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The political slogan, Good Government, was used in English-speaking countries in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It appears in the Canadian political maxim "Peace, order and good government." Image File history File links Unbalanced_scales. ... Alternative meaning: Nineteenth Century (periodical) (18th century — 19th century — 20th century — more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 19th century was that century which lasted from 1801-1900 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar. ... (19th century - 20th century - 21st century - more centuries) Decades: 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s The 20th century lasted from 1901 to 2000 in the Gregorian calendar (often from (1900 to 1999 in common usage). ... In Canada, the phrase peace, order and good government (in French, paix, ordre et bon gouvernement), called POGG for short, is often used to describe the principles upon which that countrys Confederation took place. ...

Like many other political slogans, its meaning is not literal, but was constructed to express a specific partisan stance, rather than being a common phrase which acquired a more obscure meaning by public mental association.

The phrase came into existence by those political groups who abhorred the results of the expansion of the political franchise, and who wanted to get those people out of office. Examples of its use in America were by all sorts of opponents of the Tammany Hall rule of New York City and by the old Yankee political elite who opposed the transfer of power to Irish immigrants in Boston. It was used in the 1930s by those opposed to the New Deal, and later by the opponents of increased governmental size around the time of the Great Society project. Those who so use this phrase are in turn called by their own opponents "Goo-goos". Tammany Hall was the Democratic Party political machine that played a major role in New York City politics from the 1790s to the 1960s. ... The 1930s (years from 1930–1939) were described as an abrupt shift to more radical and conservative lifestyles, as countries were struggling to find a solution to the Great Depression, also known in Europe as the World Depression. ... The New Deal was the name President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave to the series of programs between 1933–1938 with the goal of relief, recovery and reform of the United States economy during the Great Depression. ... The Great Society was a set of domestic programs proposed or enacted in the United States on the initiative of President Lyndon B. Johnson (1963-1969). ... The goo-goos or good government guys, were political groups founded in an era when urban municipal governments in the United States were dominated by machine politics. ...

The phrase was used by the Canadians to refer to their understanding that their British heritage (ties to the more experienced "Mother of Parliaments") would enable them to escape falling into such a condition, often called "mob rule". Ochlocracy (Greek: οχλοκρατια; Latin: ochlocratia) is government by mob or a disorganized mass of people. ...