Public use

“ To preserve, to improve, and to perpetuate the sources and to direct in their most effective channels the streams which contribute to the public weal is the purpose for which Government was instituted. ”

“ Our national and state and municipal governments have already done an enormous amount of necessary preliminary work in gathering and organizing essential information. Popular and systematic thought is asserting its freedom from arbitrary conventional philosophies. ”

“ I am disposed to agree with what has been surmised by others, that the opportunity which my official position gave me of learning by personal observation the necessary conditions of the practical conduct of public affairs, has been of considerable value to me as a theoretical reformer of the opinions and institutions of my time. Not, indeed, that public business transacted on paper, to take effect on the other side of the globe, was of itself calculated to give much practical knowledge of life. ”

“ Promote, then, as an object of primary importance, institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge. In proportion as the structure of a government gives force to public opinion, it should be enlightened. ”

“ To meet that natural demand, to satisfy those intellectual affections and aspirations of the people, this institution has arisen; and it has endeavored to fulfill its location in a spirit commensurate with those wants on the part of the public, to which it owes its existence and its prosperity. ”

“ It consists partly of the degree in which they promote the general mental advancement of the community, including under that phrase advancement in intellect, in virtue, and in practical activity and efficiency, and partly of the degree of perfection with which they organize the moral, intellectual, and active worth already existing, so as to operate with the greatest effect on public affairs. ”

“ They place themselves in touch with the public schools, the press, and all the state agencies of influence and control. Knowing the needs and demands of the people, they take the lead in the line of natural progress. ”

“ But with regard to one subject after another, such as primary education or sanitation, or the ordinary matters of municipal government, the community has come to the conclusion that it is in the public interest that these services should be rendered to all who need or claim them, whatever their affluence. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And many will indulge the hope that our present condition may, after all, be only transitional, and may conduct to a higher, in which property, besides ministering to the enjoyment of the few, may also furnish the means of the highest culture to all, and will be a greater benefit to the public generally, and also more under the control of public authority. ”

“ Although the absolute necessity of system, in the conduct of any business, is universally known and acknowledged, yet the high importance of it in national affairs has not yet become sufficiently impressed on the public mind. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In this we ought to take nature for our guide, and throw into the public stock the offices of general utility, by a reciprocation of duties; sometimes by receiving, sometimes by giving, and sometimes to cement human society by arts, by industry, and by our resources. ”

“ This society was organized to supply such a need. It is both a society and a publication house. The need and demand came from every quarter for facts, statistics, arguments and appeals upon every phase of the question, in neat, cheap and compact form, which, could be sent everywhere and used by everybody. Public opinion had settled down against us, and light was needed to arouse it to right action. ”

“ In a vast undertaking like the plan proposed, the interests of the Government and the general interests of the public must be specially kept in view and particularly attended to. By attending closely to these interests, the Government will find that it best and most effectually consults the interests of individuals, places and communities. ”

“ It is for this reason that so great importance attaches to the diffusion among the people of knowledge of the principles government should be constructed upon that its administration may be productive of the greatest individual, and the greatest public good, which it is possible to obtain from the application of the highest evolved ideas. ”

“ 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 do not mean that the transaction of public business has esoteric mysteries, only to be understood by the initiated. Its principles are all intelligible to any person of good sense, who has in his mind a true picture of the circumstances and conditions to be dealt with ”

“ They suggest that a community may with advantage consider its affairs from two points of view—through the eyes of a body elected to represent trades, industries, professions, public services, and the like, a body representing function, and through the eyes of a second body elected by localities to represent communities. ”

“ The chief political value of such private men, in there associated capacity, and the special advantage they possess over all other bodies convened for consultation with a view to the public good, consist in their being free to discuss and advocate just measures, with simple directness and without side issues, and in their ability to enlighten, advance and fortify public opinion in respect to these measures. ”

“ Look at the question of public works as it affects twenty nations speaking twenty languages; where there is no municipal power and no combinations of any kind, such as facilitate the construction of public works in this country. ”

“ The ancient commonwealths thought themselves entitled to practise, and the ancient philosophers countenanced, the regulation of every part of private conduct by public authority, on the ground that the State had a deep interest in the whole bodily and mental discipline of every one of its citizens ”

“ The demand for intelligent and effective citizenship is increasing daily, for two reasons: First—The problems of public life and of public service, of communal existence, are daily becoming more complex, more difficult of satisfactory solution. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is their function to contribute service to the production of Artificial Objects50 by preserving public order, defining and protecting private rights, distinguishing and conserving common rights, and managing or providing for the management of common affairs. ”

“ The public institution that wants to acquire that valuable asset, reputation, whether it is a reputation for kindliness, for helpfulness, for common sense, for scholarly acquirements, will have to make up its mind to be kind, helpful, sensible, and scholarly, not fifty per cent or seventy-five per cent of the time, but one hundred per cent of the time. ”

“ The education of the common people requires, perhaps, in a civilized and commercial society, the attention of the public, more than that of people of some rank and fortune. ”

“ These, though professing no devotion to the interest of others, and little that could be called public spirit, did nevertheless understand that in return for the high rank, the great power, and the liberal remuneration they would enjoy, they were bound to consider primarily the public interest in the performance of their functions—the right of society to just or at least to carefully legal judgment, and diligent efficient administration. ”

“ The idea that those who control an institution should be familiar with its details appears to originate in an analogy with a man’s control of his own private affairs, when his occupation and income{41} make it necessary that he should attend to all those affairs personally. The citizen who digs and plants his own garden must understand some of the details of gardening. ”

“ GOVERNMENT AS PUBLIC WILL Government Not the Only Agent of Public Will—The Relative Point of View; Advantages of Government as an Agent—Mechanical Tendency of Government—Characteristics Favorable to Government Activity—Municipal Socialism—Self-expression the Fundamental Demand of the People—Actual Extension of State Functions.
In the growth of public will any agency amenable to public opinion may serve as an instrument ”

“ In their federations less and less is heard of technical differences, and more of a desire to secure the good will of the general public by means of a cool, deliberate presentation of views upon public questions primarily affecting them. ”

“ There is some ground for holding that the objects of a historical society would be promoted by administering a devise and bequest to maintain for the public instruction and benefit a house containing a collection of books, documents, and works of art, with other such books and works to be selected by the officers of the society and purchased out of the surplus income, and that the purposes of the trust are, in the words of Mr. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Public Services — I also propose greater outlays by the Government for public services designed to improve the general living standards of the people, particularly in the less developed areas of this country. ”

“ At a very early period in the history of the community, the interest that each citizen has in the wise and effectual regulation of such matters as these becomes conspicuous to all, and more especially to those usually, or, on the average, more advanced and intelligent members of the community who find themselves charged, through, it may be, a series of political vicissitudes, with the duties of government. ”

“ Again, the Public is like a nest of patent coffins packed for exportation, one within another. There are Publics of all sizes, from the genus generalissimum, the great general universal Public, whom London is not large enough to hold, to the species specialissima, the little Thinking Public, which may find room in a nutshell. ”

“ 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. ”

“ For what is applicable to our wants, habits, and necessities as a community or state, must necessarily to some extent be determined from the nature and genius of our government and institutions. Or, in other words, 412to determine whether a particular principle harmonizes with the spirit of our institutions, we must look to the habits and condition of the society which has created and lived under these institutions. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The fact that the State or community is the employer gives it a great power over the lives of ordinary citizens, since it can deny them access to the use of these instruments. But the State is not an abstraction but a group of men—clerks, bureaucrats, politicians, statesmen, philosophers—call them what you will. ”

“ We may consider these paternal functions of government under three heads: the improvement of human environment, to make it more beautiful and convenient; the development, through educational agencies, of the mental and moral life of the people; and the improvement, by various means, of the human stock itself. ”

“ But these duties become diversified and specialized according as we view man either in the light of the private functions he fills in society, which are his professional duties, or in the light of the particular society of which he is a member, and which is called the State or the country, and these are the civic duties. ”