Sharp criticism by Chief Justice Hughes and Associate Justice Brandeis of the Supreme Court, in the Eastern Texas oil case, of the haphazard manner in which executive and administrative orders having the force of law are distributed attracted public attention to a much-needed reform which has been advocated at intervals by political scientists. Lack of definite information concerning the issuance of these orders, combined with their rapidly increasing number and importance under the codes of fair competition, are factors in the growing demand that they be published in some definite and available form.

If one consults the Catalogue of Public Documents, under the subject “executive orders,” one finds the following: “See notes, entries, and lists of references under President of the United States. Executive orders—also subjects of orders.”

All proposals of amendments to the Constitution of the United States under Article V have been made only by Congress and, with the exception of the Twentyfirst Amendment, the mode of ratification has been “by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several states.” The Twenty-first Amendment alone was ratified by conventions in three-fourths of the states.

The enrolled joint resolution proposing the Twenty-first Amendment was delivered on February 20, 1933, to Secretary of State Henry L. Stimson. On February 21, he sent identic letters to the governors of the forty-eight states, enclosing with each letter a certified copy of the joint resolution, and requesting that the resolution be submitted to a state convention and that a certified copy of the action taken be communicated to the secretary of state.

It is curious that the question with which, of all others, every participant in local politics finds himself most persistently confronted—and it is a truism that by far the greatest part of our political lives are concerned with local affairs—should be given so little. attention in treatises on American government. I refer to the problem of the relation between national political parties and state and local politics.

The problem presents itself under two aspects, in one sense separate, though in reality closely interwoven with each other. There is first the anomaly that local issues seem so far removed from the platforms of the organizations, the national parties, through which the often perplexed and embarrassed voter must express himself in the performance of his ordinary electoral duties in the state or the locality; and there is, secondly, the question faced by every would-be reformer of local government, as to whether the desired reforms can best be brought about through the national party organizations or through separate locally organized groups.

In the December, 1933, issue of the Review, pp. 942–955, appeared a tabular review of the changes in major units of the national government between March 4 and November 1, 1933. In the April, 1934, issue, pp. 250-254, appeared a supplementary list showing the changes between November 1, 1933, and March 1, 1934. In the October, 1934, issue, pp. 872–874, a second supplementary list showed the changes between March 1 and June 30, 1934. The present list indicates the reorganization effected and new units created between June 30 and December 15, 1934. As in previous lists, mention is made of units only specifically authorized by law or established by the President under general authority vested in him.

Governor Pinchot's appointment of followers of two powerful politicians to the Philadelphia magistracy came at a time when the entire magisterial system was facing the stiffest criticism from the higher courts, the state bar association, and the more alert lay opinion that it has faced since Magistrate Perri was convicted of extortion and bribery in 1929. Philadelphia magistrates from time immemorial have been charged with partisanship, ignorance, and corruption; and the temper of the present times has begun actively and militantly to react against these shortcomings of a judicial system that is steeped in politics rather than pervaded with a spirit of justice.

The Kansas experiment with a legislative council has probably made as much progress as could be expected under the circumstances, with the first year disrupted by special sessions and impeachment trials, and with no research staff until the last five months. While in certain aspects of the Council's work little progress was made, in others the accomplishments were definitely of value and promise.

Council Bills Passed. The natural tendency is to evaluate the work of the Council by the extent to which its recommendations were enacted into law. In the special session of 1933, of the Council bills, 60 per cent became law, as compared with 27 per cent of the total number of bills introduced. The Council recommendations were obviously effective.

In these times, when governmental costs are mounting and to many it seems impossible to balance the national budget, all sorts of bizarre proposals are being made to raise additional revenue. They run the gamut from a national governmental lottery, through various modes of inflation, via the printing-press route and all points rightward, to excessive forms of graduated taxes, which may kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. The importance of Article I, Section 8, Clause 8, of the Constitution of the United States as an untapped source of untold revenue has been overlooked. The constitutional provision reads: “The Congress shall have power . . . to promote the progress of science and the useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.”

As in previous lists, mention is here made only of units specifically authorized by law or established by the President under general authority vested in him.

Ackia Battle Memorial Commission. Created by Public Act No. 362, 74th Congress, approved August 27,1935, to prepare plans and programs for the commemoration in May, 1936, of the two hundredth anniversary of the battle of Ackia. The commission consists of five members to be appointed by the Secretary of the Interior, one member to represent the Chickasaw Indians, and one the French-speaking people of the United States. The commissioners are to serve without compensation.

Periodically the cry, “As Maine goes, so goes the nation,” attracts public attention to the fact that Maine, alone among the states, elects representatives to Congress in September instead of November. How this came to be is fairly well known. But why does Maine persist in her aloofness?

Section 3 of the act of February 2, 1872, for the apportionment of representatives to Congress among the several states, provided: “That the Tuesday next after the first Monday in November, in the year eighteen hundred and seventy-six, is hereby fixed and established as the day, in each of the States and Territories of the United States, for the election of Representatives and Delegates to the Forty-fifth Congress; and the Tuesday next after the first Monday in November, in every second year thereafter, is hereby fixed and established as the day for the election, in each of said States and Territories, of Representatives and Delegates to the Congress commencing on the fourth day of March next thereafter.”

The first session of the Seventy-fourth Congress saw the introduction of at least half a dozen measures dealing with the policy of the government toward belligerents in a war in which the United States is not a party. The President announced his interest in the problem, and the State Department was concerned with drafting legislation which was discussed with the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. The question will undoubtedly again be before the Congress at its next session.

Students of government and well-informed public citizens usually point to Thomas B. Reed of Maine as the first Speaker of the House of Representatives to use the prerogative of his office and the rules of the House to force the passage of legislation demanded by the leaders of the majority party. Likewise “Uncle Joe” Cannon of Illinois is usually held up as the undesirable product of this concept of legislative procedure. Little attention has been centered on earlier Speakers such as James G. Blaine of Maine and Samuel J. Randall of Pennsylvania, who laid the foundations of such a tradition. Blaine contributed to this theory of dictatorial leadership by his committee selections, his partisan decisions, his personal attractiveness, and his expansion of the Speaker's prerogative in situations which allowed him to exercise his discretion. Randall, as Speaker, followed the course laid down by Blaine, but went a step further by actually seeking to add to his powers by changes in the rules. This effort produced important modifications which cleared out the underbrush of tangled rules, thus preparing the way for the later timber-felling reforms of “Czar Reed.”

The history of public administration in the United States is a record of compromise between conflicting principles. The oldest and most bitterly-contested of the many clashes between antagonistic points of view is that between the principle of the spoils system on the one hand and the merit principle on the other. Stripped of eulogistic verbiage, these principles present two diametrically opposed objectives—the former that administration shall be the happy hunting ground of the spoilsman, the latter that administration shall be a non-political service where “efficiency is king.” For a century at least, with the possible exception of the early days of the national administration, the advocates of the spoils system held a dominant position in the struggle, compromising only where a tradition of service protected a public office from partisan control. By 1870, however, the movement for civil service reform had gained strength and the following three or four decades witnessed a determined drive for the adoption of the merit system. The reaction to the spoils system principle, once begun, has continued ever since. Today, administration, by virtue of its sweeping powers over individual liberty and property, has come into closer contact with the citizen than ever before, and this fact is serving to accelerate the movement in favor of the merit principle in the public service.

Growth of Administrative Services. Any one returning to Washington after an absence of several years must be struck at once by the physical changes which have taken place in the political nerve center of the nation. These changes are largely the result of the erection of new government buildings and the clearing away of old structures to make way for others yet to come. In May, 1932, the Washington telephone directory listed 663 office telephones under the heading “United States Government.” In June, 1935, it listed 892, or a gain of nearly 35 per cent for the three-year period. This expansion of physical equipment may be said to symbolize the growth of the administrative organization of the national government. One sees on every hand new departmental edifices, and whole buildings now occupied by bureaus or commissions which were formerly tucked away in departmental buildings, or by new independent agencies which were non-existent until a year or two ago.