Cabinet Ministers Quotes
Although an Irishman, he was commenting about the British government of which Ireland was then a part.
This was Executive Privilege of the time. The result of this type of conflict between the executive and the legislative body was a Civil War in which Parliament won. This concept of executive privilege operates to this day in America where the President typically refuses to have his special assistants and staff be questioned by Congressional investigating committees. IT also extends to documents where the President has refused to allow Congress access to papers. In the Watergate scandal, it was the Supreme Court Decision that President Nixon could not claim Executive Privilege with respect to the Watergate tapes. Their exposure forced his resignation.
Assessing Homer Lea, 1876-1912, the American Mercenary and Political Advisor to China: Vladimir Lenin
This quotation appeared in the middle of an 1862 article on the Civil War written by the great writer, Nathaniel Hawthorne. The article had been mailed to the Atlantic Monthly editors in New York from Washington. There were a number of pages of descriptions of specific Cabinet Members and other politicians, their understanding of the issues in the war, and a description of how they spent their time, At the time, it was common for partisan newspapers and magazines to attack politicians of the other party. But the Atlantic, only 5 years old then was a very rare American publication. It was totally non partisan, artistic and literary as well as concerned with current and political events. It only ran articles of serious, (some argued elite) writers. Hawthorn’s material on the politicians was not very complimentary and would have been regarded by them and their supporters as a political attack. So the editors deleted the material that referred negatively to individuals, Their apology was as much to the author, Hawthorne—“our friend”—as it was to the readers. At the time, the New York Times, also non partisan, refrained from serious negative material about politicians and celebrities. This quotation shows us the journalistic and literary standards of the “better” publications of the time. To this day, even when running negative articles about politicians and celebrities, these publications will never use the extreme and sensational language of the New York Daily News, the Chicago Tribune, the New York Post, the National Inquirer, and many other “tabloid” type publications.
There are many factors that tend to make it very hard for Cabinit Secrretaries and other Presidencial appointments to control their agencies. They include inertia, the huge size of many agencies, existing laws, bureaucracies, and the techncial complexity of the work of the agency. Like a huge aircraft carrier, when they can make a change it takes a while for the change to occur and be noticable--typically more time than the average cabinet member is in office. This is much like CEOs of very large corporations.
