The Person and the Office are Not One and the Same

I recently ran across a saying of American President Harry Truman which I had never seen before, but which goes to the moral core of the Caux Round Table’s Principles for Government.

Our foundational principle for moral government is that public office is a public trust.  No trust gives ownership, personal dominion to be willful, arbitrary or capricious over the powers and assets held in trust.

President Truman once said to a reporter: “Two persons are sitting at this desk.  One is Harry Truman and the other is President of the United States and I have to be sure that Harry Truman remembers on all occasions that the President is there too.”