Traditionally, this title was an honor bestowed on those distinguished both by willingness to serve and effectiveness in doing so. This was our concept – unique throughout the world but one with such a strong sense of rightness that many would claim it for their own. Of course, claims and reality are not necessarily the same.

The crazy part of this story is that we don’t use this concept or even the expression anymore. Americans never quite got the concept but to this day they refer to those elected or appointed to office as belonging to the public service – to be sure, these are only words. But what happened to us?...