Public office

“ Many a time you have given the people to understand that you regarded public office as a public trust. When you oppose what is generally looked upon as demanded by the public voice as well as the public interest, it must be expected that you have weighty reasons for it — reasons corresponding with your character and station. ”

“ When you tell me that such a casual remark about preferring private station must be taken as a conclusive reason against bringing that man forward for office, if he is otherwise fit and desirable, you will certainly not expect me to receive that statement without a smile. Have we not both heard it said many a time that not the man should seek the office, but the office the man? Do we not both remember many instances when public men were urged and finally prevailed upon to take office, much against their original desire? ”

“ To secure the fitness and competency of appointees to office and remove from political action the demoralizing madness for spoils, civil- service reform has found a place in our public policy and laws. ”

“ It is shown in the readiness for argument, in which every one can express himself accurately and effectively; in the indefatigable demand that every public office shall be open to the humblest incumbent, and in the cool assurance with which thousands and thousands of persons, without any technical knowledge or professional training, assume the most exacting political offices, and become postmasters, mayors, ministers and ambassadors, without even pausing before their grave responsibilities. ”

“ But what man is fit to hold office? Only he who regards political office as a public trust, and not as a private perquisite to be used for the pecuniary advantage of himself or his family, or even his party. ”

“ A situation in a public office is secure, but laborious and mechanical, and without the two great springs of life, Hope and Fear. ”

“ At the head of every public office was a man who had been appointed or elected chiefly for partisan reasons; who served only for a short time; who could become familiar with the work of his office, if at all, only slowly ”

“ That is what I should like to see happen to about half of our professional politicians at home. Then the other half might understand that holding a public office is a very serious business, and is not merely meant to furnish them with a livelihood and with places for their wives’ relations. ”

“ About forty years ago a system of making appointments to office grew up, based on the maxim, "to the victors belong the spoils." The old rule—the true rule—that honesty, capacity, and fidelity constitute the highest claim to office, gave place to the idea that partisan services were to be chiefly considered. ”

“ Dear Sir,—The House of Representatives having yesterday concluded their choice of a person for the chair of the United States and willed me that office, it now becomes necessary to provide an administration composed of persons whose qualifications and standing have possessed them of the public confidence, and whose wisdom may ensure to our fellow-citizens the advantages they sanguinely expect. ”

“ The civil officials with which the public is most familiar are postal employees, officers of the federal courts, and revenue officials. Such persons usually hold office while their party is in power or during good behavior. Long tenure of office tends to conservative measures and the spirit of bureaucracy, while a system by which civil office is regarded as party spoil tends to corruption and inefficiency. The business of administration is becoming increasingly important in the modern state. ”

“ Let our public offices—municipal, state, and federal—be filled with men who are in love with the human kind, large men, men whose lives are founded upon this great law of service, and we will then have them filled with statesmen. Never let this glorious word be disgraced, degraded, by applying it to the little, self-centred whelps who are unable to get beyond the politician stage. ”

“ The legislator seeks to obtain that office for his retainer from the executive, representing it as an appointment to be made in the public interest, while in fact it is the carrying out of a private bargain. ”

“ Here are provisions determining the main features of the Government, the distribution of powers in the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial departments, and the manner in which they shall be respectively constituted,—securing to the President, with the consent of the Senate, the appointment of Governor, Secretary, and Judges, and to the people only the election of the Legislature,—and even ordaining the qualifications of voters, the salaries of the public officers, and the daily compensation of the members of the Legislature. ”

“ Power to govern is distributed by the accident of birth or by the possession of qualities which enable a person to obtain office, but which are quite irrelevant to the performance of its representative functions. But the need which calls forth the organization of the public by means of rulers and agencies of government persists and to some extent is incarnated in political fact. ”

“ Yet it would not be a cast-iron system: a certain number of men who had shown decided fitness in various high public offices, or in important branches of public or private business, could be appointed, whenever the public interest should seem to require it, as ministers resident, ministers plenipotentiary, and ambassadors, without having gone through examination or regular promotion. ”

“ Whatever was required to be done, the Circumlocution Office was beforehand with all the public departments in the art of perceiving—HOW NOT TO DO IT.
Through this delicate perception, through the tact with which it invariably seized it, and through the genius with which it always acted on it, the Circumlocution Office had risen to overtop all the public departments; ”

“ FELLOW-COUNTRYMEN:—At this second appearing to take the oath of the presidential office there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then a statement somewhat in detail of a course to be pursued seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention and engrosses the energies of the nation, little that is new could be presented. ”

“ The public character of every public servant is legitimate subject of discussion, and his fitness or unfitness for office may be fairly canvassed by any person. ”

“ 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? ”

“ In the scheme of our national Government the Presidency is preëminently the people’s office. ”

“ Reform is necessary, even more, in the higher grades of the public service. President, Vice-President, Judges, Senators, Representatives, Cabinet officers—these, and all others in authority—are the people’s servants. ”

“ In the judgment of not a few who have given study and reflection to this matter, the nation has outgrown the provisions which the Constitution has established for filling the minor offices in the public service. ”

“ We have a comprehensive examination system in the civil service, and every officeholder, except members of the Cabinet, retains his office while efficiently performing his duty, without regard to politics. ”

“ But nowadays, for the sake of the advantage which is to be gained from the public revenues and from office, men want to be always in office. ”

“ Thus early imbued with the idea of self-government, and entrusted with the responsibilities of its administration, these children when grown up, take a deep interest in federal and municipal affairs, and, when elected for office, invariably perform their duties efficiently and with credit to themselves. ”

“ Let any man calculate in his own mind, the improbability of a member of the general government getting into an office, when he cannot fill any office newly created, and when he finds all the old offices filled at the time he enters into congress. ”

“ From the man who shoes your horse to the lawyer who pleads your case, the officers who manage your railway, the doctor into whose hands you give your life, or the minister who seeks to save your souls, what now do you reject because you have tried him and by his works have known him? What makes the Presidential office an exception to all things else in the common sense to be applied to selecting its incumbent? ”

“ In the performance of a task thus generally delineated I shall endeavor to select men whose diligence and talents will insure in their respective stations able and faithful cooperation, depending for the advancement of the public service more on the integrity and zeal of the public officers than on their numbers. ”

“ Local legislative bodies, for example,—in America, state legislatures and in England, county councils,—might confer rank on a limited number of men or women yearly; juries drawn from certain special constituencies, from the roll of the medical profession, or from the Army, might assemble periodically to nominate their professional best, the Foreign or Colonial Office might confer recognition for political services, the university governing bodies might be entrusted with the power—just as in the middle ages many great men could confer knighthood. ”

“ From the General Government down through all the ramifications of legislation and administration to the petty town officials, the places are filled by partisan professionals, so that the first presumption in regard to an office-holder is that he is unfit for the place. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Popular Rule through Representatives.—Although public opinion exerts a guiding influence upon the course of government, the actual work of making the laws and putting them into operation must be performed, for the most part, by individuals selected for this purpose, that is by elective or appointive officers. ”

“ But the public know little of the permanent official who keeps the traditions and experience of the department, whose judgment is always an element, often a preponderating element, in eventful decisions, and whose pen drafts the despatches which go forth in the name of the Government. ”

“ The exercise of intrigue and backstair influence being a bar to office, the offices of government are filled with the most intelligent, upright, and valuable men in the country, selected with the sole view of promoting the best interests of the nation. ”

“ 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 ”

“ It thus appears that the only governments, not representative, in which high political skill and ability have been other than exceptional, whether under monarchical or aristocratic forms, have been essentially bureaucracies. The work of government has been in the hands of governors by profession, which is the essence and meaning of bureaucracy. Whether the work is done by them because they have been trained to it, or they are trained to it because it is to be done by them, makes a great difference in many respects, but none at all as to the essential character of the rule. ”

“ Any government fit for a high state of civilization would have as one of its fundamental elements a small body, not exceeding in number the members of a cabinet, who should act as a Commission of Legislation, having for its appointed office to make the laws. ”

“ Only a few score men served the king as ministers, councillors, or judges; only a few hundred attended Parliament; while as lords lieutenant, sheriffs, justices of the peace, constables, church-wardens, mayors, aldermen, and in other capacities of local and limited but real power, many thousands must have taken a part in public affairs. ”

“ Under the benign influence of a free government, both our public institutions and private pursuits, our juries, elections, courts of justice, the liberal professions, and the mechanical arts, have each become a school of political science and of mental improvement. The federal legislature, in the annual message of the President, in reports of heads of departments, and committees of Congress, and speeches of members, pours forth a flood of intelligence which carries its waves to the remotest confines of the republic. ”

“ 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. ”

“ While the public mind is agitated and wild excitement tramples upon reason, the Executive has a right to look to the legislative department of the Government for wise and sagacious counsels. Representing the creative power of law, the high responsibilities upon you demand that you indignantly frown upon any and every attempt to subvert the laws, and substitute in their stead the will of revolutionary leaders. ”