Quote
By Grover Cleveland
When an election to office shall be the selection by the voters of one of their number to assume for a time a public trust instead of his dedication to the profession of politics; when the holders of the ballot, quickened by a sense of duty, shall avenge truth betrayed and pledges broken, and when the suffrage shall be altogether free and uncorrupted, the full realization of a government by the people will be at hand.
- Source
- Letter to Members of the Notification Committee of the Democratic National Convention Accepting the Presidential Nomination, August 18, 1884
- Read at
- The American Presidency Project (text follows the Public Papers of the Presidents)
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About this quote
From Grover Cleveland's letter of August 18, 1884, written in Albany, New York, accepting the Democratic nomination for President. The phrase "a public trust" is as close as this letter comes to the popular line "a public office is a public trust".