of us now charged with the direction and control of the public safety. ”

“ And be it further enacted, That it shall be the duty of each officer assigned, as aforesaid, to protect all persons in their rights of person and property, to suppress insurrection, disorder, and violence, and to punish, or cause to be punished, all disturbers of the public peace and criminals ”

“ That is not a foreign but a familiar and domestic government whose officer is your next-door neighbor, whose representatives you deal with every day at the post-office and the custom- house, whose courts sit in your own State, and send their own marshals into your own county to arrest your own fellow-townsman, or to call you yourself by writ to their witness-stands. And who can help respecting officials whom he knows to be backed by the authority and even by the power of the whole nation, in the performance of the duties in which he sees them every day engaged? ”

“ Who will undertake to say, as a state officer, that the people may not give to the general government what powers, and for what purposes, they please? How comes it, sir, that these state governments dictate to their superiors—to the majesty of the people? ”

“ All law-makers, dispensing agents, public servants, must make a report of their administration when called on for it by the people. The rights of men are absolutely guaranteed by the laws being rigorously applied, impartially. ”

“ You will be more likely to persuade, if you describe the great system of public police which procures these advantages, if you explain the connexions and dependencies of its several parts, their mutual subordination to one another, and their general subserviency to the happiness of the society ”

“ I admit, however, that there are among us some persons whose interest in public affairs does need the stimulus of office to remain alive. I am far from denying that the ambition to serve one's country as a public officer is in itself a perfectly legitimate and honorable ambition. ”

“ Public servants had to be made aware that the interests of the people should be the highest object of their action; that to the Republic they owed their undivided devotion and their best efforts, and that they had no right to claim any advantage from their offices beyond the strict allowance of the law. Honor and duty should be their watchword. ”

“ By means of officials and their special powers it becomes a state. A public articulated and operating through representative officers is the state; there is no state without a government, but also there is none without the public. ”

“ For every separate section of the pauper host there are now at least two Public Authorities at work—sometimes three or four Public Authorities—with duplicated machinery, overlapping services, officers competing with each other on rival principles of action, in not a few cases simultaneously providing for the same persons without knowing of each other's work. ”

“ He lost no time in receiving the submission of the chiefs, and he conciliated more than four hundred of them. He organised the military occupation of the country. He established a civil government in all its branches, social, financial, and judicial, and organised an effective police force. ”

“ That we most respectfully call attention of all public officials to the potent influence of their position on all moral questions, and the necessity of greater care on their part, proportioned to the exalted nature of their offices which they occupy, that they may strengthen rather than weaken by their influence public and private observance of the Lord’s day. ”

“ The commanding general will labor vigilantly for the public Welfare, and in his efforts for their safety hopes to obtain not only the acquiescence, but the active support of the Loyal People of the Country. ”

“ The civil deeds of statesmen and lawgivers, in establishing and forming institutions, incorporating principles into the forms of public administration, and setting up the defences of public security and prosperity, are far less apt to attract and hold the attention of mankind, than the achievements of military life. ”

“ Every one is aware that there exists in the public mind considerable excitement against those authorities which have been appointed, under the sanction of the house, to maintain the public peace—I allude of course to the body which is known by the name of the new police. ”

“ The public servant who proves himself faithful and efficient is, therefore, wherever the law is honestly observed, substantially secure, no matter to what party he may belong. And it may be said that under the National Government, the law, as far as it reaches, is honestly observed. ”

“ When public bodies are engaged in the exercise of general powers, you cannot judge of the propriety of their conduct, but from the result of their systems. They may be forming plans which required time and diligence to bring to maturity. ”