Ulysses S. Grant Quotes

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.

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.

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

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.

I am against government by crony.

It is too early to tell where Mobutu will draw the line between corruption and the ‘normal’ use of payments and patronage to facilitate operations.

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

The U.S. army confirmed that it gave a lucrative fire fighting contract in Iraq to the firm once run by the Vice President Dick Cheney without any competitive bidding. When asked if this could be conceived as Cheney's friends profiting from the war, the spokesman said 'Yes.'

It is true that power corrupts. The hope at the polling stations and the actions of the elected representatives, unfortunately, often turn to be opposite. The power of ballot turns into the power of wallet. Some law-makers become law-breakers.

Politics, as the word is commonly understood, are nothing but corruptions.

Modi government has not flouted any rule or regulation to help anyone.

I believe that cronyism is nothing more than welfare for the rich and powerful, and should be abolished.

Occupants of public offices love power and are prone to abuse it.

The People will have unfounded Power. And the People are extremely addicted to Corruption and Venality, as well as the Great. I am not without Apprehensions from this Quarter.

A President cannot call men from all parts of the country during the time between his nomination and his election, seek their advice, their counsel, their service, their cooperation in his personal behalf and in behalf of the party ... and also tell them in the same breath, to see the Secretary of War, the Attorney General and the Postmaster General about a presidential nomination.

The Reagan people want four more years, but the way they're going some of them will get ten to twenty.

I have heard in highest places the shameless doctrine avowed by men grown old in public office that the true way by which power should be gained in the Republic is to bribe the people with the offices created for their service.

Friendship is the most corrupting influence in politics.

In certain corrupt conditions of a State, conspicuous success is more dangerous than failure.

As long as government exists, corruption will exist. It is an illness of government and can only be cured by the people.

The world will go on much as it did before; and be always quite bad enough to allow bribery and corruption, jobbery and nepotism, quackery and arrogance, their full influence over our home and foreign policy.

Every President does it. It goes back to George Washington. I can’t say that past Administrations have asked the same questions, but the end result is the same—you put people on boards that you want.

Under Karl Rove’s leadership, crony capitalism became a Biblical injunction.

Lincoln left the bulk of the nominations for presidential as well as for subordinate offices to his political friends and advisors. The military forces as well as the civilian establishment were exploited freely, and political generals were notoriously numerous. With more offices at his disposal than any president up to that time, … Lincoln appears to have used — or permitted the use of — the appointing power at his command as deliberately as they could have been used for practical, and usually partisan, political purposes.

the career bureaucracy can project greater political power on its own, resist more successfully the politician's attempts to assert effective control. What is lost in administrative efficiency through spoils may be gained in political development, especially if party patronage can also be used as a lever to gain control over administration.