As the panacea for their political ills, Southern states frequently have been counseled to develop competitive two-party systems. Presumably the very demonstration of the superiority of the bipartisan system in itself would go a long way toward achieving that desideratum. Not the least of the unhappy consequences of this uncritical approach was the accompanying tendency to lump non-two-party Southern states into the single category of “the one-party South.” Fortunately, the rich diversity of Southern political processes recently has been uncovered and subjected to systematic analysis. For those states of the South which lack an effective opposition party, it has been shown that Democratic politics runs the gamut from multifactional chaos to a structured and disciplined bifactionalism. Louisiana is properly classified in the latter camp, which attests to at least some beneficial by-products of charismatic demagogy. In the absence of any reasonable expectation of the imminent rejuvenation of the Republican party in Louisiana, a realistic appraisal of the state's politics must eschew exhortation and concentrate upon an empirical examination of the operation of Democratic bifactionalism.

It is no longer the rule among American intellectuals that to describe oneself as a conservative is to confess to intellectual bankruptcy. The new conservatives, on the contrary, make much of their sophistication in matters of philosophy and history, compared with the naiveté of the liberals. That such a reversal of roles has been possible says much about what has passed for liberalism in modern America, for if the liberals had been historically realistic, profoundly humanistic, and uncompromisingly individualistic, the present case for conservatism would lose much of its force. One is tempted to say, if only there had been more liberalism among the liberals, there would be less need for conservatism. To understand this curious situation it is essential to realize that it has been not the liberal but the progressive mentality that has held sway.

A resurgent conservatism rules the day in the United States not only in public affairs but also in political speculation. Frightened by the uneasy ghost of the barbarism that was embodied in German Nazism and Italian Fascism and by the spread of Russian-spawned totalitarianism, political speculation in this and other democratic countries now shrinks from the hazard inherent in a rationalistic effort to remold the world of public affairs. Inquiry turns to the adoration of our inheritance, to the discovery of neglected or undervalued virtues in the institutions as molded by our forebears, and to the wise prevision which they, in simpler crisis times, expressed in their statesmanship.

My own fundamental orientation toward government developed in the “progressive” decade before mankind's applecart was sharply tilted, if not completely upset, by the First World War. It rested upon an act of preference for a democratic, freely thinking, and freely associating society. It therefore shared something of the “divine discontent” felt by all political innovators, to whom the wisdom of the ancestors always has seemed incomplete and often inadequate to meet the demands of a constantly changing society.

Communist China entered the “constitutional stage” of its experience on September 20, 1954, when the Constitution of the Chinese People's Republic (CPR), adopted by the first National People's Congress (NPC) on that date, was promulgated. The ordinary Chinese citizen could detect no immediate effect of this event upon the conditions of his daily life, and he had no reason to believe that things affecting him would be done very much differently in the future than in the recent past. He could understand from the incessant propaganda of the preceding months that the “transition to Socialism” was moving toward its climax. The new Constitution promised him no surcease from the incitements and pressures of the interminable “mass movements”—for “land reform,” “suppression of counter-revolutionaries,” “Resist America, Aid Korea,” “3-Anti,” “5-Anti,” “democratic reform,” “national elections,” “On to Taiwan,” and the others. Instead, he would be told that the past was merely the prologue: the pre-constitutional measures of September, 1949—the Common Program, the Organic Law of the Central People's Government (CPG), and the Organic Law of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC)—had only enabled the “people's democratic dictatorship” to lay the foundations for the superstructure of Socialism.

In discussions of the United States Constitution, the phrase “the intention of the framers” is often used, but it is hardly ever adequately analyzed. The search for the intentions of the framers is made obviously in the hope of finding out what they meant by the words they put into the written Constitution. This leads to the examination of various evidences outside the Constitution, and implies a feeling that there is a lack of clarity in the words of that document.

The discussion that follows was written in order, first, to raise some of the questions that I think have to be answered before the phrase about intentions can have fullness of meaning as a tool of constitutional analysis; second, to express certain warnings against a too-confident assumption that “the intention of the framers” can actually be known; and, third, to consider briefly the possible significance today of the intention of the framers in case it could be discovered.

Some revision of the present Japanese constitution probably cannot long be put off. Often referred to as the “MacArthur Constitution,” it is open to the charge that it needs to be brought into accord with Japan's restored status of independence.

Although the immediate pressure for change is directed at the existing constitutional ban on rearmament, a more important change that can be anticipated will concern the position of the emperor in relation to the locus of sovereignty. This bears directly on the basic nature of the Japanese state, the central problem of the most bitter controversy in Japanese constitutional history. This problem, now dormant, is likely to be revived very soon, for the present constitution's treatment of the status of the emperor is highly vulnerable on substantive, procedural, and historical grounds.

Early in 1954, President Dwight D. Eisenhower presented to the Congress—and the country and his party—some 65 proposals for new legislation, over and above appropriations. This presentation was a massive affair. First came six weeks of well-publicized preliminaries: cabinet deliberations, congressional briefings, press conferences, and a fireside chat. Then, in three annual messages to Congress—a State of the Union Address, a Budget Message, and an Economic Report—the President set forth his bundle of proposals, elaborating certain aspects, outlining the rest. Along with these came seven supplementing special messages, each filling in details on some particular: Taft-Hartley, farm price supports, social security, health, housing, atomic energy, foreign aid, and trade. And following the messages Administration-approved bills, conveyors of the ultimate details, were introduced in Congress.

Throughout, one theme was emphasized: here was a comprehensive and coordinated inventory of the nation's current legislative needs, reflecting the President's own judgments, choices, and priorities in every major area of Federal action; in short, his “legislative program,” an entity distinctive and defined, its coverage and its omissions, both, delimiting his stand across the board. And—quite explicitly—this stand was being taken, this program volunteered, in order to give Congress an agenda, Republicans a platform, and voters a yardstick for 1954.

Far and away the most powerful force in the political life of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico is the Popular Democratic party (Partido Popular Democrático, or PPD). Since 1945 elected representatives of the party have held the office of Resident Commissioner in Washington and more than two-thirds of the seats in both houses of the insular legislature. Since the election of 1948 the president of the party, Luis Muñoz Marín, has been Governor of the island. Inasmuch as there are no other elective officials in the executive branch, gubernatorial appointees loyal to the party and its program fill all the top policy-making and administrative posts. And because the Governor also appoints all judges, the percentage of Populares on the Commonwealth bench is understandably high.

The party's control over the insular government is a direct result of its extraordinary showing at the polls. Its island-wide candidates have never received less than 60 per cent of the total vote in any election save that of 1940, the first in which a Popular Democratic ticket was on the ballot. In the most recent election, that of November 4, 1952, the Popular candidate for Governor received a record 65 per cent of the votes cast.

There is wide recognition that in the non-Western world profound social and cultural changes are taking place as traditional societies have been exposed to the ideas and the ways of the West. There is also general agreement that new political patterns and relationships are evolving in these countries. However, with respect to most non-Western countries, it remains difficult to foresee whether the consequences of social change are to be stable, viable political practices or endemic instabilities in government. In many cases, it is still an open question whether the future will bring them a liberal democratic form of politics or some type of authoritarian rule such as communism.

This state of affairs can be a challenge to the comparative method of political analysis. This is particularly so because most of the non-Western political systems have many features in common. They are generally the product of a traditional past in which the administration of government was the preserve of a select few. Many show the influence of a previous colonial rule, some even that of the same country. More important, they are often quite self-conscious about the problem of moving from a definite past to an idealized future.

In order to understand the nature, evolution, and basic conceptions of French administrative law, it is essential to study the role of the Conseil d'État, the supreme administrative tribunal. Creative and dynamic, often even bold, the jurisprudence of this remarkable body remains nevertheless prudent and fundamentally evolutionary. One would search in vain for the major principle of French administrative law in the legislative texts; they have been developed by the jurisprudence of this Council as it proceeds, by a series of successive decisions, from specific cases to ultimate yet flexible generalizations, establishing basic legal concepts not only by the skillful interpretation of texts, but also by creative construction when the texts are silent. Together with its doctrinal achievements, the Council's usus fori or judicial practice forms a flexible source of principles applicable to specific cases. The legislator may regulate according to circumstances and the necessities of the moment, without concerning himself with general principles or even conforming rigorously to those created by jurisprudence and theory. But the administrative judge, in administering justice, performs a genuinely creative task and establishes bases for legal thought.

“The well-bred, throbbing sound that goes on behind the Bauhaus façade of the United Nations,” notes Alistair Cook, “is not the air-conditioning. It is the pulse of politics.” Ever since its inception in 1919, international organization somehow has been expected to operate above and beyond politics. It was to enshrine the universal aspiration for peace and stability. That “politics” could intrude upon—and indeed shape—institutions set up for the maintenance of collective security is only now being recognized by the public at large. That recognition, in turn, seems responsible for much of the current disillusionment with the United Nations, since its implications sully the pure ideal of solidarity for peace.

Ideologically speaking, our experience with collective security has rested on two basic concepts: the notion of “universal moral obligations” of the League Covenant and the concert of the big powers implicit and explicit in the United Nations Charter. Thus political values held by groups and individuals were translated into legal and institutional terms in the two universal collective security organizations. Both global efforts have failed to result in the peace expected of them; but the institutions rather than the concepts on which they were based have become the object of criticism and attack. No doubt the ideological convictions associated with the advent of international organization generally have militated in favor of the continued purity of the concepts. However, unless the concepts associated with world organization possess at once a high degree of descriptive accuracy and an analytical property permitting a measure of prediction, informed discussion of United Nations issues must be indefinitely postponed.

When speaking of freedom, La Bruyère's word comes to mind—that everything has been said and that we come too late to add anything. Yet an analysis of the concept of freedom may be warranted for the very reason that it is being used by everyone to refer to whatever he considers valuable, from obedience to law (positive or natural) to autonomy and economic abundance. I believe that it is possible to assign to “freedom” in its different aspects meanings which are emotively neutral and operationally testable, and thereby to rescue for the social sciences generally and for political science in particular an important set of concepts, closely related as they are to those of power and control.

One would have to start with disentangling the widely different senses in which “freedom” is being used indiscriminately. I shall deal with freedom in only two of its many meanings, interpersonal freedom and freedom of action. One of the difficulties will be to steer a middle course between the vagueness of conversational language and the awkwardness of a precise terminology; but I hope to demonstrate that such an endeavor is no idle exercise in semantics but a necessary prerequisite for the fruitful investigation of social and political phenomena.

Political differences among people are not a matter of chance; they are significantly related to such interdependent variables as party identification, issue orientation, and candidate preference. The national sample survey of 1,614 respondents conducted by the Survey Research Center during the 1952 presidential election gives us a sound basis for investigating this phenomenon: 1,200 of the respondents were classified as “middle class” or “working class.” Of the 389 middle class people, 69 per cent said they preferred the Republican candidate, but only 43 per cent of the 811 working class people expressed this preference (Table I).

The membership of the Supreme Court remained unchanged during the 1953 Term. Chief Justice Vinson died on September 8, shortly before the opening of the Term. Governor Earl Warren of California was given a recess appointment by President Eisenhower on October 2, and was sworn in as the fourteenth Chief Justice on October 5. The Senate Judiciary Committee moved slowly, however, and the appointment did not reach the Senate until March 1, 1954, when it was confirmed by a voice vote without opposition.

A week after the 1954 Term got under way Justice Robert H Jackson died, of a heart attack, on October 9, 1954, at the age of 62. For a man who had no law degree, Justice Jackson had done very well in the law. After a brilliant career as a lawyer in Jamestown, New York, he entered the government service in 1934 as General Counsel to the Bureau of Internal Revenue. He was appointed Solicitor-General in 1938, Attorney-General in 1940, and was elevated to the Supreme Court by President Roosevelt in June, 1941. He served as chief American prosecutor at the Nürnberg trial of top Nazi war criminals. Though appointed with the reputation of being a liberal New Dealer, Justice Jackson was actually close to the very center of the Court in many cases where the Justices were sharply divided. He was one of the most gifted opinion-writers on the Court, with a flair for felicitous phrasing and well-turned epigrams. To take the place of Justice Jackson, President Eisenhower nominated, on November 8, 1954, Judge John Marshall Harlan, whom he had appointed the previous March to the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Judge Harlan, once a successful New York lawyer, is the grandson of the Justice Harlan who served with such distinction from 1877 to 1911.

Among the various forms of indigenous political activity in Africa today, that of the nationalist parties of the British West African colonies is perhaps the most prominent. In the Gold Coast and Nigeria these parties have almost achieved self-government for their territories; they now form the government or opposition parties in elected parliaments. They should be clearly distinguished from other types of nationalist movements, such as nativistic uprisings or syncretist movements of religious or tribal associations. As Coleman says: “African nationalism is not merely a peasant revolt …. Where it is most advanced [it] has been sparked and led by the so-called detribalized, Western-educated, middle-class intellectuals and professional Africans; by those who in terms of improved status and material standards of living have benefited most from colonialism; in short, by those who have come closest to the Western World but have been denied entry on full terms of equality.” Many of the members of these nationalist parties had, in their acceptance of a European style of life, turned their backs on the politically inert peasant mass from which they had risen, although in recent years there has been a growing interest on the part of the intellectuals in indigenous culture and history. In other parts of the world, such parties achieved power through revolution; in West Africa, the British colonial governments, in collaboration with these parties, drew up new constitutions and the party members were elected to power by ballot. To retain power the politicians have had to take party politics to the smallest towns and villages, where even nationalism had scarcely existed.

If one compares the literature on American government and politics with that which concerns continental Europe, it is quite evident that the two fields of study in the last decades have proceeded on somewhat different assumptions as to the scope and methods of political science. This divergence is of relatively recent origin. Before World War I a substantial number of leading American students in this field had their training in European centers of learning, and brought back with them the rich tradition of European historical, philosophical, and legal scholarship.

With noteworthy exceptions the study of continental European political institutions still tends to be dominated by this historical, philosophical, and legal emphasis. The continuity of scholarship in the continental European area has been broken by the two world wars, by totalitarian regimes, by enemy occupation, and by the persistence of internal antagonism and cleavages. With the exception of a few years in the 1920's, the entire era since World War I has been one of catastrophe or the atmosphere of catastrophe in which scientific inquiry and the renewal of the scientific cadres could be carried on only for short periods, under the greatest handicaps, and with inadequate resources.

Almost all the recent work on the British Labor party has been concerned with analysis of the party's electoral performance or possibilities, interpretation and reinterpretation of party policy, or discussion of the ideological forces currently at work in the party. These studies have contributed greatly to our understanding of the policy of the party. But there have been only one or two recent works on the organization and composition of the Labor party, and hardly any on the organizational and policy-making importance of the affiliated trade unions which make up its electoral and financial strength. This is understandable in view of the fact that the trade union elements, unlike those in the party's political wing, have not generally provided the policy controversy upon which both publicists and academicians feed. But the strength and stability which the trade unions provide for the party are probably of more long-term importance than are the topical conflicts of the “political side.”

It is the purpose of this article to discuss the organization and functions of the British Labor party in terms of the formal and informal interrelations of the political and industrial elements, mainly during the years 1945–1953. Policy and policy conflicts are subordinated here to an institutional and statistical analysis of these interrelations.

It has been generally agreed since the publication of Professor Holcombe's The New Party Politics that the urbanization of American society has tended to produce class differences in our politics. The sectional alignments of the 19th century gave way to class and urban-rural politics in considerable measure as Americans continued to move to the cities. By the 1932 and 1936 elections there was a marked tendency for wealth and high prestige to be associated with Republican choice.

Paradoxically, the most urban of all our citizens, American Jews, have not divided their presidential vote along class lines. As a group they rapidly improved their jobs, extended their incomes, and became highly educated during the 1930's and 1940's. At the same time, they drastically switched their predominant major party choice from the Republican party to the Democrats. And within the group itself differences in income or occupational prestige appear to have been of practically no significance in the formulation of presidential vote preference since 1936.

The purpose of this article is threefold: first, to trace briefly the shifts in Jewish vote preference in recent decades through the use of aggregate election statistics; second, to probe the significant motivations of Jewish voters in 1952, primarily by analyzing the results of a sample survey conducted after the 1952 election in the city of Boston; and third, to suggest some of the basic reasons for Jewish resistance to class influences at the polls.

The New Zealand Labor party came into being after years of indecision and disunity, and many false starts. The history of this movement lies outside the scope of this article, but a brief discussion of the basic cleavages which divided labor before 1916, and of the circumstances under which the party was organized, may help to clarify some of the points in the analysis of its present-day structure and problems which is attempted in the pages ahead.

The geography and economy of New Zealand encouraged small, widely scattered productive units and decentralized unions relatively weak in bargaining power. The economy is dependent largely upon agriculture and the earlier industries were concerned chiefly with the processing of primary products such as butter, cheese, and meat. The thinly scattered population, the remoteness of the “four main centers” (Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, and Dunedin) and many of the provincial towns, the variations in conditions from locality to locality, and the absence of mass production industries discouraged the development of a cohesive labor movement ready to support its demands by unified industrial action. Among those groups of workers who were thrown together on the job, such as the “watersiders” (dockworkers) and the miners, there was greater solidarity than among others and these were more inclined to press their claims by direct action. The trades and labor councils that developed in the various centers and met in Dominion-wide annual congresses after 1891 were the stronghold of the more moderate unions. Periodically their tactics were challenged by the militant groups, and differences crystallized in the formation of rival organizations.

In the spring of 1953, with the approach of the regular parliamentary elections, the West German Bundestag began its deliberations on a new electoral law. The original law of 1949 had been enacted for the sole purpose of electing the first Parliament under the new Bonn Constitution. It was therefore necessary for the expiring Parliament to re-enact the old law, to modify it, or to supersede it with an entirely new system.

It soon became apparent that there were wide differences of opinion among the various parties represented in the Bundestag. The Chancellor's party, the Christian Democrats (CDU), presented proposals to establish a single member district system, eliminating proportional representation. The Social Democrats (SPD) presented a draft which largely re-enacted the 1949 law. The official government proposal, which was something of a compromise, leaned very heavily in the direction of the so-called Mehrheitswahl but also had provisions permitting a combination of party lists and additional votes (Hilfsstimmen). It bore some similarity to the law which de Gasperi had pushed through the Italian Parliament shortly before this time, but without the same justification. The various proposals were discussed on first reading on March 5, 1953, and again on March 18. After the report by the Election Law Committee, amended proposals were again discussed on second and third reading on June 17 and 19 and passed on third reading June 25.