"Officialdom" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... is the manner in which, under the name of authority, compulsion is exercised by subordinate officialdom and in especial by the police, as much as the compulsion itself, which irritates in Germany. Every profession, business, trade, and occupation, down to that of selling matches and newspapers in the streets, is meticulously regulated; ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... obvious reasons, the Australians rode forth to inquire into the matter. A mist of obscurity hangs over their doings until the moment when they saw before them an open landau—or gharry, as it is termed in Egypt—with an escort bearing all the trappings of high officialdom, proceeding at a gentle trot some distance away over the plain. This seemed to be fair game, so with a wild "Coo-ee" the Light Horse charged down upon the totally unsuspecting party. The driver of the gharry lost his head and his seat simultaneously, the vehicle overturned and pinned the unfortunate ...
— With Our Army in Palestine • Antony Bluett
... anti-Semitism which characterized the rule of the Romanovs was Prussian and not Russian. He knew that it had long been one of the main features of Germany's foreign policy to instigate and stimulate hatred and fear of the Jews by Russian officialdom. There could not be a more tragic mistake than to infer from the ruthless oppression of the Jews in Russia that anti-Semitism is characteristically Russian. Surely, the fact that the First Duma was practically unanimous in deciding to give equal rights ...
— Bolshevism - The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy • John Spargo
... more, but which is itself never the actual player upon the stage. It is the unseen dramatist who never takes a call. Now it was just through the fact that our group about the Baileys didn't understand this, that with a sort of frantic energy they were trying to develop that sham expert officialdom of theirs to plan, regulate, and direct the affairs of humanity, that the perplexing note of silliness and shallowness that I had always felt and felt now most acutely under Britten's gibes, came in. They were neglecting human life altogether in ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... countenanced the Land-despoiler, Karl Alexander was also ruled by a favourite, into whose hands he confided the administration of the Dukedom. This favourite was Joseph Suess Oppenheimer, a Frankfort Jew. To the horror of officialdom, Suess was made Minister of Finance, and, in point of fact, chief adviser to ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... roubles in his pocket, Russian officialdom is not so gracious. By the expenditure of a few more coins I got my dog through the Customs without trouble, and had leisure to look about me. A miserable object was being badgered by half a dozen men in uniform, and he—his lean face puckered up into a snarl—was ...
— Idle Ideas in 1905 • Jerome K. Jerome
... did not inaugurate the spoils system, he at least gave it a mission. It was to save the country from the curse of officialdom. His successor, Van Buren, brought the system to a perfection that only the experienced politician could achieve. Van Buren required of all appointees partizan service; and his own nomination, at Baltimore, was made a ...
— The Boss and the Machine • Samuel P. Orth
... Mister, if I enter a gentle protest About the manner in which you comport yourself When taking the air about the streets. For, looking at you, one would form the opinion That you were a man of much worth and nobility, That you were high in officialdom, A councillor of the king or a learned judge, Or one whose piety and wisdom Had marked him out to sit above ...
— Song Book of Quong Lee of Limehouse • Thomas Burke
... as you, Kiselyov, and all the Zemsky Natchalniks and tax inspectors of my acquaintance—all extremely decent people, worthy of complete confidence. And I resolved—if only for a small region—to combine the two elements of officialdom and private initiative. I want to come and consult you as soon as I can. The public trusts me; it would trust you, too, and I might reckon on succeeding. Do you remember I wrote to you? Suvorin came to Moscow at the time; I complained to him ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... territory. The same events inspired Max Schneckenburger's Wacht am Rhein, which at the time could not compete in popularity with Becker's poem, but in later years has quite supplanted it as a permanent national song. German officialdom, which had looked askance at all political poetry, easily saw the value to the national defense of such patriotic strains, and now encouraged these national singers with gifts and honors. But political ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... movement, around which they are trying to rally their dwindling forces. It is then but consequent to have the burden of their message and the policy of their apostolate bear on Citizenship. The inevitable and perfidious neutrality of state officialdom unconsciously seconds their efforts in this direction. But the most efficient co-operators in this nefarious work are the fallen-away Ruthenians. They have a smattering of education which makes them the ...
— Catholic Problems in Western Canada • George Thomas Daly
... national was contemned. Sentiment grew democratic, in so far (perhaps it was not very far) as American democratic ideals were understood. Love of country seemed likely to yield to a humble bowing down before foreign models. Officialdom not unnaturally took fright at this abdication of national individualism. Evidently something must be done to turn the tide. Accordingly, patriotic sentiment was appealed to through the throne, whose hoary antiquity had ever been a source of pride to Japanese literati, who loved ...
— The Invention of a New Religion • Basil Hall Chamberlain
... was so fortunate as to gain the wicket before the employee there awoke to the situation. Otherwise, such is the temper of British petty officialdom, he might have detained the fugitive. As it was, Kirkwood surrendered his ticket and ran out into the street with his luck still a dominant factor in the race. For, looking back, he saw that Mrs. Hallam had been held ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... on and it would be no true friendship to advise it to ignore the feeling which existed among an important, if numerically small, section of its followers. Altogether at the opening of the session the majority was much less happy, the minority in far finer feather, than anybody had expected. Only officialdom or ignorance could refuse the ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... Public-minded Jews strained every nerve to avert the calamity. Jewish representatives journeyed to St. Petersburg and Warsaw to plead the cause of their brethren. Negotiations were entered into with dignitaries of high rank and with men of influence in the world of officialdom. Rumor had it that immense bribes had been offered to Novosiltzev and several high officials in St. Petersburg for the purpose of receiving their co-operation. But even the intercession of leading dignitaries was powerless to change the will of the Tzar. He chafed ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow
... added. "After all these weary months of hoping, and long-distance broomstick practice, and of parachute practice, and of conflict with narrow officialdom, I have come—and this is the result. I am separated from my broomstick, which has all the germ-bombs hanging from its collar—the germs are those of dissension and riot—I am marooned upon ...
— Living Alone • Stella Benson
... public duties; his View of the State of Ireland shows that. But it shows, too, that he brought to them singularly little sympathy or imagination. Throughout his tone is that of the worst kind of English officialdom; rigid subjection and in the last resort massacre are the remedies he would apply to Irish discontent. He would be a fine text—which might be enforced by modern examples—for a discourse on the evil ...
— English Literature: Modern - Home University Library Of Modern Knowledge • G. H. Mair
... appalling ruin by his thefts and extravagances—for we all knew he was a robber—and was driving the people to madness. The Bourgeois Philibert was their mouthpiece. If the chateau of St. Louis stood out as the castle of the military officialdom and the Intendants Palace as the castle of the civil officialdom, the house of the Bourgeois Philibert was the castle of the people, standing against them perched upon the cliff at the head of the artery of traffic which united ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall
... place—preferably in Cornwall." Or again, "I want and mean—if it is permitted—to live in a small cottage in the country; to say mass and office, and to write books. I think that is honestly my highest ideal. I hate fuss and officialdom and backbiting—I wish to be at peace with God and man." This was his dream. The house at Hare Street was ...
— Hugh - Memoirs of a Brother • Arthur Christopher Benson
... the little group between Send and the Thames, but is not otherwise remarkable. The village is not much more than a farmhouse and a noble barn; perhaps Wisley is better known for its pond and its garden. The garden, unhappily, is almost a thing of the past. Experiment and officialdom have settled heavily on its sandy soil, and the wilder charm of the old pleasance has left it. A few years ago, when its late owner, Mr. Wilson of Weybridge, was alive, it was a delight to many hundreds of visitors, whom the owner generously allowed to share in his pleasure in rare ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... out into the night again, wondering if perdition can equal De Aar for miserable discomfort, and De Aar officialdom for inconsequence. The third siding, indeed! It was an hour before the saloon was found in ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer
... families aloof from the government and buying peace and privilege from it. So Washington's fashionable society has come to realize, even more clearly than does the rest of the country, that, despite spasmodic struggles and apparent spurts of reaction, power has passed to the plutocracy, and that officialdom is, as a rule, servant verging toward slave. Still, form is a delusion of tenacious hold upon the human mind. The old lady's discoveries of Craig's political prospects did not warm her toward him as would news that he was in the way of being vastly rich; but she retained enough of the fading ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... he fought have not all been won yet. Officialdom still dawdles over the work of the State, hearts are still broken by the law's delays, the path of crime still lies too easily open to the young. Vast progress has been made; a humane spirit is to be found in the working of our Government, ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... about them. He had seen many Bon dances and had heard many Bon songs. There can be no doubt that there has been some unenlightened interference with the Bon gathering. The country people seem to be suffering from the determination of officialdom to make an end of everything in country as well as town that may be considered "uncivilised" by any foreigner, however ill instructed. In towns the sexes are not accustomed to meet, but country people must work together; ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... beautiful Bombay, and high above the Arabian Sea—it is Nature's beauty spot, embowered in graceful shrubbery and palms, with fragrant flowers everywhere. The governor of Bombay Presidency resides at Malabar Point, further along, and the homes of men high in officialdom or commerce occupy every available site in the neighborhood. The Towers, five in number, are of whitewashed stone and cement, 275 feet in circumference, and perhaps twenty-five feet high. An iron door admits the corpse of the Parsee, and ...
— East of Suez - Ceylon, India, China and Japan • Frederic Courtland Penfield
... amounted in practice to absolute irresponsibility. Now irresponsibility is demoralising to any administration, however democratic be the principles upon which its officials are selected. A bureaucracy, ruling without proper external control, becomes a prey to the demons of red tape, routine, officialdom and place-hunting; it tends to stifle individual initiative and the sense of moral responsibility, since it forgets the real object of its existence—the good government of the country—in its passion for self-preservation and its desire to ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,
... that all imprisonment is rather terrible, and that all absolute authority (especially among underlings) is apt to become tyrannous. In the prison camps of every nation it is examples of a foolish military officialdom that make for embitterment and degradation; and in these camps, too, it is the tact which comes of true insight, that is doing much for that brotherhood of hearts which is the only way to peace. "These people," says Eugster in another place, "ought ...
— The Better Germany in War Time - Being some Facts towards Fellowship • Harold Picton
... and registered in the official documents, it turned out, at our first stopping-place, that the trunk of our new companion had been substituted for one of our own, which, of course, was left behind. It was ultimately recovered, I believe, but it seemed as if the entire world of French officialdom had to be upheaved from its foundations in order ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... talk lacked local picturesqueness. Sir Luke preferred the Blacks, and started the question of danger to white men in the out-districts. How far had officialdom penetrated into the back blocks? He understood that Mr McKeith had explored for the laying of a telegraph-line to the Big Bight. Could Mr McKeith give him any information ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... from Auckland. It is hoped the same ship that takes this off Europewards may bring his orders and our news. But which is it to be? Heads or tails? If it is to be German, I hope they will deport me; I should prefer it so; I do not think that I could bear a German officialdom, and should probably have to leave sponte mea, which is only less picturesque ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... prosperous city, a second Angouleme rivaling the upper town, the residence of the powers that be, the lords spiritual and temporal of Angouleme; though L'Houmeau, with all its business and increasing greatness, was still a mere appendage of the city above. The noblesse and officialdom dwelt on the crag, trade and wealth remained below. No love was lost between these two sections of the community all the world over, and in Angouleme it would have been hard to say which of the two camps detested the other the more cordially. Under the Empire ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... the old-time Episcopal Palace with its fine arcaded Romanesque gallery overlooking the river, where the prelates took their "constitutionals," safely guarded from wind and weather. To-day this grand building represents the officialdom of the local Prefecture. ...
— The Cathedrals of Northern France • Francis Miltoun
... King should have his Lord Treasurer, of standing and of honour sufficient to ensure sound administration and compel respect. Commissioners, as Clarendon discerned clearly, would be bad servants and dangerous masters. Clarendon might be fighting a forlorn hope against the growing forces of officialdom; but his dislike was honest, and his discernment ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... buildings, engineering, finance—everything from the smallest administrative duty to the all-engrossing functions of legislation devolves upon this commission. They can vacate any office, can create any office, and without limit fix any salary they choose. The entire officialdom, outside of the commission itself, and all the employes and the servants of the city are by law made the agents, servants, and dependents of the council. The possibilities for machine power with this autocratic centralization of authority ...
— Elements of Debating • Leverett S. Lyon
... told me about Major Funkhouser, and how he had refused an exhibition permit for one of her films called "The Little American." Curious to see the film rejected by Chicago officialdom, I asked Miss Pickford if she would have it run off for my benefit. I could see nothing in the film that could hurt the susceptibilities of any except the Germans with whom we are ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard
... all ceremonials, the matter had to be prolonged and surrounded with the frills of officialdom. Sunny called it organization, and herein only copied people of greater degree and self-importance. He plunged into his task with whole-hearted enthusiasm, and, with every word he uttered, preened himself in the belief that he was rapidly ascending in the opinion of Wild Bill, the only man on ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... fair field of encounter. In The Hague the officials beat them, but not so much on account of their office as in consrquence of the fact that so many are titled persons, highly connected and frequently well off. But after the great Revolution and the Napoleonic times officialdom lost its influence and social importance in Holland in consequence of the demolition of the oligarchic, patrician Republic; and clause five of the Netherlands constitution, which declares that 'Every Netherlander may be appointed to every public office,' is a very real and true description of ...
— Dutch Life in Town and Country • P. M. Hough
... visit to the Public Library had quite appalled him; the vast, chill orderliness of it. He had gone there, hungry to chat about books! To the Public Library! Surely a Homeric joke for grim, tomish officialdom. But tomish officialdom had not even laughed at him; it was too official to appreciate the quality of such side-splitting innocence.... Was he likely to meet a like irresponsiveness when he should ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... for something perhaps for some high official, without whose orders they dare do nothing. Russia is overrun with officialdom." ...
— Tom Swift and his Air Glider - or, Seeking the Platinum Treasure • Victor Appleton
... never had a leader yet," he said, "whom Officialdom didn't spoil." All this time Maraton was standing with the door in one hand and his other hand upon the shoulder of the man whom he was endeavouring to get rid of. His grasp suddenly tightened. The door was closed and the reporter was outside. Maraton turned to Aaron, with whom, as yet, he had scarcely ...
— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... a notice to be put up in each of the local munition offices, inviting callers who had inventions to submit them at once for sympathetic examination. Any one who went to the Ministry of Munitions in Whitehall and had real business could quickly see the Minister. He had no use for a halo of officialdom. A thousand difficulties rose to meet him as he built up the new organization, but he trampled them underfoot and went forward, heedless of whether he was making enemies or friends. An intermediate and important ...
— Lloyd George - The Man and His Story • Frank Dilnot
... French bureaucracy or red-tapism. It would have been very easy to have distributed numbers to those waiting, and the applicants would then have been able, by calculating the time, to go about their business and return when necessary. Another instance of this fatal red-tapism of French officialdom came in the shape of a summons from the fiscal office of Vernon, where I have a little country place on the Seine, to pay the sum of two francs, which is the annual tax for a float I had there for boating purposes. This trivial paper, coming in amidst the whirlpool of mobilization, ...
— Paris War Days - Diary of an American • Charles Inman Barnard
... any one not an expert in aeronautics can know. When the Government wouldn't believe in Harman, Father financed him by my advice. I left home for France before the trial machine that was to convince officialdom had come into being; and I didn't even know whether it had made good. But the minute I saw what lay on the ground, surrounded by a ring of Germans, I said ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... vain of such an acquaintanceship; the humblest honest boot-black would not have valued the fact that he had met him or seen him at some time or other; he was sunk in abysmal obscurity, he was away beneath the notice of the bottom grades of officialdom. Three hours later he was the one subject of conversation in the world, the gilded generals and admirals and governors were discussing him, all the kings and queens and emperors had put aside their other interests to talk about him. And wherever there was ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... corporation with a vested interest hostile to the public weal, and his work is penetrated by distrust of power as such. There was much in the history of the time to justify his attitude. It was difficult at that time to believe in an honest officialdom putting the commonwealth above every personal or corporate interest, and reformers naturally looked to individual initiative as the source of progress. Secondly, and this was a more philosophic argument, ...
— Liberalism • L. T. Hobhouse
... on with his secret report, placing before the Secretary of State the exact nature of the war-cloud which once again threatened to arise over Europe, and of which our Embassies in Berlin and Vienna, with all the pomp of their officialdom, ...
— The White Lie • William Le Queux |
