"Red tape" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Nupkins. I know all about it. The stupid red tape that hinders the Court from getting at the truth; the impossibility of making your stupid judge understand the real state of the case, because he is not thinking of you and your life as a man, ...
— The Tables Turned - or, Nupkins Awakened. A Socialist Interlude • William Morris
... target range. Poland's economic performance could improve further if the country addresses some of the remaining deficiencies in its business environment. An inefficient commercial court system, a rigid labor code, bureaucratic red tape, and persistent low-level corruption keep the private sector from performing up to its full potential. Rising demands to fund health care, education, and the state pension system present a challenge to the Polish government's effort to hold the consolidated ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... whom may have said, respecting his connection with subject-matter of the Secretary (none more emphatically so than Messrs. Adams and Burlingame), quorum pars magna fui? Yet, it must be remembered that diplomacy, like jurisprudence (with its red tape common to both), taketh few things for granted, and constantly maketh records for itself, under the maxim de non apparentibus non existentibus eadem est ratio; and ever beareth in mind that when certioraris to international tribunals are served, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... to me. So I talked it over with Sophie and one or two other men who wanted to do something, and we talked to returned soldiers. We couldn't do what it's the business of the country to do—and may perhaps do when the red tape is finally untangled. But we could do something, with a little brains and money and initiative. So ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... through the churches and galleries? They may want to go to bed early. But you never can tell till you try. You may become the rage on the continent. Yet, you go into the enemy's country. It isn't the same as going to London, among tolerant cousins. In Italy and in Germany there is always so much red tape, blundering, confusing red tape, custom duties, excessive charges. But your manager must know ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... Chaudiere, At the great Union celebration, The new bridge's inauguraton; One thing is certain, those brass guns Were ne'er seen more by Richmond's sons. They fell prey to official nabbing, And Governmental red tape grabbing, Like plunder from the vanquished harried, To Montreal off they were carried! Malloch was member many a year For Carleton when votes were not dear— When damaged eyes, and smashed proboscis Would follow, as the smallest ...
— Recollections of Bytown and Its Old Inhabitants • William Pittman Lett
... in remaining hush-hush weren't as great as all that. The very magnitude of the UP which involved more than two thousand member planets, allowed of departments and bureaus hidden away in the endless stretches of red tape. ...
— Ultima Thule • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... not influence. He thinks only of precedence and not of government.[1316] In short, the local government, in the hands of peasants commanded by bureaucrats, has become a common, offensive lot of red tape. "His pride would be wounded if he were asked to attend to it. Raising taxes, levying the militia, regulating the corvees, are servile acts, the works of a secretary." He accordingly abstains, remains isolated on his manor and leaves to others a task from which he is excluded ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... with that bit of parchment, Kavanagh had to enlist as a private, and you had to go wandering over the world for years, leaving your mother and sister in poverty and anxiety!" said Tom Strachan, meditatively. "People are always talking about red tape in the army; surely there is still more of it in ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... "finishers" have prospered, while the club—the old organization in which the reason of being has been lost in a maze of constitutional amendments, by-laws, and such like red tape—has declined in influence and popularity. In the world at large, pictorial photography has grown amazingly. This has led to a more pronounced line of demarkation between the dilettante and the intelligent worker of appreciation, with the balance of influence inclining ...
— Pictorial Photography in America 1920 • Pictorial Photographers of America
... occasion to know what it meant to lie awake nights, and wonder if fortune would ever take a turn for the better. His father had been left a valuable property away up in Alaska, by a brother who had died; but there was a lot of red tape connected with the settlement; and a powerful syndicate of capitalists had an eye on the mine, which was really essential to their interests, as it rounded out property they ...
— Fred Fenton on the Track - or, The Athletes of Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... couldn't be expected to enjoy sitting on a bench and reading a worn-out magazine after looking forward to visiting his old haunts on Earth after months or years in space. His only thought was to get through the red tape and step through the door on the other side of which lay freedom of expression and ...
— Unthinkable • Roger Phillips Graham
... sure you read my letters, I'll make them much more interesting, so they'll be worth keeping in a safe with red tape around them—only please take out that dreadful one and burn it up. I'd hate to think that you ...
— Daddy-Long-Legs • Jean Webster
... and the title, PEEBLES AGAINST PLAINSTANES. This huge mass was deposited on the table, and my father, with no ordinary glee in his countenance, began to draw out; the various bundles of papers, secured by none of your red tape or whipcord, but stout, substantial casts of tarred rope, such as might have held small ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... growth above 4%. An IMF Standby Agreement, signed in 2001, has been accompanied by slow but palpable gains in privatization, deficit reduction, and the curbing of inflation. Nonetheless, recent macroeconomic gains have done little to address Romania's widespread poverty, while corruption and red tape hinder foreign investment. ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... any value; but a piece of paper was discovered, wrapped up in oilskin, and carefully fastened with red tape, in the vest pocket of the dead man. It contained writing, and had been so securely wrapped up, that it was only a little damped. Davy Spink, who found it, tried in vain to read the writing; Davy's education had been neglected, so he was fain to confess that he could ...
— The Lighthouse • R.M. Ballantyne
... most difficult person to deal with whom she had ever met in her life. She had remarked that he was keen, active, intelligent, unscrupulous, confident in his own powers, bold as a lion in the wars of quill, parchment, and red tape; without fear, without hesitation, without remorse. There was nothing that he scrupled to do, nothing that he ever repented having done. She had fancied that the only difficulty which she could have to encounter was ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... But the latter, without loss of time, proceeded to turn out the dead man's pockets, commencing with the bulky object that had first attracted his attention; which proved to be a brown-paper parcel tied up with red tape. ...
— John Thorndyke's Cases • R. Austin Freeman
... and snobbery, incompetence and Red Tape. (He holds up the dispatch and adds, with despair in his face and voice) I have just learnt, sir, that General Howe is still ...
— The Devil's Disciple • George Bernard Shaw
... enough,—there was a crumb of comfort there. But Tom went off on another track. Tom distrusted the Navy Department. He had been long enough at Annapolis to doubt the red tape of the bureaus with which his chiefs had to do. "If the navy had the money, the navy had the vouchers," that was Tom's theory. He knew a chief clerk in the navy, and Tom was going ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale
... requires all the learning and the logic of a Lord Chief Justice and a London barrister to establish a connection between such premises and such a conclusion. And if Shakespeare's lines smell of law, how strong is the odor of parchment and red tape in these, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... down to Monterey. He finds Fremont gone, already on his way east. His soldier wrists are bound with the red tape of arrest. The puppet of master minds behind the scenes, Fremont has ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... considered complete and withheld a million dollars worth of bonds due under the charter act. It was October 1st, 1874, before the fact that the line was actually completed sifted through departmental red tape, and the Secretary of Interior on the further report of "three eminent citizens" discovered that the road had been completed November 6th, 1869 as reported by the previous board of five, and further that the total cost of the line had been one hundred and fifteen million, two ...
— The Story of the First Trans-Continental Railroad - Its Projectors, Construction and History • W. F. Bailey
... Several hanks of red tape lay upon the table. With a portion of one of these, the back of the chair in which the Maire sat was lashed to the handle of a heavy bureau. Then his feet were fastened to the two legs of the chair, so that he could neither kick nor upset himself. The other man was then fastened as securely. ...
— Under Wellington's Command - A Tale of the Peninsular War • G. A. Henty
... copying records into an enormous folio. He had wintered and summered in the department for a great part of a century, until he had almost grown to be a piece of the desk at which he sat; his memory was a mere index of official facts and documents, and his brain was little better than red tape and parchment. After peering down for a time from his lofty perch, and ascertaining the matter in controversy, he put his pen behind his ear, and descended. He remembered to have heard something from his predecessor about an expedition ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... across the lab, where they clattered, rolled from the bench to the floor, and were still. For a moment he sat leaning against the desk, his hands trembling. He wasn't sure just when the last straw had been added, but he was sure that he had had enough. The restrictions, red tape, security measures of these government laboratories seemed to close in on his mind in boiling, chaotic waves of frustration. What was the good of his work, all this great installation, all the gleaming expensive equipment ...
— Security • Ernest M. Kenyon
... lifted, showing another cavity beneath. From this the searcher withdrew a long envelope, tied with red tape. ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Millville • Edith Van Dyne
... extended to them in time gone by. They furnish up a fine mahogany office, with an outer room, and outside of this another room with an information desk. They cultivate coldness and independence. They make it difficult for their friends to see them. They put a lot of red tape around their business, and by these acts they get out of touch with the pulse of the business. They look at things through colored ...
— Dollars and Sense • Col. Wm. C. Hunter
... landed among a party of Fuegians. At first they were not inclined to be friendly; for until the Captain pulled in ahead of the other boats, they kept their slings in their hands. We soon, however, delighted them by trifling presents, such as tying red tape round their heads. They liked our biscuit: but one of the savages touched with his finger some of the meat preserved in tin cases which I was eating, and feeling it soft and cold, showed as much disgust at it, as I should have done at putrid blubber. ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... for a large number of civilian observers, including news and special writers, photographers, illustrators and painters, and, to handle them satisfactorily, organized this Presse Quartier, once admitted to which—the fakers and fly-by-nights were supposed to be weeded out by preliminary red tape—they were assumed to be serious workmen and ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various
... the supply of red tape in Richmond seemed temporarily exhausted. Stuart was Lee's right hand, and when he made a request, the War Office deigned to listen. Four days afterward, I was seated under the canvas of a staff tent, when Stuart hastened up with boyish ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... in Alabama each citizen who so desired was allowed by law to import from outside the State a small allotment of strong drink for personal use, but the red tape involved in this procedure had already discouraged all but the most ardent drinkers, and those found it next to impossible, even by hoarding their "lonesome quarts," and pooling supplies with their convivial friends, to provide sufficient alcoholic drink ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... in other and more apparent qualifications, that every plain man he comes in contact with takes it for granted that he is an equally "plain" man himself. He is plain in so far as he is straightforward in attitude and simple in manner. No red tape is required apparently to penetrate into this president's private office, whereas many "small" men are guarded with pretentiousness that is often an effort to ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... endowment—where could a genius devoted to the search for truth, and unworldly as most geniuses are, find on the earth's whole round a place more advantageous to come and work in? Die Luft der Freiheit weht! All the traditions are individualistic. Red tape and organization are at their minimum. Interruptions and perturbing distractions hardly exist. Eastern institutions look all dark and huddled and confused in comparison with this purity and serenity. Shall it not be auspicious? Surely the one destiny ...
— Memories and Studies • William James
... difficult to find a more practical or comprehensive colonial program. It eliminates that bane of over-seas administration, red tape, and it puts the task of empire-building squarely up to the business man who is the best qualified for the work. I am quite certain that the advent of Monsieur Franck into office, and particularly his trip to the Congo, mean the beginning of an epoch of real ...
— An African Adventure • Isaac F. Marcosson
... business, Mr. Medler," Gilbert began, seating himself opposite the shabby-looking office-table, with its covering of dusty faded baize, upon which there seemed to be always precisely the same array of papers in little bundles tied with red tape; "but first let me ask you a question: Have you heard ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... attracted. But, when he is trimmed, smoothed, and varnished, according to the mode; when he is aweary of vice, and aweary of virtue, used up as to brimstone, and used up as to bliss; then, whether he take to the serving out of red tape, or to the kindling of red fire, he is the ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... society can control the elements, and regulate a spring freshet, a whirlwind or a cyclone, they will find that red tape is not strong enough to ...
— A Story of the Red Cross - Glimpses of Field Work • Clara Barton
... But there's no harm in trying. Have the old man stir up a big dust at Washington. After plenty of red tape an official representation will be made to Pasquale. He will lie himself black in the face. More correspondence. More explanations. Finally, if the prisoners are still alive, they will start home. Mebbe they'll ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... enough for me," he said. "At last—at last," he whispered, "all the red tape is over, and I've got you to myself! Do you love ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... the red tape which held the letters together. Yes, there was a piece of circumstantial evidence which might have helped to convict my friend had he been on his trial in a criminal court. The red tape bore the mark of ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... he declared, "is under embargo. I have been waiting here since half tide and there's nothing doing. Somebody's in there chewing red tape, but I don't calculate to let anybody else have a turn at it until I get my bit wound up an' tied in a knot. Now don't tell me you've ...
— The Lovely Lady • Mary Austin
... correspondents, and who, unofficially, I have reason to believe, is connected with the Secret Service. He is a pudgy sort of man, with a watery skin, and decidedly not of military build or bearing. When, after much red tape, I was finally admitted to an outer office, he stepped out to see me, merely taking my name and the names of the papers I represented. I was told to come back in the evening. When I did so and was admitted to His Holy of Holies, he said to ...
— The Log of a Noncombatant • Horace Green
... little packet of manuscript; it is paginated, you see, and I have indulged in the civil coquetry of a ribbon of red tape. It has almost a legal air, hasn't it? Run your eye over it, Austin. It is an account of the entertainment Mrs. Beaumont provided for her choicer guests. The man who wrote this escaped with his life, but I do not think he will live many years. The doctors tell him he must have sustained ...
— The Great God Pan • Arthur Machen
... putting some spell upon him. Opposite to the tall old chimney-piece were two portraits: one of a gentleman with grey hair (though not by any means an old man) and black eyebrows, who was looking over some papers tied together with red tape; the other, of a lady, with a very placid and sweet expression of face, who was looking ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... trial came to an end. The seemingly endless spool of legal red tape having unrolled over a period of four and a half years, suddenly snapped off. Anthony and Gloria and, on the other side, Edward Shuttleworth and a platoon of beneficiaries testified and lied and ill-behaved generally in varying degrees of greed and desperation. ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... pound of sea-salt. By what logic will you make it clear to ignorant people that it is wrong to take salt out of the sea, whence every one takes fish which are more valuable? The waste of time employed over red tape alone on these occasions would lead to a revolution anywhere save among men inured by long abuses to this particular form of tyranny. No wonder the women of the country-side, rather than waste three precious hours in arguments about a few cheeses, will smuggle them ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... is to be given to the minor arts; at first there will be no fees; above all and before all, the great College of ours is not to be made a Government department, to be tied and bound by the hard-and-fast rules and red tape which are the curse of every department, nor is it to be under the direction of any School Board, but, like most things in this country that are of any use, it is to be governed ...
— As We Are and As We May Be • Sir Walter Besant
... hood and jacket, with her mittens dangling from a red tape on each side, she flew out and down the long, rickety stairs which a former senator from Nevada had built up the mountain's side, when he planned for his home a magnificent view of the mountains and desert off toward ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... individuals ending in bloodshed, filled the court calendars with land disputes, suits for debt, and exciting murder cases, which gave to lawyers more importance and better chances of advancement than they possessed in the older States. Mr. Clay had two strings to his bow. Besides being a man of red tape and pigeon-holes, exact, methodical, and strictly attentive to business, he had a power over a Kentucky jury such as no other man has ever wielded. To this day nothing pleases aged Kentuckians better than to tell stories which they heard their fathers tell, of Clay's happy repartees to opposing ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... a feller that joined in France, so I know you can do it. You see, it cuts out a lot of red tape, and I'd kind of like hiking it alone—ever since I was a ...
— Tom Slade on a Transport • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... confidence in the abilities of the commander, whom I had practically myself chosen, and, except when he asked for my assistance, I left him entirely alone. I encouraged him to pay no attention to those vexatious bureaucratic formalities with which, under the slang phrase of "red tape" our military system is overburdened. I exercised some little control over the demands for stores which were sent to the London War Office; and the mere fact that these demands passed through my hands, and that I declined to forward any request unless, besides being in accordance with existing regulations—a ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... Officer will bind up the Second-in-Command with a length of red tape, showing that no escape is possible ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 5, 1919 • Various
... long trail to follow," he said, slowly, "trying to get back dues from the government. There's red tape and lawyers and rulings and evidence and courts to keep you waiting. I'm not certain," continued the commissioner, with a profoundly meditative frown, "whether this department that I'm the boss of has any jurisdiction or not. It's only Insurance, Statistics, and History, ma'am, and it don't ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... from him. "Laws! In some states, yes. In others, no. It is a mere technicality—a trifle! There is about it a bit of that which you call red tape. It amounts to nothing—to that!" He snapped his fingers. "A few months' residence in another state, perhaps. These American laws, ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... in such a coil of red tape all of one whole day, 5 o'clock sounded Retreat, when instruction was given on how to stand at ease; how to assume the position of "parade-rest"; ...
— The Delta of the Triple Elevens - The History of Battery D, 311th Field Artillery US Army, - American Expeditionary Forces • William Elmer Bachman
... put up with that sneak, that nasty phiz. Ugh! how can you live here! The atmosphere is stifling and unclean! Do you call yourselves schoolmasters, teachers? You are paltry government clerks. You keep, not a temple of science, but a department for red tape and loyal behaviour, and it smells as sour as a police-station. No, my friends; I will stay with you for a while, and then I will go to my farm and there catch crabs and teach the Little Russians. I shall ...
— The Wife and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... the baby—and she mustn't suffer," he urged. "There will be any amount of red tape. You really must let ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... is," said Moulder. "Lord bless you, John, they'll turn you round their finger like a bit of red tape. Truth! Gammon! What ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... letter dated November 21, 1776: "I shall send you the case with the patterns and tools of my late grandfather Antonio, which was packed and closed before my father was bedridden. You will find it well-arranged, with mark on it, and with red tape and seal as on the Violins already sent to you." He next refers to other patterns which he found locked up in a chest and which he believes were unknown or forgotten by his father, and offers to dispose of them, with a Viola, and concludes by ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... rest of my things, stood in one corner of the room, till at last, leaving my breakfast unfinished, I rose, and, going to the box, unlocked it, and took out two or three bundles of papers tied with red tape, and, placing them on the table, I resumed my seat and my breakfast, my eyes intently fixed upon the bundles of papers all ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... long night at the Ansonia and a hard night for M. Gritz. France is a land of infinite red tape where even such simple things as getting born or getting married lead to endless formalities. Judge, then, of the complicated procedure involved in so serious a matter as getting murdered—especially in a fashionable restaurant! Long before the ...
— Through the Wall • Cleveland Moffett
... go back across America, as they say one may die of boredom in the Volunteer Fleet; it's all military discipline and red tape regulations, and they don't ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... Paddy enjoyed the swim almost as much as I did. He was a great favourite with everybody but the Provost-Martial. This official was a terror for red tape, and an order came out that dogs were to be destroyed. That meant that the Military Police were after Paddy. However, I went to General Birdwood, who was very handsome about it, and gave me permission to keep the little chap. Almost immediately after he ...
— Five Months at Anzac • Joseph Lievesley Beeston
... took office? Why I called the company together and I said to them: "Here we are, you know, gods and goddesses, no mistake about it, the real thing. Well, we have certain duties to discharge, let's discharge them intelligently. Don't let us be hampered by routine and red tape and precedent, let's set the original gods an example, and put a liberal interpretation on our duties. If it occurs to any one to try an experiment in his own department, let him try it, if he fails there's no harm done, if he succeeds it is a distinct gain to society. Don't hurry ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... bargains, the lady of the law-knight wen on to smuggling; and, as she got into spirits, talking loudly, she told of some amber satin, a whole piece capitally got over in an old gentleman's "Last Will and Testament," tied up with red tape so nicely, and sealed and superscribed and all, got through untouched! "But a better thing I did myself," continued she; "the last trip I made to Paris—coming back, I set at defiance all the searchers ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... something to do, it occurred to him to write to the Secretary of the Navy asking permission to explore the Dead Sea. Under ordinary circumstances the proposal would doubtless have been strangled with red tape; but, fortunately, the Secretary at that time was Mr. John Y. Mason, of Virginia. Mr. Mason was famous for his good nature. Both at Washington and at Paris, where he was afterward minister, this predominant trait has left a multitude of amusing traditions; it was of him that Senator Benton said, ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... standstill at once. Our whole mercantile system, a modern piece of mechanism unknown to the East till we imported it thither, turns on an implicit belief in the word of one's neighbor. Our legal safeguards would snap like red tape were the great bond of mutual trust once broken. Western civilization has to be ...
— The Soul of the Far East • Percival Lowell
... said, "all the red tape! Because I belong to a volunteer ambulance the officers wanted to know by what infernal impudence I dared to touch the wounded. I had to drive forty miles to get official permission, and could not get it then... And the wounded were lying about everywhere, ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... life; he wanted to free his native place from aristocratic usurpation; it was the battle of the electors, not his private cause, etc. He said little against Randal,—"Pity a clever young man should pin his future to two yards of worn-out red tape;" "He had better lay hold of the strong rope, which the People, in compassion to his youth, were willing yet to throw out to save him from sinking," etc. But as for Audley Egerton, "the gentleman who would not show, who was afraid to meet ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... and removed three neat packages tied with red tape. He unfastened one of these and laid three cards before him. They were three photographic enlargements of a finger print. It did not need the eye of an expert to see they were of the same finger, though it was obvious that they had been made ...
— The Secret House • Edgar Wallace
... cutting of red tape which only Miss Euston could have accomplished, we were led by a white-uniformed nurse through the silent halls to the private room ...
— The Treasure-Train • Arthur B. Reeve
... it into your head? Did anyone tell you about Beth's giving away her things?" asked Laurie soberly, as Amy laid a bit of red tape, with sealing wax, a taper, and a standish ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... soft-voiced, tender-hearted man who was tall and of goodly frame, yet had the scholar's air, about whose knees they would cluster and hear enchanting tales, the plots of which have long since got tangled in the red tape of life. He had, what all fathers should surely have, a great love of natural history, and on his country walks would beguile his boys with talk of animals, birds, and flowers, implanting in their minds a love of the open and a study of field geology which has since stood them in ...
— The Story of Baden-Powell - 'The Wolf That Never Sleeps' • Harold Begbie
... I could see—only if anyone had passed and had asked for our papers there would have been trouble. However, we had our laugh, and decided that it was not worth while to risk it again. But I could not help asking myself how, with all their red tape, they ever caught any ...
— On the Edge of the War Zone - From the Battle of the Marne to the Entrance of the Stars and Stripes • Mildred Aldrich
... never did. It would mean a good deal of red tape for a man who changed his mind frequently. He could not fool his relations; they would know. The laws of the dark peoples have always amazed me, because if you dig deep enough into them you are likely to find common sense at the bottom. We must ...
— The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath
... patience with red tape that barred the way to the truth, yet there were times when law and legal procedure had to be respected, no matter how much they hampered, and this was one of them. The next day the order was obtained permitting the opening again of the grave of old Mr. Godwin. The body was ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve
... part under which he remained in my office. Now and then, in the eagerness of dispatching pressing business, I would inadvertently summon Bartleby, in a short, rapid tone, to put his finger, say, on the incipient tie of a bit of red tape with which I was about compressing some papers. Of course, from behind the screen the usual answer, "I prefer not to," was sure to come; and then, how could a human creature, with the common infirmities of our ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... through the city that some one had taken the bottle out of the show window, and a large crowd had assembled to see the plutocrats come forth. We capered blithely out to the machine, climbed in and hiked for the blind tiger. After the usual red tape the captain sold us about two quarts of jig-juice—the kind that makes a jack-rabbit spit ...
— The Sorrows of a Show Girl • Kenneth McGaffey
... her friends and engaged herself to Bob Cheever. Jimmie Thorne went to France as an ambulance driver, and Bascom Luning to join the Lafayette Escadrille. Gora sailed six months later to offer her services to England. In the case of a nurse there was much red tape to unravel. ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... very decidedly of opinion that even in October there was a glare—and in August—she shuddered to think of it! It was so tiresome, too, to have missed the Grandes Eaux. So like French red tape, to insist on stopping them on a particular date. Why should they be stopped? As to expense, that was nonsense. How could water cost anything! It was because the French were so doctrinaire, so tyrannical—so fond ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... building that he had ordered fitted up for a school for three hundred freed children in that part of his district. But he found that nothing had been done. "Upon my word," he exclaimed, "not a stroke, not a stone, not a window. O, I can't stand this red tape; I just want to leave every other duty and pitch into this house. I know I am too impulsive, but that is the way of an Irishman. I have often thought Peter was an Irishman, ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland
... and deaths of I don't know how many committees, after six weeks' struggling with something we imagined to be Red Tape, which proved to be the combined egoism of several persons all desperately anxious to "get to the Front," and desperately afraid of somebody else getting there too, and getting there first, we are actually off. Impossible to describe the mysterious processes ...
— A Journal of Impressions in Belgium • May Sinclair
... activity in construction, agriculture, and consumption have kept GDP growth above 4%. However, macroeconomic gains have only recently started to spur creation of a middle class and address Romania's widespread poverty, while corruption and red tape continue to handicap the business environment. Romanian government confidence in continuing disinflation was underscored by its currency revaluation in 2005, making 10,000 "old" lei equal 1 "new" leu. The economy grew at 6.4% ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... life," said the Judge, "is to be the organizer of a lodge without flub-dub, gold tassel uniforms, red tape ritual, a regiment of officers with high-sounding titles, a calisthenic drill of idiotic signs and grips, a goat, and members who call each other 'brother.' I would name the presiding officer 'it,' and its first by-law would ...
— Best Short Stories • Various
... to keep thinking all the time. You have to look beyond the mass of detail in the foreground—past all the minor annoyances and the red tape and the seeming ingratitude. You've got to figure that you're there to supply the needed human note—to let these people understand that this Government of ours is not a mere machine with the motive power at Washington. You've ...
— Mystery Ranch • Arthur Chapman
... quality as a politician, that special individual qualification that every rising functionary possesses, the qualification that with his unflagging ambition, his reserve, his honesty, and with his self-confidence had made his career, was his contempt for red tape, his cutting down of correspondence, his direct contact, wherever possible, with the living fact, and his economy. It happened that the famous Commission of the 2nd of June had set on foot an inquiry into the irrigation of lands in the Zaraisky province, ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... soldier telegrapher in one bedroom, a soldier typewritist in another, officers at work in others. One realized that they could pack up everything and move in the time it takes to toss enough clothes into a bag to spend a night away from home. Apparently, when the French fought they left red tape behind ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... received 60% of all foreign investment in Eastern Europe, and in 1992 received the largest single share. The growing private sector accounts for about one-third of national output according to unofficial estimates. Privatization of state enterprises is progressing, although excessive red tape, bureaucratic oversight, and uncertainties about pricing have slowed the process. Escalating unemployment and high rates of inflation may impede efforts to speed up privatization and budget reform, while Hungary's heavy foreign debt will make ...
— The 1993 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... replied that this was a matter for police cognizance! But the brave outward show of ropes, disinfectants, gorgeous sentries—in front—and official inspection went solemnly on. Great, even in Africa, is the god of red tape. ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... but if I had asked to have your Confederate friends paroled, a thousand yards of red tape would have to be expended before it could be done," added the engineer ...
— A Victorious Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... "What have you got there?" And when Jimmie answered maps, he demanded them; he seemed as greedy for maps as a child for his gifts on Christmas morning. He ripped open the packet—what is called "cutting red tape" in the army—and spread out the papers and began to call out figures to another officer who sat on a camp stool at a little folding table, with many sheets of figures in front of him. This officer went on noting down the information—and the men at the guns ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... Joe" could have heard our remarks about the Divisional Baths and army red tape, he would have fainted at our wickedness. But Tommy is only ...
— Over The Top • Arthur Guy Empey
... a time in the world's history when Christian men and women felt so led of God not to wait for committees nor the red tape of ecclesiastical authority, but to hurry forth under a personal call from God and do what they could with their individual means and talents for the saving of souls, the sanctifying of believers, and preparing the chosen few to meet Jesus. There never seemed a time when anything ...
— The Gospel Day • Charles Ebert Orr
... WALLACE, AGNEW! Here be three good names, Friends of true Art, and furtherers of her aims; Munificence but waits to take sound shape; Say, shall it be frustrated by—Red Tape? ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99., August 2, 1890. • Various
... every day. They had never seen so many men so willing to go for so many long walks before. They thought the Millennium had come. A proposal was made that they should be taught to form fours and march in the rear. But, like all great strategical plans, it was stifled by red tape. After that— ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, November 3, 1920 • Various
... things, for he stares impudent at the galls, has a cigar in his mouth, dresses snobbishly, and talks of making a book at Ascot. The young lawyer struts along in his seven-league boots, has a white-bound book in one hand, and a parcel of papers, tied with red tape, in the other. He is in a desperate hurry, and as sure as the world, somebody is a dying, and has sent for him to make his will. The Irish priest walks like a warder who has the keys. There is an air of authority about him. He puts his cane down on the pavement hard, as much as to say, Do ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... and Cabinet of any colony. He knew very well that all his good work had been done in an independent and unfettered capacity, and at the Cape he must have felt that, as nominal head of the forces, he would have been fettered by red tape and local jealousies, and rendered incapable of doing any good in an anomalous position. But after events make it desirable to state and recollect the precise circumstances of this first offer to ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume II • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... Catiline on his hands, this must have been more than usually heavy. How he did it, with what assistance, sitting at what writing-table, dressed in what robes, with what surroundings of archives and red tape, I cannot make manifest to myself. I can imagine that there must have been much of dignity, as there was with all leading Romans, but beyond that I cannot advance even in fancying what was the ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope
... statesmanship, a mysterious device in finance, which, whether from being misunderstood or mismanaged, bore from the beginning fruits the very reverse of those it had promised." We seem here to be reading the history of more than one great railway enterprise undertaken by politicians without the red tape preliminaries of surveying or framing estimates, progress not deigning to wait upon trifles. This system of policy gave fine scope for the talents of the "log-roller," here defined as an especially wily and persuasive ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... determination would have been the same. He would return to Lac Bain—but how? That was the question which puzzled him. He still had thirteen months of service ahead of him. He was not in line for a furlough. It would take at least three months of official red tape to purchase his discharge. These facts rose like barriers in his way. It occurred to him that he might confide in MacGregor, and that the inspector would make an opportunity for him to return into the north immediately. MacGregor had ...
— Philip Steele of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • James Oliver Curwood
... the state department called the war department by telephone, and quickly down the line to the commanding officer at Fort Myer went a special assignment for Captain Claiborne to report to the Secretary of State. A great deal of perfectly sound red tape was reduced to minute particles in these manipulations; but Baron von Marhof's business was urgent; it was also of a private and wholly confidential character. Therefore, he returned to his cottage at Storm Springs, and the Washington papers stated that he was ill and had gone ...
— The Port of Missing Men • Meredith Nicholson
... moment with the red leather of the chair behind her, with her gloved hands resting on the carved oak, and her head on one side, smiling up at him. She gazed with large eyes at the blue linen envelopes, the stiff documents in red tape, the tray of black sand, and ...
— The Lion and the Unicorn and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... Philippine Islands." The hardships and perils of the long voyage daunt many at the start, and he who is in charge of them must use great discretion in managing them. At the court, he cannot get his documents without much importunity, locomotion, and red tape, and long and tedious delays. The sum of money allowed for the traveling expenses of the missionaries to Sevilla is far too small; and, arriving there, they encounter more red tape and delays. Besides, the amount granted for provisions on the voyage is ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XIV., 1606-1609 • Various
... which had long since lost all claim to its original hue of green, and had gradually grown grey with dust and age, except where all traces of its natural colour were obliterated by ink-stains. Upon the table were numerous little bundles of papers tied with red tape; and behind it, sat an elderly clerk, whose sleek appearance and heavy gold watch-chain presented imposing indications of the extensive and lucrative practice of Mr. ...
— Bardell v. Pickwick • Percy Fitzgerald
... leave. There is to be a consultation of the Corps Diplomatique to-morrow, under the presidency of the Nuncio, to settle joint action. I admire the common sense of Mr. Washburne. He called two days ago upon the Government to express his sympathy with them. Not being a man of forms and red tape, instead of going to the Foreign-office, he went to the Hotel de Ville, found a Council sitting, shook hands all round, and then withdrew. I have serious thoughts of taking up my quarters at the English Embassy. It belongs to me as one of the ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... made an innovation known as the "Cleveland plan" which seeks to minimize school routine, red tape and frequent examinations. Great stress is put on domestic and manual training courses, and promotion in the grammar schools is made dependent on the general knowledge and development of the pupil as estimated by a teacher who ...
— The Greatest Highway in the World • Anonymous
... native city, and as short a stay in Philadelphia, he took down his shingle forever, and proceeded to New Orleans to study law. In two years he was admitted to the bar of Louisiana. But because clients were few, or because the red tape of the law chafed his spirit, within a year, as already he had abandoned the Church and Medicine, he abandoned his law practice and became an editorial writer on the New Orleans Crescent. A year later the restlessness which had rebelled against the grave ...
— Real Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... easy. And surely there is something very attractive about a system where everything is done as an act of friendship, and not as the soulless reflex of some official machine. It is easier to drink red wine than to eat red tape, and not nearly so wearing to ...
— A Surgeon in Belgium • Henry Sessions Souttar
... the life," replied Grey vindictively, "it's the d——d red tape that demands the half-yearly journey down country. That's the dog's part of our business. Why can't they establish a branch bank up here for the bullion and send all 'returns' by mail? There is a postal service—of a kind. It's a one-horsed ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... be off," laughed Sissy. "How dreadfully I have made you waste your time! I dare say if I hadn't been here you would have written ever so many things on parchment and tied them up with red tape." ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... over, noticed with amusement that the dark array of learned counsel who had been fighting with all their strength to win the case of their clients did not seem to be particularly distressed at the reverse that they had suffered, but chatted away gaily as they tied up their papers with scraps of red tape. She did not, perhaps, quite realize that, having done their best and earned their little fees, they did not feel called on to be heart-broken because the Court declined to take the view they were paid to support. But it was a very different matter with Messrs. Addison and Roscoe, who had ...
— Mr. Meeson's Will • H. Rider Haggard
... the Circumlocution Office!" exclaimed the President. "I'm surprised at you, Huntingdon! You know what the budget and red tape of Washington does to a temperament like Miss Allen's. On the other hand, here is my friend, who would give her absolutely free rein and take an intense pride ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow
... Allen acted as delegate from this association and reported our progress. The best organized woman's society in the State is probably the Women's Christian Temperance Union. In its different departments, although hampered by too much theological red tape, it is reaching thousands of ignorant, prejudiced, good sectarian women who would expect the "heavens to fall" if they accidentally got into a meeting where "woman's rights" was mentioned even in a whisper. Mrs. Clara Hoffman, of Kansas City, is State president, and a woman ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... be the new permanent secretary at the War Office. Let's hope he has no connection with the firm of Gold Brade and Red Tape. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 146., January 14, 1914 • Various
... hated all the red tape in that huge network of institutions by which New York City provides "relief." She never dropped a case of hers into that cumbrous relief machine and then let it slip out of her sight. She did the hard thing, she followed it up. She had learned, as I had in my work, to "get on ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole
... respectable—congregations; there was a wooden Town Hall, painted grey; a wooden Post Office, painted brown; a red college, where boys in white disported upon a green field; a fawn-coloured school, with a playground full of pinafored little girls; and a Red Tape Office—designed in true Elizabethan style, with cupolas, vanes, fantastic chimney-tops, embayed windows, wondrous parapets—built entirely of wood and painted the colour of Devonshire cream, with grit in the paint to make ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... no formal proceeding and we will dispense with red tape. If we don't, I shall get all tangled up in it. Where's Mr. Irwin? Please come in here, Jim. Now, I know there's some feeling in these things—there always seems to be; but I have none. So I'll just ...
— The Brown Mouse • Herbert Quick
... standing at an old-fashioned bureau, the front of which let down to form a writing-desk and enclosed a number of various-sized drawers. He had taken out several packets of paper neatly tied with red tape and seemed ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... reverses of the war did not stir the stolid British bulk. Men fought for a chance to fight; restriction still oppressed factory output. Red tape vied with tradition to block the path of ...
— The War After the War • Isaac Frederick Marcosson
... train bound for Cape Town. It was an order, and he obeyed. Nevertheless, he shrank from the very mention of Cape Town. It had been the core of his universe; but now the core had gone bad. But his time of service had expired. Red tape demanded that he receive the papers for his discharge from the Cape Town citadel. That done, he would take the first outgoing steamer for London. Afterwards, he would leave his life in the hands of Fate. He took ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller
... it gets to Washington that the commanding officer at Boise personally interfered with the Legislature of Idaho, it'll shock 'em to that extent that the government will have to pay for a special commission of investigation and two tons of red tape. I've got to trust to that corporal's good sense. I haven't another man at ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... brick!" he declared heartily. "He's renting the farm because he discovered in what desperate straits the Gays are; if he tried to buy it, it would take months to get their affairs untangled—there would be miles of red tape and court hearings and dear knows what all. Instead he has paid them cash down for a quarter and I understand from Alec he is paying a generous rental, besides offering Alec employment this winter. He's put out because ...
— Rainbow Hill • Josephine Lawrence
... BAYLY! So will cry officials cold and steely, Who do not wish to be disturbed while pottering genteely, At their old business of Red Tape circumlocuting gaily, By tales of wrecks for want of wires, as truly told by BAYLY. Oh, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, January 23, 1892 • Various
... soldiers called him. He was an indifferent, negative sort of man; and indifferent, negative sorts of people, by their dishwater goodness, can sometimes do more harm in critical positions than the branded criminal. Red tape had forced him on Pitt, but Pitt trusted to the excellence of the subordinate ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... tape showed signs at first of declining to unwind, but further investigation proved the frauds so great, that even the red tape was thrilled into action, and the Government began a suit in the United States District Court at New York for $1,000,000 for penalties for fraudulent custom-house under-valuations. It sued William E. Dodge, William E. Dodge, Jr., D. Willis James, Anson Phelps ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... departments. A "general directory" was intrusted with the businesslike conduct of the finances and gradually evolved an elaborate civil service—the famous Prussian bureaucracy, which, in spite of inevitable "red tape," is notable to this day for its efficiency and devotion to duty. The king endeavored to encourage industry and trade by enforcing up-to-date mercantilist regulations, and, although he repeatedly expressed contempt for current culture because of what he thought were its ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... more surprising than the sudden downfall and restoration of Germany in Turkish favor. With reason does the Kaiser give Ambassador von Bieberstein, "the ablest diplomat in Europe," constant access to the imperial ear, regardless of foreign-office red tape. During the heyday of the Young Turk party's power, this astute old player of the game was ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... has to fix upon is an elaborate series of taboos. Sensational disclosures will often make the public flare up spasmodically; but the mass of men is soon bored by intricate rules and tangles of red tape; the "crusade" is looked upon as a melodrama of real ...
— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann
... did not see their way to contribute their proportion, and without a local contribution, I explained, the Department could not, consistently with its principles, unless in most exceptional—Here he breaks in: 'Oh! that red tape. You're as bad as the rest—exceptional, indeed! Why, everything is exceptional in my constituency. I am a bit that way myself. But, seriously, the condition of these poor people would move even a Government ...
— Ireland In The New Century • Horace Plunkett
... which held the letters together. Yes, there was a piece of circumstantial evidence which might have helped to convict my friend had he been on his trial in a criminal court. The red tape bore the mark of the place in which it had been tied for half a century; and a little way within this mark the trace of a very recent tying. Some of the letters had been extracted, and the tape ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... "Merchant" in Chaucer, that "the sea were kept for anything" between Middelburgh and Harwich, had not some of them, such as the Londoner John Philpot, occasionally armed and manned a squadron of ships on their own account, in defiance of red tape and its censures. But in the days when Chaucer and the generation with which he grew up were young, the ardour of foreign conquest had not yet died out in the land, and clergy and laity cheerfully co-operated in bearing the burdens which military ...
— Chaucer • Adolphus William Ward
... their desertion the day previous to our arrival by getting drunk, and when the horse-buyers arrived they were in jail. This last condition rather frustrated our plans for their capture, as we expected to kidnap them out. But now we had red tape authorities to deal with. ...
— Cattle Brands - A Collection of Western Camp-fire Stories • Andy Adams
... a speech at Manchester on June 4, and again on June 5, before the employers and workmen of Lancashire, the new Minister of Munitions announced his policy of discontinuing the methods of red tape that had hindered the mobilization of labor for the production of arms and ammunition. His speech at ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various |
