Public trust

“ And those of us who manage the public's knowledge will be held to account, to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day, because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government. ”

“ Their connections of blood, of friendship, and of acquaintance, embrace a great proportion of the most influential part of the society. The nature of their public trust implies a personal influence among the People, and that they are more immediately the confidential guardians of the rights and liberties of the People. ”

“ Goodness therefore, as we understand it, is the only path to honor, and the necessary high character of all holders of public trust reflects a distinction greater that those of any other positions in life. This in turn, as you may readily perceive, induces a spirit of emulation to reach such elevated places, beyond all considerations of emolument. ”

“ A trust momentous in its influence upon our people and upon the world is for a brief time committed to us, and we must not be faithless to its first condition--the defense of the free and equal influence of the people in the choice of public officers and in the control of public affairs. ”

“ He thought a trust so great, so good a cause, Was only to be kept by guarding laws; For, public blessings firmly to secure, We must a lessening of the good endure. The public waters are to none denied ”

“ If elected to this high place of trust I shall regard myself solely as the servant of the public, solely as the representative of your sovereign will. As I raise the glass or peel the lemon, I shall not act in any individual capacity. ”

“ They have not in turn been applauded and condemned, unless they have betrayed public trust. They are the creation of our people under our exceptional system, that educates all and advances those who are most eminent and faithful ”

“ I conceive the possibility of each group developing into a trust, capable of acting in the interests of the city in years to come, exercising a mighty influence, being relied upon for guidance, and administering great funds for the common good. If we could get in each of our populous centres a dozen thoroughly intelligent broad-minded men, capable of watching all the streams of tendency—all the developments of civic life, bringing their judgment to bear on its progress, and urging the public to move in the right direction, a great service might be rendered. ”

“ That government involves a man in a great deal both of toil and care; he that is promoted over the trees must go up and down for them, and make himself a perfect drudge to business. [2.] That those who are preferred to places of public trust and power must resolve to forego all their private interests and advantages, and sacrifice them to the good of the community. ”

“ Moreover, in the various positions of public trust which he has filled he has always found it to be of the greatest assistance to resort to the most reliable authorities treating on the matters in hand and in these ways he has been able to accomplish something of what a liberal education might have done for him. ”

“ An individual professing such opinions would not only find himself excluded from every office of public trust within the scope of his reasonable ambition, but he would be regarded by his neighbours and fellow-citizens with an evil eye. ”

“ 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; ”

“ But I say, whenever men of sense and conscience acted in the discharge of grave public trusts and with a just appreciation of their responsibility, they always followed certain leading ideas, which stood supreme in their minds ”

“ The practice of all my predecessors imposes on me an obligation I cheerfully fulfill—to accompany the first and solemn act of my public trust with an avowal of the principles that will guide me in performing it and an expression of my feelings on assuming a charge so responsible and vast. ”

“ It is not fit that the public trusts should be lodged in the hands of any, till they have been first proved, and found fit for the business they are to be entrusted with; ”

“ It is the kind of Trust whose officers hide their faces when they think of what it was that they thought that they thought that they wanted....
"These men you see here, forty silent nations looking on, hundreds and thousands of self-respecting, self-supporting, public-serving, creative, successful business men, whom all the world envies looking on, do hereby beg to declare to all business men who know them and to the people, that they did not ever really want these things for themselves that their business says or seems to say they wanted. ”

“ To realize this aspiration, a healthy, intelligent public sentiment is necessary, and I verily believe that your organization, if its announced objects are kept steadily in view, will have a tendency to create such a sentiment. I trust your deliberations may be pleasant and harmonious, and that you may, one and all, return to your homes and your work inspired with a firm determination to do whatsoever you can to secure just laws, and to see that they are justly administered by just men. ”

“ Note, There is a woe to those who are in public trusts, but consult only their own private interest, and are more inquisitive about the benefice than about the office, what money is to be got than what good to be done. ”

“ And knowing that our government rests directly on the public will, in order that we may preserve it we endeavor to give a safe and proper direction to that public will. We do not, indeed, expect all men to be philosophers or statesmen; but we confidently trust, and our expectation of the duration of our system of government rests on that trust, that, by the diffusion of general knowledge and good and virtuous sentiments, the political fabric may be secure, as well against open violence and over [Pg 23] throw as against the slow, but sure, undermining of licentiousness. ”

“ Besides that, it should be repugnant to the vital principles of our Government virtually to exclude from public trusts talents and virtue unless accompanied by wealth. ”

“ It is not too much to require that what the wisest of mankind, those who are best entitled to trust their own judgment, find necessary to warrant their relying on it, should be submitted to by that miscellaneous collection of a few wise and many foolish individuals, called the public. ”

“ The inherent right of every citizen to reach the highest office of the government has so stimulated ambition that almost any one is willing to try for the position whether fit or not, and the same statement holds good regarding every other place of trust or profit in public or private life. ”

“ Any measures for controlling the great combinations must start from a right understanding of the law of value, neither underestimating nor overestimating their economic power. Public sentiment toward the trust question has changed somewhat in recent years, because the nature of trusts and the extent of their power are better understood. There is now less fear of them, and more confidence that they can be tamed and made to serve the welfare of society. ”

“ The greater concentration of capital in our modern industrial system, and the increasing values handled, necessitates the entrusting of greater responsibilities to individuals, in both public192 and private business, and it has not been found that the men selected for the higher positions of trust in public life were often recreant to the trust reposed in them, or inadequate to its responsibilities, even where much was left to their discretion. ”

“ When a man gets into his head an idea that the public voice calls for him, it is astonishing how great becomes his trust in the wisdom of the public. ”

“ and indeed one good man may take another’s word, if they so agree, but a whole nation ought never to trust to any honesty, but what is built upon necessity; for unhappy is the people, and their constitution will be ever precarious, whose welfare must depend upon the virtues and consciences of ministers and politicians. ”

“ It seems, certainly, to me, that whatever may be the best constitution of society, one mark of it will be the tendency to distribute all social functions according to the fitness of the agents; to place trust where trust is justifiable, and to give the fullest scope for every proved ability, intellectual, moral, and physical. ”

“ It must rely," he added, "upon the confidence and respect of the public for its just weight and influence, and it may be confidently asserted that neither with the people, nor with the country at large, nor with the other branches of the government, has there ever been found wanting that respect and confidence." ”

“ I am especially interested, I confess, as a student of British politics, in this matter of 'trusting the people.' All your great writers have led me to believe that here lies the essential difference between your system and ours, and that the great superiority of yours to ours is demonstrated in the confidence which your statesmen never hesitate to place in the wisdom, fortitude, and patriotism of the people. Frankly, I do not understand it. Trust must surely have some esoteric meaning when applied to your populace which foreigners are unable to apprehend. ”

“ The moment that the eagerness of our American Trusts is an eagerness for things that they really want, the Trusts will be seen piling over each other's heels, asking the government to please investigate them. The more they can get the people to know about them and about their eagerness, the more the people will trust them and deal with them. ”

“ It was desirable, that the sense of the People should operate in the choice of the person to whom so important a trust was to be confided. This end will be answered by committing the right of making it, not to any preëstablished body, but to men chosen by the People for the special purpose, and at the particular conjuncture. ”

“ That confidence is the root of society; it is the root of all the associations of men in public or private life; it is the root and foundation of all government. What more can you have, what better security can you have than written, solemn terms upon any subject which is to regulate government? ”

“ Honest affections, and common qualifications, are sufficient; and the administration has been always best executed, and the publick liberty best preserved, near the origin and rise of states, when plain honesty and common sense alone governed the publick affairs, and the morals of men were not corrupted with riches and luxury, nor their understandings perverted by subtleties and distinctions. Great abilities have, for the most part, if not always, been employed to mislead the honest, but unwary, multitude, and to draw them out of the open and plain paths of publick virtue and public good. ”

“ What will you think of yourselves, what will the world think of your business judgment and your sense of honesty, if in something far greater than your shop or your bank, if in the Government of your country you promote the man who has done this, to the highest place of honor and trust? ”

“ Let the people teach their officials the doctrine that a continuation of political existence depends wholly on fidelity to the public interests, and the honest, faithful and efficient administration of their official trusts. ”

“ To them, therefore, a religion connected with the state, and with their duty towards it, becomes even more necessary than in such societies where the people, by the terms of their subjection, are confined to private sentiments, and the management of their own family concerns. All persons possessing any portion of power ought to be strongly and awfully impressed with an idea that they act in trust, and that they are to account for their conduct in that trust to the one great Master, Author, and Founder of society. ”

“ I hold the maxim no less applicable to public than to private affairs, that honesty is always the best policy. Harmony, and a liberal intercourse with all nations, are recommended by policy, humanity and interest. ”

“ It is by this and other wise and practicable arrangements, that a confidence is to be established, "that the resources of the State will not only last our time," but extend to many generations; while the improvement of Public morals will contribute, in an eminent degree, to the happiness and prosperity of the country. ”

“ Besides this hearty kindness, {107} I cannot a little rejoice when I consider the perfect trust and sure confidence which you have put in me, as men having undoubted hope and unfeigned belief in my good doings and just proceedings for you, without my desire or request, have committed to mine order and disposition, all Chantries, Colleges, Hospitals, and other places specified in a certain act, firmly trusting that I will order them to the glory of God, and the profit of the commonwealth. ”

“ His political, like his business life, has been characterized by a straightforward honesty of purpose, by the strictest integrity, and by an energetic, able, and faithful performance of trusts accepted. ”

“ This is the greatest trust that can be committed by men to one another; and contains in it all that is valuable here on earth, the lives, the properties, the liberties, of your countrymen, and in a great measure of all Europe, and your own present and eternal happiness too. This great trust, Gentlemen, is not committed to you for your own sakes, but for the protection, security and happiness of those whom you represent. ”