Will Rogers Quotes

I would argue that one of the issues which the public should be much more emphatic about with all politicians... is patronage, appointing people to high positions because they supported your campaign or helped you raise money.

The American people do not want ambassadorships or any other position handed out to save a party money.

The great defect in the past custom is that executive patronage has come to be regarded as the property of the party in power.

Jindal's record in Louisiana is controversial, in part because, in a state which has historically favored patronage culture and a bureaucracy that offered uninterrupted employment for those who backed the right horse, he aimed to destroy the old spoils system.

Patronage is almost a wicked word. By itself it could well-nigh defeat democracy.

Every single administration in American political history has put cronies and pals and donors into political positions. But normally those people become the ambassador to Liechtenstein or the deputy undersecretary of commerce.

It's very simple. If the American people care about a lot of things including corruption in government, then, in fact, if you use the power to appoint in order to do political business, to clear fields, to save your party money and so on, if it's not a crime - and I believe it is - it certainly is business as usual, politics of corruption.

'Favoritism' is always a factor, and pressure always build for the appointment of friends of influential supporters of the President, or for the nominees of powerful Member of Congress from the incoming President's party.

I would sooner attack either of those gentlemen in the open street than consent to oppose any local appointment they might desire to make in their respective states.

There can be no complete and permanent reform of the civil service until public opinion emancipates congressmen from all control and influence over government patronage ... No proper legislation is to be expected as long as members of Congress are engaged in procuring offices for their constituents

Andrew Jackson was tempered, arrogant, violent and a ferocious partisan who introduced the spoils system into government.

The success of any executive measure must now be bought by the use of political patronage in influencing the action of legislators.

I will devote none of my time to developing laws to increase my own patronage and multiply canvassers [electors] in my favor.

I will not dismiss, or drop from Executive offices, able and faithful political opponents to provide for my own partisans.

No man who ever held the office of President would congratulate a friend on obtaining it. He will make one man ungrateful, and a hundred men his enemies, for every office he can bestow.

Throughout most of Chicago's history, the Civil Service Commission has been enmeshed in partisan politics. Thousands of city employees were given temporary appointments and kept in this status, year after year, in order to keep them loyal partisan political workers.

The Senate has no army, no navy, no patronage, no lucrative offices, nor glittering honors to bestow. Around us there is no swarm of greedy expectants rendering us homage, anticipating our wishes, and ready to execute our commands. How is it with the President [Andrew Jackson]? Is he powerless? He is felt from one extremity to the other of this republic. By means of principles which he has introduced [the spoils system], and innovations which he has made in our institutions, alas! but too much countenanced by Congress and a confiding people, he exercises uncontrolled the power of the state. In one hand he holds the purse and in the other brandishes the sword of the country! Myriads of dependents and partisans scattered over the land are ever ready to sing hosannas to him and to laud to the skies what ever he does. He has swept over the government like a tropical tornado.

Our citizens have the right to protection from the incompetency of public employees who hold their places solely as the reward of partisan service, and from the corrupting influence of those who promise and the vicious methods of those who expect such rewards; and those who worthily seek public employment have the right to insist that merit and competency shall be recognized instead of party subserviency or the surrender of honest political belief.

Politics are impossible without spoils.... You have to deal with men as they are ... you must bribe the masses with spoils.

What we affirm is that the theory which regards places in the public service as prizes to be distributed after an election, like plunder after a battle, the theory which perverts public trusts into party spoils, making public employment dependent on favor and not on proved merit, necessarily ruins the self-respect of public employees, destroys the function of party in a republic, prostitutes elections into a desperate strife for personal profit, and degrades the national character by lowering the moral tone and standard of the country.

The civil service reform movement fits into a pattern of those out of power verses those in power.

It is a handicap to any man to succeed a member of his own party as President. He has little patronage with which to reward his personal supporters.

What we called the Civil Service was, in the main, merely a mass of Republican political appointees frozen into office by act of Congress.

I shall at all times be ready to recognize the paramount claims of the soldiers of the nation in the disposition of public trusts [patronage].

Appointments to office were not to be made nor expected merely as rewards for partisan services, nor merely on the nomination of members of Congress, as being entitled in any respect to the control of such appointments.