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Centralization   Listen
noun
Centralization  n.  The act or process of centralizing, or the state of being centralized; the act or process of combining or reducing several parts into a whole; as, the centralization of power in the general government; the centralization of commerce in a city.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Centralization" Quotes from Famous Books



... what was designated by the head of the state as the Imperial University. Though somewhat changed in name and character, it exists to-day virtually as it came from the maker's hand. Like the institution of the prefecture, it is a faultless machine of equalization and centralization, molding the mass of educated Frenchmen into one form, rendering them responsive and receptive to authoritative ideas from their youth upward, and passive in their attitude toward instruction. Joseph de ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane

... have imparted potency. But when, as in the case of Nicholas the Czar, the ringed crown of geographical empire encircles an imperial brain; then, the plebeian herds crouch abased before the tremendous centralization. Nor, will the tragic dramatist who would depict mortal indomitableness in its fullest sweep and direct swing, ever forget a hint, incidentally so important in his art, as the one ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville

... to the scheme, he rests in the power of the people, who "forever keep the sole right of legislation in their own representatives, but divest themselves wholly of any right to the administration." He refuses to believe that there is any danger from centralization so long as the people use the power which is vested in them. "These things," he concludes, "demand our early and careful attention: a general diffusion of knowledge; the encouragement of industry, frugality, and virtue; and a sovereign power at the head of the States. ...
— Noah Webster - American Men of Letters • Horace E. Scudder

... acts through opinion, it works by a machinery, viz. the press and social centralization in great cities, which in these days is perfect. Right or wrong, justified or not justified by the acts of the majority, it is certain that every public body—how much more then, a body charged with the responsibility ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various

... post-genocide presidential and legislative elections in August and September 2003, respectively - the country continues to struggle to boost investment and agricultural output, and ethnic reconciliation is complicated by the real and perceived Tutsi political dominance. Kigali's increasing centralization and intolerance of dissent, the nagging Hutu extremist insurgency across the border, and Rwandan involvement in two wars in recent years in the neighboring Democratic Republic of the Congo continue to hinder Rwanda's efforts to ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... growth of civilization in the middle ages, taking up such subjects as the downfall of Rome, the barbarian invasion, the rise of the papacy, feudalism, Mohammedanism, the anti-feudal effects of the crusades, the rise of free cities, the growth of law, the growth of literature, and ending with the centralization of monarchical power in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. But the lectures then prepared were based merely upon copious notes and given, as regarded phrasing, extemporaneously. It is too late for me now to write them out or to present the subject in the light of modern historical ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White

... Charles, in this part of his dominions, each had its own constitution, its own charter and privileges, its own right of taxation. All clung to their local independence; and resistance to any projects of centralization was common to the great nobles and the burghers of the towns. Philip on the other hand was resolute to bring them by gradual steps to the same level of absolute subjection and incorporation in the body of the monarchy ...
— History of the English People - Volume 4 (of 8) • John Richard Green

... nations have not been important, and are quite similar to those with England and France. But, generally, the belief and hope in the final success of the Union have been steadily strengthening throughout Europe. The idea of our centralization has become more vivid; and far juster estimates of our character and institutions have been formed. When the war shall have been brought to a successful issue, we shall have afforded a noble proof of the full efficiency of a republican ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... They are acquainted with the most approved methods of agriculture in Italy and other countries; they have at their disposal all the resources of science, art, and immense capital; have availed themselves of all the boasted advantages of centralization, of a thorough division of labour, of a most accurate system of accounts, and checking of inferior functionaries. The system of great farms has been carried to perfection in their hands. But, with all these advantages, they cannot in the Agro Romano, once so populous, still so fertile, raise ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various

... met in December, 1907. Several bills were offered for the establishment of a central bank; some for the issue of a special currency by the government; others for the legalization of certificates and currency created by clearing-house associations. The aversion of the people to the centralization of the banking business in the hands of a few of the great money powers made the establishment of a central bank out of ...
— History of the United States, Volume 6 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews

... Northern people, was considered to be founded on lust of power, not on reason. The governments of western Europe, with judgments unclouded by selfishness, would at once acknowledge it. France, whose policy since the days of the eleventh Louis had been one of intense centralization, and Germany and Italy, whose hopes and aspirations were in the same direction, would admit it, while England would not be restrained by anti-slavery sentiment. Indeed, the statesmen of these countries had devoted much time to the study of the Constitution of the ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor

... mediocrity; with the committees of initiative, their delays and ballottings, if the 2nd of December had not brought its overwhelming demonstration, if Providence had not taken a hand, France would have remained condemned for an indefinite term to its irremovable magistracy, to administrative centralization, to the standing army, and to ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo

... doubtless, my dear sir," replied Camors, "some excess in this extreme centralization of France; but all civilized countries must have their capitals, and a head is just as necessary to a nation as to ...
— Monsieur de Camors, Complete • Octave Feuillet

... with all this of British Liberty, Voluntary Principle, Dangers of Centralization, and the like? It is really getting too bad. For British Liberty, it seems, the people cannot be taught to read. British Liberty, shuddering to interfere with the rights of capital, takes six or eight millions of money annually to feed the idle laborer whom it dare not employ. For British Liberty ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle

... I know of no community but PUNCH and Co. I'm for centralization—and individualization—every man for himself, and PUNCH for us all! Only let me catch any rascal bringing his apples to my form, and see how I'll cobb him. So now—send round the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... persecutions was closely connected with the increased efficiency of the imperial administration after a period of anarchy, and was more effective because of the greater centralization of the government which Diocletian had introduced ( 55). It was preceded by a number of minor persecuting regulations, but broke forth in its full fury in 303, raging for nearly ten years ( 56). It was by far ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.

... same moment the contemporary tendency in western Europe towards bureaucratic centralization began to extend itself to the Ottoman Empire. Its exponents were the brothers Achmet and Mustapha Koeprili, who held the grand-vizierate in succession. They laid the foundations of a centralized administration, and, since the unadaptable Turk offered no promising material ...
— The Balkans - A History Of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey • Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth

... government of inquisitors and butchers no community, save those of Lyons and La Vendee, makes any sustained effort to break up the State, withdraw from it and live by itself. The national sheaf has been too strongly bound together by secular centralization. One's country exists; and when that country is in danger, when the armed stranger attacks the frontier, one follows the flag-bearer, whoever he may be, whether usurper, adventurer, blackguard, or cut-throat, provided only ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... authorities, the, small ambition of local magistrates, interposed daily obstacles to the vigorous march of the generality. Never was jealousy more mischievous, never circumspection more misapplied. It was not a land nor a crisis in which there was peril of centralization: Local municipal government was in truth the only force left. There was no possibility of its being merged in a central authority which did not exist. The country was without a centre. There was small chance of apoplexy where there was no head. The danger lay in the mutual repulsiveness ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... review of Parliament, the business would be got through, not only more cheaply, but with greater satisfaction and dispatch? I cannot see why London should be entitled to this exclusive monopoly, or the principle of centralization pushed so far as to injure the extremities of the empire. The private committee business has already become an absolute nuisance to the whole bulk of the members. It is a function for which few of them have been educated, which is in itself highly distasteful, and, moreover, interferes ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various

... formulate and give importance to family life, and it must have been accepted and more or less sanctioned by the men. This tribal leadership, at first domestic and social, disappeared with the development of military leaders, the acquisition of military powers, and the centralization of property in lands, houses, and personal belongings, that required constant and effective methods of protection ...
— Memories of Jane Cunningham Croly, "Jenny June" • Various

... have been made to strengthen the position of State and local governments and thereby to stop the dangerous drift toward centralization ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Dwight D. Eisenhower • Dwight D. Eisenhower

... managed in the same way, but the system has fitted itself to local notions and perhaps to local needs. A rough division may be made—those states which have some form of central control and those which do not have. Even among states having a central management are found all degrees of centralization; Wisconsin and Ohio may be taken as the extremes. In Wisconsin the director of institutes, who is an employee of the university, has practically complete charge of the institutes. He assigns the places where the meetings are ...
— Chapters in Rural Progress • Kenyon L. Butterfield

... learning. The history of free thought in it is complicated, by being to some extent the struggle of deeds as well as of ideas, a social as well as a religious struggle. It was the period which witnessed both the dissolution of feudalism and the theocratic centralization in the popedom; and while reason struggled on the one side against the dogmatic system, it struggled on the other to assert the rights of the state against the church, and to put restraints upon the privileges, dominion, ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar

... already been made to the growth of art, and the probability that all the arts had their origin in magical practices, and to the growth of popular education necessitated by the centralization of business in the temples. It remains with us to deal now with priestly contributions to the more abstruse sciences. In India the ritualists among the Brahmans, who concerned themselves greatly regarding the exact construction and measurements ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie

... Yugoslavia in 1918, to form the nucleus of the Democratic party. He then became for many months the all-powerful Minister of the Interior, a man with the appearance of a bull-dog in whose veins is electricity. The vehemence of his methods of centralization is supported and opposed by his countrymen with an almost equal vehemence.] ... But to return to the events of 1908 and 1909—the result of these two trials was lamentable from the Austrian point of view. More success attended her efforts in Cetinje, for Nikita was intensely ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 • Henry Baerlein

... benevolent spirits. Their gods are numerous as in Greek religion, and likewise one of them is usually set up as the superior deity, to be the Tirawa of the Indian, the greater Atua of Polynesia, and the Mumbo Jumbo of a West African negro. There is no centralization of the supernatural powers, as in the Jehovah of Judaism and the still subtler Brahma of the Asian. Then, too, the gods must be concretely materialized for purposes of worship and sacrifice; consequently idols are made, to be regarded as the actual spirits ...
— The Doctrine of Evolution - Its Basis and Its Scope • Henry Edward Crampton

... as it was in the thirteen States which formed our Constitution. Indeed, it may well be doubted whether if our present population had been confined within the limits of the original thirteen States the tendencies to centralization and consolidation would not have been such as to have encroached upon the essential reserved rights of the States, and thus to have made the Federal Government a widely different one, practically, from what it is in theory and was intended to be by its ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Polk - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 4: James Knox Polk • Compiled by James D. Richardson

... identification service free of charge for official use to all law enforcement agencies in this country and to foreign law enforcement agencies which cooperate in the International Exchange of Identification Data. Through this centralization of records it is now possible for an officer to have available a positive source of information relative to the past activities of an individual in his custody. It is the Bureau's present policy to give preferred attention to all ...
— The Science of Fingerprints - Classification and Uses • Federal Bureau of Investigation

... two first forms of organization. Until the period of the Civil War, competition was the generally accepted rule in all phases of economic life. With the formation of the Standard Oil Company in 1870, a new principle was demonstrated, and the idea of centralization was embodied in a form that served as the model for the American trust movement. By the time of the late nineties, this principle of centralization had been carried so far that a reaction set in, and when the United States Steel Corporation was organized in 1901 local autonomy was recognized ...
— The Next Step - A Plan for Economic World Federation • Scott Nearing

... now as fell upon them when the Black Death swept over the face of the land five centuries ago—a calamity so sweeping, so overwhelming—its consequences upon the whole social fabric would be incomparably more disastrous than it was in times when centralization was almost unknown and practically impossible. Be it as it may, since the days when the Roman Senate passed a vote of confidence in a beaten general because he had not despaired of the republic, I know nothing in history that impresses a student more profoundly with a sense of the magnificent ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp

... Moabites. the Syrians, the Edomites and the Ammonites. He also made an alliance with Hiram, the king of the Phoenicians, who became his lifelong friend. (3) His home relations and policies. His policy at home may be said to be one of centralization. One of his first acts was to bring up the ark and place it on Mount Zion and to center all worship there. This would tend to unite the people and to make more powerful his authority over all the people. In line with this plan he conceived the idea of building the temple and during the years ...
— The Bible Period by Period - A Manual for the Study of the Bible by Periods • Josiah Blake Tidwell

... the centralization of rural education has been local prejudice and pride. In many cases a true sentimental value has attached to "the little red schoolhouse." Its praises have been sung, and orator and writer have expanded upon the glories of our ...
— New Ideals in Rural Schools • George Herbert Betts

... discussed the chaos in the theatrical business. They decided that its only economic hope was in a centralization of booking interests, and they acted immediately on this decision. Within a few weeks they had organized all the theaters they controlled or represented into one national chain, and the open time was placed on file in the offices of Klaw & Erlanger. It now became possible ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman

... transformation of their official political shape has become a vital necessity for it, the entire physiognomy of the old political power undergoes a transformation. Thus absolute monarchy now aims at decentralization, instead of at centralization, wherein consists its ...
— Selected Essays • Karl Marx

... empire was it attempted to absorb the patronage of every department and province for the benefit of a few, under the pretext of imparting greater vigour to the administration of public affairs by centralization. It was not deemed wise or necessary to constitute central boards for the direction of matters with which not a single member might, possibly, be acquainted. They did not aim at an ideal perfection, but were satisfied ...
— The Corporation of London: Its Rights and Privileges • William Ferneley Allen

... Renan and Laugel, who have been Orleanists all their lives, and who cherish a personal affection for the party, the situation appears melancholy, and the wail of Renan in his last book is sad enough. He is French to the core; supports openly the doctrine, "My country—right or wrong;" finds the centralization of the French system, carried to its logical extreme, the ideal government; and hates, above all things, "Americanism." What strikes an Anglo-Saxon as the merest commonplace of healthy politics or intellectual life is in his ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various

... of human experience is to increased aggregations, to concentration and to centralization. This mighty city, in her material grandeur, and, we may trust, her moral redemption, stands for forty-six indestructible States and one indivisible nation. Her lofty structures far surpass already the palaces of the merchant princes of Tyre and ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various

... a stepping-stone to a centralization of the Government and the overthrow of the local powers of the States. Whenever that is consummated, then farewell to the beauty, strength, and power of this Government. There is nothing left but absolute, despotic, central power. ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes

... by one class of philosophers that the growing tendency to increase national power and authority is leading to a dangerous centralization; that the safety of the republic rests in local self-government. Says the editor of ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various

... the physician, just as he was the educator and teacher, simply because in the church there was centered all cultural influences which the community knew. The complexity of modern times has for centuries demanded the opposite system. Centralization is allowed only to the purely administrative influence of the state, while all the active functions are divided among specialists. We rely on the expert in education, we demand the expert in medicine: is more gained or lost ...
— Psychotherapy • Hugo Muensterberg

... concerned, independent States, or, in fact, sovereignties. True, they had tried to get along under a sort of confederation agreement, a kind of temporary alliance for offensive and defensive ends, but which failed from its own inherent weakness, from the lack of that cohesiveness which nothing but centralization can give. Prior to the adoption of the Federal Constitution, these different States were like so many different individuals outside of any regular society; were merely so many isolated aggregations of non-nationalized individuals. Experience showed them their ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... corporate action of the various members of the body politic against foreign enemies. When a country is threatened with foreign invasion, when the corporate action of its citizens against their enemy is needed, it becomes an imperative necessity to consult public opinion. In such a time centralization is needed. Hence the first move of Japan after the advent of foreigners was to bring the scattered parts of the country together and unite ...
— The Constitutional Development of Japan 1863-1881 • Toyokichi Iyenaga

... Roman law of Justinian, not the Roman law as interpreted by mediaeval commentators, that was to be studied and applied. The break-up of the institutions of the Middle Ages, the growth of absolute monarchical power, the centralization of government, all favoured the tendency. Roman law contained doctrines eminently pleasing to an absolute ruler, e.g. 'the decision of the monarch has the force of law'. In Germany above all, where law was divided into countless local customs, the movement ...
— The Unity of Civilization • Various

... of thought which bring the will as monarch of the mind into close communication with all the resources of knowledge and experience. Indeed in the mind of a child or of an adult there is much stronger necessity for centralization than in the government and commerce of a country. The will should be an undisputed monarch of the whole mental life. It is the one center where all lines of communication meet. London is not so perfect a center for the commerce and finance of England as is the conscious ...
— The Elements of General Method - Based on the Principles of Herbart • Charles A. McMurry

... their tongue called Penteyrn, that is to say, a king of the whole, in the language of their old annals. And they made him elective.—It was also formerly the custom in Gaul. —The object was to introduce into their system a kind of centralization, which, however, was always loose among Celtic ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud

... strength of the monarchy curbed its influence, its authority weakened, and throughout the great century of French colonial expansion from 1650 to 1750 the Estates-General was never convoked. The centralization of political power was complete. 'The State! I am the State.' These famous words imputed to Louis XIV expressed no vain boast of royal power. Speaking politically, France was a pyramid. At the apex was the Bourbon sovereign. ...
— The Seigneurs of Old Canada: - A Chronicle of New-World Feudalism • William Bennett Munro

... there was, with a large number of cities, a decisive moment when the building of city halls and cathedrals became a violent passion, which had to be satisfied at any price; the life of the community depended upon it. Security and strength, public order, centralization, nationality, country, independence, these are the elements which make up the life of society, the totality of its mental faculties; these are the sentiments which must find expression and representation. Such formerly was the object of the temple of Jerusalem, real palladium of the ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon

... that he was able to maintain such sweetness and evenness of temper under provocations and difficulties which would have greatly annoyed most men. What he was in these outer circles of his influence, he was, to all the centralization of his virtues, in the heart of his family. Here, indeed, the best graces of his character had their full play and beauty. He was the centre and soul of one of the happiest of earthly homes, attracting to him the affections of every member of the hearth circle that ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt

... on the national question, and I suppose conscientiously," said Ralston. "I hold the extreme doctrine of State Rights, and you that of centralization. I am a rebel—you are a loyalist. All right—don't let us quarrel, especially as we have been friends and as you are certainly a jolly good fellow and ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford

... unity based on idealistic speeches, poetry, romantic phrase-mongering, was now slowly to yield to a new spirit; and believers in German Unity came to see that Prussian supremacy held all there was, in a practical way, of possible German centralization. Bismarck certainly saw it very clearly and acted accordingly in his future political ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel

... The pastor with a program of absentee service consisting of an occasional sermon and holding a Sunday school finds his efforts continually nullified by more powerful social and recreational impulses expressing themselves in ways recognized as morally deteriorating. When a plan for ultimate centralization of wholesome and legitimate community interest has been made it is the minister's task to organize a plan for bringing to the community an abundance of wholesome recreational life. The traditional plan has been to preach against dancing and card ...
— Church Cooperation in Community Life • Paul L. Vogt

... magnificent "Empereur d'Arles," by the Avignon poet Alexis Mouzin, was given its first presentation in the Orange theatre—in the provinces—instead of being first produced on the Paris stage. In direct defiance of the modern French canons of centralization, the great audience was brought together not to ratify opinions formulated by Parisian critics but to express its own opinion at first hand. Silvain, of the Comedie Francaise, was the Maximien; Madame Caristie-Martel, of the ...
— The Christmas Kalends of Provence - And Some Other Provencal Festivals • Thomas A. Janvier

... doctrines were directly opposed to the deepest creeds of Americanism and that the whole temper of the population was necessarily averse to the anticapitalistic fancies. The individualistic striving, the faith in rivalry, the fear of centralization, the political liberty, the lack of class barriers which makes it possible for any one to reach the highest economic power, all work against socialism, and all are essential for American democracy. Above all, the whole American ...
— Psychology and Social Sanity • Hugo Muensterberg

... tendencies in American politics are called "centralization," and while for nearly a century a great political party bitterly contested its steady progress, due to the centripetal influences above indicated, yet the contest was long since abandoned as a hopeless ...
— The Constitution of the United States - A Brief Study of the Genesis, Formulation and Political Philosophy of the Constitution • James M. Beck

... number of generations. But after the middle of the 3rd century diocesan episcopacy began to make its appearance here and there, and became common in the 4th century under the influence of the general tendency toward centralization, the increasing power of city bishops, and the growing dignity of the episcopate (cf. canon 6 of the council of Sardica, and canon 57 of the council of Laodicea; and see Harnack, Mission und Ausbreitung, pp. 319 seq.). ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various

... foreign conquest led to the establishment of Rome as the central city. The constitution of Rome was the typical constitution for all provincial cities, and from this one centre all provinces were ruled. No example heretofore had existed of the centralization of government similar to this. The overlordship of the Persians was only for the purpose of collecting tribute; there was little attempt to carry abroad the Persian institutions or to amalgamate the conquered provinces in one great ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar

... closer examination, if not already shown, to be this: that the principle of Unity and the principle of Individuality must everywhere be represented in proximately equal proportions, in order to effect a just balance of conditions and to secure practical harmony. Centralization and freedom must everywhere coexist, and be equally operative. Conservatism is as important to society as progress. Conservatism overbalancing progress, destroys society by stagnation, blotting out the individuality of ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 5, November, 1863 • Various

... even to idiot imbecility they have imparted potency. But when, as in the case of Nicholas the Czar, the ringed crown of geographical empire encircles an imperial brain; .. then, the plebeian herds crouch abased before the tremendous centralization. Nor, will the tragic dramatist who would depict mortal indomitableness in its fullest sweep and direct swing, ever forget a hint, incidentally so important in his art, as the one now alluded to. But Ahab, my Captain, still moves before me in all his Nantucket grimness ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville

... in violation of its own laws unrecognizant of that kind of ownership, was to account for the property and give it back, in obedience to general Congressional order and to the most advanced principles of Centralization. Before I had digested this pill another was administered to me in that small English section of our circle which gave us much pride and an occasional son-in-law. This was by no less a person than my dear old friend Berkley, now grown a ruddy sexagenarian, but still given ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various

... attitude of Florence at this moment by its contrast with the rest of Europe. It was a time when Germany was sinking down into feudal chaos under the earlier Hapsburgs. The system of despotic centralization invented by St. Louis and perfected by Philippe le Bel was crushing freedom and vigour out of France. If Parliamentary life was opening in England, literature was dead, and a feudalism which had become embittered by the new forms of law which the legal spirit of the age gave it was pressing ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green

... such a condition were realized, there would be a gain in starting new enterprises, since luring away marginal agents and combining them in new establishments would always be profitable. When we introduce into the problem dynamic elements we shall see that centralization, which makes shops larger instead of smaller, makes industries more productive, and that what happens when net profits appear is more often the enlarging of one establishment than the creation of new ones. Entrepreneurs in the large establishments can afford to resist the effort made ...
— Essentials of Economic Theory - As Applied to Modern Problems of Industry and Public Policy • John Bates Clark

... ruling vice of the man was in his egotism. It was not so much that he had bad principles and bad feelings, as that he had no principles and no feelings at all, except as they began, continued, and ended in that system of centralization which not more paralyzes healthful action in a State than it does in the individual man. Self-indulgence with him was absolute. He was not without power of keen calculation, not without much cunning. He could conceive a project for some gain ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... this vast territory and this conglomeration of races and religions by a peculiarly weak political fabric which seemed in the nineteenth century to combine in one structure all the disadvantages of centralization, and all those of decentralization. Subject peoples have been ruled by a combination of military, civil, and religious authority which has been dependent in the long run for its support on the army. However, had the subject peoples hated each other less cordially, had they ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various

... the convulsions in which it was born; when a generation had passed away of those who had been Roman citizens; when a generation arose, which, excepting one man, the emperor, was a nation of Roman subjects,—then the Empire was at its height of power, its centralization was complete, the system of its civilization was at the zenith ...
— If, Yes and Perhaps - Four Possibilities and Six Exaggerations with Some Bits of Fact • Edward Everett Hale

... Austrians are bold enough to term an express-train covers the distance between Vienna and Pesth, yet there seems to be an abyss somewhere on the route which the inhabitants are afraid of. Pride, a haughty determination not to submit to centralization, and content with their surroundings make the Hungarians sparing of intercourse with their Austrian neighbors. "We send them prime ministers, and now and then we allow them a glimpse of some of our beauties in one of their palaces, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various

... Canal, Grand Canals, early Canton Capitals, imperial Capitals, vassal Capricorn Caravans Cardinals Carlyle Carthage. See Phoenicians "Cash" Caste, none in China Caste, royal Caste, ruling Castration Casuistry Cattle trade Cavalry Cave-dwellers Celtic migration Celtic races Centralization Central Kingdom Ceremonial. See Rites Cessions of imperial territory Chan-Kwoh Ts'eh Ch'ang, personal name Chang, river Ch'ang-chon Fu Chang I, diplomatist Ch'ang-sha, modern Ch'ang-shuh, city Changes, Book of Chao, state Characters. ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker

... such fine constructive work with her Department was the general Wellesley policy, still followed, I am happy to say, of centralizing all power and responsibility regarding department affairs in the person of the head of the Department. Centralization may not work well in politics, but a foreign language department working with the reformed methods could not develop the highest efficiency under any other form of government. With a living organism, such as a foreign language department should be, ...
— The Story of Wellesley • Florence Converse

... royal power, at the start, was so weak, that, not being dreaded, it was suffered to grow. In Germany the royal power was so strong that there was a constant effort to reduce it. Hence in France the result was centralization; in Germany the tendency was to division. In France the long continuance of the family of Hugh Capet made the monarchy hereditary. In Germany the frequent changes of dynasty helped to ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher

... distance is so great as to make the manifestation of that world weak, milky, nebular. Now let the secret power that wields these awful orbs, push this world back to a double distance! that should naturally make it paler and more dilute than ever: and yet by compression, by deeper centralization, this effect shall be defeated; by forcing into far closer neighborhood the stars which compose this world, again it shall gleam out brighter when at 2x than when at x. At this point of compression, let the great moulding power a second time push it back; and a second time it will grow ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey

... maintained, "are an absorption and assumption of power by the General Government, which, being acquiesced in, must eventually destroy our federative system of limited power and break down the barriers which preserve the rights of States. It is another step, or rather stride, towards centralization and the concentration of all legislative power in the General Government. The tendency of the bill must be to resuscitate rebellion and to arrest the progress of those influences which are more closely thrown around the States—the bond of union ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... their newspapers are now urging the Government to send new men to Tours to oust those who were sent there before the commencement of the siege. It strikes no one that the thirty-eight million of Frenchmen outside Paris may be of opinion that the centralization of all power in the hands of the most corrupt and frivolous capital in the universe has had its share in reducing France to her present desperate condition, and may be resolved to assert their claim to have a voice in the conduct of public affairs. The Parisians ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere

... revolt, were accustomed to the most servile obedience. Under Nicholas II a few men exercised rule in a most despotic form over more than 180,000,000 individuals spread over an immense territory. All obeyed blindly. Centralization was so great, and the obedience to the central power so absolute, that no hostile demonstration was tolerated for long. The communist regime therefore was able to count not only on the apathy of the Russian people but also upon the blindest obedience. To this fundamental condition of success, to ...
— Peaceless Europe • Francesco Saverio Nitti

... to succeed in its struggle for life. . . We shall go no further, for the reader will easily fill out the remainder of the picture for himself. Man is but an immense colony of cells, in which the division of labor, together with the centralization of the nervous system, has reached its highest limit. It is chiefly to this that his superiority is due; a superiority so great, as regards certain functions of the brain, that he may be excused for having denied his humbler relatives, and dreamed that, ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray

... which Australia and New Zealand, like Canada, had taken in the war gave new urgency to the question of imperial relations. English imperialists were convinced that the time was ripe for a great advance toward centralization, and they were eager to crystallize in permanent institutions the imperial sentiment called forth by the war. When, therefore, the fourth Colonial Conference was summoned to meet in London in 1902 on the occasion of the coronation of Edward VII, Chamberlain urged with all his force and keenness ...
— The Canadian Dominion - A Chronicle of our Northern Neighbor • Oscar D. Skelton

... at the news of the Battle of Waterloo. Now this is our peculiarity, this absence of extreme centralization. It must be encouraged. Local jealousies, local rivalries, local triumphs—these are the strength ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... cities; she would give up her freedom, she would join the crowd and enter the 'great city,' she would have a stall at 'les halles,' and see the world. Day-dreams, but too often fulfilled—the old story of centralization doing its work; look at the map of Normandy, and see how the 'chemin de fer de l'Ouest' is putting forth its arms, which—like the devil-fish, in Victor Hugo's 'Travailleurs de la Mer'—will one day draw irresistibly to itself, our ...
— Normandy Picturesque • Henry Blackburn

... predatory imperialism outside. People turned to the legislature for relief. They invoked representative government, founded on the image of the township farmer, to regulate the semi-sovereign corporations. The working class turned to labor organization. There followed a period of increasing centralization and a sort of race of armaments. The trusts interlocked, the craft unions federated and combined into a labor movement, the political system grew stronger at Washington and weaker in the states, as the reformers tried to match ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann

... the conspiracy of Catiline and the tumults of Clodius, two hundred and fifty years before. And there was doubtless a magnificent material civilization which promised to be eternal, and of which every Roman was proud. There was a centralization of power in the Eternal City such as had never been seen before and has never been seen since,—a solid Empire so large that the Mediterranean, which it enclosed, was a mere central lake, around the vast circuit ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IV • John Lord

... from a feature of distinction already noticed, that in the ancient world all or nearly all public works were executed by and for the State, we may here remark that in England especially, where centralization is feeble, and local or personal interests are strong, the construction and conduct—the curatio, as the Romans phrased it—of great roads are entirely in the hands of voluntary associations, and the State interferes so far only as to shield individual life and ...
— Old Roads and New Roads • William Bodham Donne

... The great strength of the state rights party had always been in the South, and southern statesmen had always opposed any aggression on the part of the national government. The North, on the other hand, had always leaned more or less toward a strong centralization of power. So it followed that while the Democratic party was paramount in the South, its opponents, by whatever name known, found their ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson

... it as a singular instance of perverse ratiocination, that, unwarned by experience, the French should still persist in perpetuating this political vice; that all their policy should still be the policy of Centralization,—a principle which secures the momentary strength, but ever ends in the abrupt destruction of States. It is, in fact, the perilous tonic, which seems to brace the system, but drives the blood to the head,—thus come apoplexy and madness. By centralization ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... United States have had many advantageous circumstances to thank for their present ascendancy in the world's affairs: isolation from militarist pressure for a century and a quarter, a vast virgin continent, plenty of land, freedom from centralization, freedom from titles and social vulgarities, common schools, a real democratic spirit in its people, and a great enthusiasm for universities; but no single advantage has been so great as this happy accident ...
— In The Fourth Year - Anticipations of a World Peace (1918) • H.G. Wells

... we must notice, therefore, about English euphuism is that it represents a tendency to confine literature within the limits of the Court—in accordance, one might almost say, with the general centralization of politics and religion under the Tudors—and that, as a necessary result of this, conscious prose style appears for the first time in our language. I say English euphuism, because that is our chief concern, and because though euphuism on ...
— John Lyly • John Dover Wilson

... wholly ignores all sorts of active causes for this difference: Berlin has a tolerably homogeneous population, New York the most heterogeneous in the world; Germans by nature respect law and authority, and hanker for centralization; Americans make and break laws light-heartedly, and are restive under authority; and one might easily ...
— The Making of Arguments • J. H. Gardiner

... men composed. The blurred outline, the vacant shadow, the suppressed corners, the clipped edges. This all means composition in the subduing of insistent outline, in the exchange of breadth for detail, in the centralization of light, in ...
— Pictorial Composition and the Critical Judgment of Pictures • Henry Rankin Poore

... not constitutional, Langdon," continued Peabody. "You want everybody to have a share in the national government. That wouldn't meet the theory of centralization woven into our political system by its founders. They intended that our Government should be controlled by a limited number of representatives, so that authority can ...
— A Gentleman from Mississippi • Thomas A. Wise

... to say in the stability of property. Mr. Roosevelt is admittedly a strong and determined man whose instinct is arbitrary, and yet, if my analysis be sound, we see him, at the supreme moment of his life, diverted from his chosen path toward centralization of power, and projected into an environment of, apparently, for the most part, philanthropists and women, who could hardly conceivably form a party fit to aid him in establishing a vigorous, consolidated, administrative system. He must have found the ...
— The Theory of Social Revolutions • Brooks Adams

... mayors, the number of those who do not know how to read and write is really alarming, and the manner in which the civil records are kept is even more so. The danger of this state of things, well-known to the governing powers, is doubtless diminishing; but what centralization (against which every one declaims, as it is the fashion in France to declaim against all things good and useful and strong),—what centralization cannot touch, the Power against which it will forever fling itself in vain, is that which the general ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac

... of Rome had infused into the minds of Western nations a conviction of the importance of centralization in order to union. From Rome, as a centre, had proceeded government, law, civilization. Christianity therefore seemed to need a like centre, in order to retain its unity. Hence the supremacy early ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke

... overcome the centripetal, the nation will of course fly to pieces, and the reason for its failure to become a dominant force is patent to every one. The minute that the spirit which finds its healthy development in local self-government, and is the antidote to the dangers of an extreme centralization, develops into mere particularism, into inability to combine effectively for achievement of a common end, then it is hopeless to expect great results. Poland and certain republics of the Western ...
— African and European Addresses • Theodore Roosevelt

... of the Irish Administration is its extreme centralization. In this two departments may be mentioned as typical of the whole—the police and ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.

... we demand also of God, and we have the scriptural warrant for believing that these human demands are themselves hints concerning the nature of God. Now, no one doubts the power of God. All scientific and philosophic trends are toward the centralization of power in some unitary source. All our study of nature and of society convinces us that there is a unity of power somewhere. If this be true, there must be raised with increasing persistence the question ...
— Understanding the Scriptures • Francis McConnell

... and devoid of soul. He had just removed the only obstacle which could spoil his plan; he had got rid of Austria. He said to himself: "We are going to make Germany take over, along with Prussian centralization and discipline, all our ambitions and all our appetites. If she hesitates, if the confederate peoples do not arrive of their own accord at this common resolution, I know how to compel them; I will cause a breath of hatred to pass ...
— The Meaning of the War - Life & Matter in Conflict • Henri Bergson

... little companies exist, in spite of the State's partiality. If in France, land of centralization, we only see five or six large companies, there are more than a hundred and ten in Great Britain who agree remarkably well, and who are certainly better organized for the rapid transit of travellers and goods than ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin

... paying no more heed to our Constitution than if it was the ukase of a Czar. In numerous instances during the past decade has this solemn fact been emphasized, until it is evident that with the reaction toward Paternalism and centralization has come the old time spirit of intolerance and moral obloquy on the part of the governing powers which has been one of the chief curses of the ages, entailing indescribable misery on the noblest and best, and holding ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 23, October, 1891 • Various

... grand air of liberty. Away, then, with quacks and organisers! Away with their rings, and their chains, and their hooks, and their pincers! Away with their artificial methods! Away with their social workshops, their governmental whims, their centralization, their tariffs, their universities, their State religions, their gratuitous or monopolising banks, their limitations, their restrictions, their moralisations, and their equalisation by taxation! And now, after ...
— Essays on Political Economy • Frederic Bastiat

... this, hoped the Bill would not be hurried through the House that session. Mr. Blackburn, the member for Stirlingshire, said he agreed with every Scotch member that a permanent board would be of no use; it would be coercing the people by centralization. Mr. Cowan, member for Edinburgh, said that he had been requested to present a petition, signed by the Lord Provost and magistrates of Edinburgh, seeking for delay, but he did not like to incur that ...
— Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles • Daniel Hack Tuke

... English units of administration—shire, hundred, and township—and by the planting of the principle of broadly popular local control. The second, extending from the Conquest to the fourteenth century, was characterized by a general increase of centralization and a corresponding decrease of local autonomy. The third, extending from the fourteenth century to the adoption of the Local Government Act of 1888, was pre-eminently a period of aristocratic ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg

... states were always bones of contention between Tsin and Ts'u, on the one hand, and between Ts'i and Ts'u on the other. The remaining feudal states are scarcely worth special mention as active participators in the story of how China fought her way from feudalism to centralization; most of their rulers were viscounts or barons in status, and seem to have owed, or at least been obliged to pay, more duty to the nearest great feudatory than ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker

... bulwark against the Turks. And although Ferdinand of Habsburg, on being elected to the throne of Croatia on the 1st of January 1527, had sworn to respect the ancient rights and traditions of the realm, his heirs favoured more and more a policy of centralization; and in 1578, taking advantage of a serious agrarian conflict between nobles and peasants in Croatia, the Habsburgs instituted the Military Frontiers, the famous Vojna Krajina, one for Croatia proper, with Karlovac as capital, the other for the adjacent Slavonia, with the capital at Varazdin. ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 • Henry Baerlein

... will not long be necessary, for the vindication of our principles will be made manifest in the working out of the problems with which the republic has to grapple. If, however, the effacement of state lines and the complete centralization of the government shall prove to be the wisdom of the future, the poetry of life will still find its home in the old order, and those who loved their State best will live longest in song and legend,—song yet unsung, legend ...
— The Creed of the Old South 1865-1915 • Basil L. Gildersleeve

... converges towards some particular spot. It is a periodically recurrent phenomenon which presents ample matter for reflection to those who are fain to observe or describe the various social zones; and possibly an enquiry into the causes that bring about this centralization may do more than merely justify the probability of this episode; it may be of service to serious interests which some day will be more deeply rooted in the commonwealth, unless, indeed, experience is as meaningless for political parties as it ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac

... machine, each being controlled by jarring and warring bosses and machines. The corruption was not what it had been in the days of Tweed, when outside individuals controlled the legislators like puppets. Nor was there any such centralization of the boss system as occurred later. Many of the members were under the control of local bosses or local machines. But the corrupt work was usually ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt

... The centralization of ideas on some particular project or profession that appeared impracticable at first, often leads to an inspiration, the enthusiasm created by the illusions leading to success. Illusions ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field

... localizing quality, for our whole purpose is to transmute the unlimited, undifferentiated power, which subsists in the Eternal Substantive of Spirit, into a particular differentiated mode of action, which therefore implies a corresponding centralization. This is the proper function of our thought. It is this compressing power which, as I said above, the Hebrew renders by the word "hoshech" in the opening verses of Genesis, and which is the necessary complementary to the converse expanding power ...
— The Law and the Word • Thomas Troward

... these sums on grounds of equity and expediency. It is a perverted distribution that gives them to their present recipients; and this fact threatens to involve more and more the processes of production themselves. Centralization, without monopoly, increases the product of industry; but the monopolistic feature that often attends it partially paralyzes the producing forces, and must be gotten rid of before there can be a normal income to divide and a normal way of dividing ...
— Essentials of Economic Theory - As Applied to Modern Problems of Industry and Public Policy • John Bates Clark

... the same State—an absorption and assumption of power by the General Government which, if acquiesced in, must sap and destroy our federative system of limited powers and break down the barriers which preserve the rights of the States. It is another step, or rather stride, toward centralization and the concentration of all legislative powers in the National Government. The tendency of the bill must be to resuscitate the spirit of rebellion and to arrest the progress of those influences which are more closely drawing ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson

... The interference of the national government in the local concerns of the States lately in rebellion is argued against by many as inconsistent with the spirit of our federal institutions. Nothing is more foreign to my ways of thinking in political matters than a fondness for centralization or military government. Nobody can value the blessings of local self-government more highly than I do. But we are living under exceptional circumstances which require us, above all, to look at things from a practical point of view; and I believe it will prove far more dangerous for the integrity ...
— Report on the Condition of the South • Carl Schurz

... Political rights so-called do not exist; government is simply a system of appliances for the maintenance of private rights. Both the nature of the state and its constitution are variable: the militant type requires centralization and a coercive constitution; the industrial type implies a wider distribution of political power, but requires a representation of interests rather than a representation of individuals. Government develops as a result of ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg

... placed in his hands the police, the courts, and the finances. The doctor well understood all the advantages of centralization. The way in which he administered the taxes relieved him from all personal anxiety for the future. The courts punished those who clamored too loudly; the police silenced those who whispered too much. Nevertheless, in spite of the ability of these political schemes, the people, always ungrateful, ...
— Laboulaye's Fairy Book • Various

... reverse. There are few persons in this world more to be pitied than the poor fellow who has served his first term of imprisonment or finds himself outside the gaol doors without a character, and often without a friend in the world. Here, again, the process of centralization, gone on apace of late years, however desirable it maybe in the interests of administration, tells with disastrous effects on the poor ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth

... the imperial title, Leopold had as little power over the States of the empire as the President of the United States has over the internal concerns of Maine or Louisiana. In all such cases there is ever a conflict between two parties, the one seeking the centralization of power, and the other advocating its dispersion ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott

... latter, it is among the most popular watering-places in Spain, and is styled "the Brighton of Madrid." As to the former, it is a home for twenty thousand human beings of its own; it earns a sufficing competence, chiefly in exchanges with its surrounding province; and it has a monopoly of centralization over a wide region, for no other important Spanish city lies nearer than Pampeluna or Burgos. Burgos is not actually so very remote,—only a short hundred and fifty miles beyond; and we had spoken of a visit to its renowned cathedral. But we had not reckoned with ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix

... every week in their sermons to explain the meaning of these acts. The bishops were held responsible for the obedience of the clergy; the sheriffs and the magistrates had been directed to keep an eye upon the bishops; and all the machinery of centralization was put in force to compel the fulfilment of a duty which was well ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude

... which followed Plechanov, though he did not formally join it, was called, in contradistinction, the "Mensheviki"—that is, the minority. No question of principle was involved in the split, the question at issue being simply whether there should be more or less centralization in the organization. There was no thought on either side of leaving the Social Democratic party. It was simply a factional division in the party itself and did not prevent loyal co-operation. Both the Bolsheviki and the Mensheviki remained Social Democrats—that ...
— Bolshevism - The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy • John Spargo

... rooms magnificently hung with pictures, and give everybody, ad libitum, hock which cost him sixteen shillings a bottle. I occasionally obliged him by translating for him German letters, &c., and he in return revised my pamphlet on Centralization versus State Rights in 1863. H. C. Baird, a very able writer of his school, was his nephew. The latter had two or three sisters, whom I recall as charming girls while I was a law-student. There were many beauties in Philadelphia in those days, ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland

... that as much as you do, Mr. Secretary," said one of the delegates. "But let the state control that. We fear too much bureaucracy and centralization of authority here in Washington. And don't forget, if it came to a scratch, we could say to Uncle Sam, you own the stream, but you shan't use a street or a ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow

... behind, so as to cover the thalami optici about the fourth month, the corpora quadrigemina about the sixth, and the cerebellum about the seventh. This, then, is another example of an increase in the complexity of an organ succeeding its centralization; as if Nature, having first piled up her materials in one spot, delighted afterwards to employ her abundance, not so much in enlarging old parts as in forming new ones upon the old foundations, and thus adding to the complexity of a fabric, the rudimental ...
— Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation • Robert Chambers

... Freeman for its mistaken views. Mr. Andrew D. White says in his Autobiography that Quentin Durward and Anne of Geierstein led him to see the first that he had ever clearly discerned of the great principles that "lie hidden beneath the surface of events"—"the secret of the centralization of power in Europe, and of the triumph of monarchy over ...
— Sir Walter Scott as a Critic of Literature • Margaret Ball

... Centralization of Manufacturing Industries. This is perhaps the most vital cause of the growth of cities. The great city, as we have already said, is very largely the product of modern industrialism. Improved machinery, improved ...
— Sociology and Modern Social Problems • Charles A. Ellwood

... first tendencies of sickness is to centralization. Every invalid at least begins by being pivotal in the household. But with the earliest hint that the case is chronic, things recoil to their own centres again; people begin to come and go in the gayest way; they laugh and eat immensely, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various



Words linked to "Centralization" :   consolidation, centralize, gathering



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