New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1916-12-16
THE "FUNCTI0NARY"
Probity, Dignity and Heroism of
French Civil Servants

French officialdom may sometimes be
the servant, the tool or the prey Of
political factions. but il remains
through the storms or breezes very
much itself, an ancient. solid, logged,
simple-minded body. The official mind
is hereditary: the civil servant with
tiny salary hands down from father 10
son an amusing, pathetic. but "A re-
spectacle pride of caste.
No one who has not lived long in
France can appreciate the prestige OF
the French civil servant. the "func-
tionary.' IL is measured not only IN
moral values, but in francs; other
things equal. a functionary may look
TO bride with much larger dowry
than may man who is not a function
airy. Thus does the Civil Service occa-
sionally marry into grocery, pork
butchery or the retail wine and spirit
business. But as a rule IL marries
among itself and keeps up a caste, one
that seems absurd to grocery. that the
big bourgeois Of business looks down
upon as comical and that Society
ignores: but a caste ali the samoa
caste and almost an order of proud
and upright men and families. The
feeling of a keeper of mortgages" not
only keeping his mortgages for the
state. but keeping his family by daily
care and often daily self-sscrifce up
to the tremendous appearances which
in a French provincial town keeper
OF mortgages family must keep. can
not be understood outside provincial
France.
The amusing pride goes with admir-
able honesty. There is no other such
honest and honorable civil service in
the world as in France; at the top
/ few black sheep. throughout the mill
ions of functionaries below not one
backslider. Not one financial and po-
litical scandal in France that has
touched the mass Of civil servants. In
the Panama scandal. in other scan
dals. not one civil servant was impli-
Gated The functionary on his tiny
salary is the most incorruptible public
servant in the world. He does
, not call himself a public servant; he
would rather call himself one of the
rulers and tutors OF an undisciplned
and ignorant public. was once nearly
arrested for telling a French state
railway official that. after all, he was
servant of the public. mo, Mon
Sieur," he corrected me, ~ am not a
servant of the public, / am func-
tionary."
The functionary feels himself to be
a pillar of an ancient state. he is not
democratic, he is not aristocratic, he
does not care a fig for social prestige;
he will rather delight in annoying any
important person whose Importance
is not derived from the state. The alb
stract State is his only deity; he Is,
-. ~ - ha
cause they have the thing etGtiste
The tiniest government clerk says to
! himself in his own tiny sphere, "CetGt
c'est moi" and because he says so is
| honest, proud and often in daily French
life nuisance to the public. The
smallest French functionary really
feels that he discharges function in
! the organism of the French State.
When the great trial came some OF
these humble public servants were
! found amazingly 10 be the stuff heroes
are made Of Some bolted before the
| invading Hun; many, | think most
stuck to their small posts, which be-
came choice posts of danger. Imagine
keeper OF mortgages, tax collector
/ of a quiet little town Of Northern
France standing up against a Prusslan
general backed up by an overrunnlng
army. He often did it, He sometimes
paid for it with his life, often with
months of imprisonment. 1t was he,
the little functionary, who was taken
! for hostage at Lille. Cambria, Valen-
ciennes, everywhere in invaded France.
Z Il was justices OF the peace who were
, held accountable for the payment OF
unpayable levies; IL was mayors OF lit
tie towns who were shot when a dis
traught German c. o. thought he had
heard of franctireurs.
I Some Of these humble incarnations OF
/ the French state who were comic IN
peace time, their very fonctiOn1rtsme
made great in face Of the invader. One
will never smile any more at the little
; french fonctiOnnGires, as long as one
! remembers those Of the Nord, the Ar
/ dennes, Meurthe-et-Moselle. A roll
call of humble heroes is henceforth
, bound up with the records OF French
: functionarism. - From Laurence Jer-
rolds France, Her People and Her
\ Spirit" (Bobbs- Merrill Co..