Like all other aspects of public administration, intergovernmental relations are undergoing constant readjustment to the times and conditions. War so alters conditions in public affairs that federal-state-local realignments are taking place from month to month. Never before have so many administrative operations at the local level been guided by so many directives out of Washington. Coöperative government by federal-state-local authorities has become a by-word in the prodigious effort to administer civilian defense, rationing, and other war-time programs. The first year of war brought new forces into the field of administration, but developments have followed an evolutionary rather than a revolutionary pattern. Intergovernmental administration, while it is a part of all levels of government, is turning into something quite distinct from them all.

The states have coöperated in passing war-time legislation; in ironing out transportation problems created by diverse state regulations; in controlling aliens and relocating Japanese-Americans; in foregoing construction of new public works; in building public works in war-affected communities where in-migration has resulted from concentrations of war industries and military personnel. New programs affecting the lives of all Americans, such as civilian defense, price control, and rationing, are making demands upon localities and states for intergovernmental action. In the absence of any complete overhauling of the federal-state-local tax systems, the Bureau of the Budget has written a new chapter in the intergovernmental field by giving a set of directives for state and local governments to follow or to ignore at their own risk.

In many of our modern industries, aptitude tests are given to new employees in order to determine the type of position for which each worker is best fitted. Unfortunately, in legislative bodies committee assignments are dependent upon several factors, only one of which is specialized ability. To serve the public best, however, no one can truthfully deny that individual competence ought to be the basic reason for placing a legislator on the committee which can make the most advantageous use of his particular training and experience. Putting an international lawyer on an agriculture and forestry committee would be a sheer waste of talent. With these thoughts in mind, the Senate Judiciary Committee has been studied for the purpose of determining the qualifications of the 219 men who have been members of this body since it was established in 1816.

During the first war year, it was to be expected that popular interest in rural local government would be subordinated, in large measure, to problems more directly connected with the national war effort. Nevertheless, vigorous prosecution of the war program has required coöperation on the part of government at all levels; and the impact of that program has been felt in various ways, both directly and indirectly, by local governmental units. Indeed, in surveying county and township government in 1942 one is inevitably impressed by the extent to which developments of the year were either the product of, or at least intensified by, wartime conditions. As in previous reviews, events will be summarized under the following headings: (1) areas; (2) organization and personnel; (3) functions; (4) finance; (5) home rule and optional charters; and (6) intergovernmental relations.

I

Distinguished American and foreign scholars are studying in this symposium various aspects of the weighty problem of international reconstruction. All of the other writers have chosen problems that are essentially political, and on that account it has seemed to me appropriate that I discuss a topic of a more broadly moral nature, i.e., the issue of freedom of opinion and press in the world of tomorrow. The fact that I have spent my life in diplomacy and politics may make up for my lack of personal importance if I can demonstrate that cynics and profiteers will prevail in politics unless we comprehend that in any sphere of international relations only those solutions will be adequate that are grounded upon the most complete security of opinion and press.

II

Exiled pretenders to thrones nearly always exhibit a liberalism both promising and reassuring. But this was not true in the case of Prince Victor-Napoleon, whom I knew quite well because of his ties with Italy—ties that consisted more in his vast estates in the Po valley than in his dynastic alliances. Faithful to the princely rule according to which the son has to affect views different from those of his father, Prince Victor was a dyed-in-the-wool conservative. His father had acquired a well-known reputation for liberalism (or even Jacobinism?) during the Second Empire—and afterwards. But Prince Victor-Napoleon had assumed the habit of speaking to me in frankness. And I did not doubt for a moment his sincerity on that evening when, listening under plane trees to an open air concert in Constantinople, he made the following remark on the founder of his family: “There is one thing about the Emperor (like all the Bonapartes, he said “Emperor” only when referring to the first; the one of December 2, he called Napoleon III) which is more inexplicable to me than anything else: that with his wonderful perspicacity, with his mistrust of men, whether flatterers or not, he should have attributed so much importance, at a certain moment, to the manifestation of lyrical enthusiasm of which he read summaries.

In the preparation of the trials for “war crimes” committed during the present global conflict, students of international law will indeed recognize that a milestone in the development of legal science has been reached. As will become apparent from some of the facts to be presented in this study, we are about to see a new legal principle adopted in international relations: Impossibile est quod universitas delinquat. In consonance with various plans for general postwar reconstruction, the principle so succinctly phrased by Pope Innocent IV, in times no less perturbed than the present, is finally defeating the entrenched adherents of its counterpart, first enunciated by the skilled Bartolus of Saxeferato. Individual criminals and their accomplices are to be held responsible, not “nations” or peoples.

One of the issues likely to become more acute than many others as we move into the period of post-war international reorganization in the next few months is that of regionalism versus universalism. This is the conflict between the view that international organization should proceed upon a regional basis—leaving definition of the proper region or regions aside for the moment—and the view that it should proceed upon a world-wide basis. The partisans of these two views are vigorous in their support, and the problem in itself is extremely important from both a theoretical and a practical standpoint. It has so far not received anything like the attention it deserves.

The problem is, of course, not unknown in the national and local spheres of government. Here it is formulated as the question of the proper area of government, or even the ideal size of the state, and this slightly different formulation carries its own implication concerning the treatment of the problem. The issue also arises on the border-line between national and international political problems when the formation of federal unions is under consideration, together with the question of the proper allocation of powers to the central government. We shall later draw upon experience in all of these matters for aid in solving our own problem.

The dominant feature of German geopolitical doctrine is an endeavor to unite man and his race, time and space, geography and history, peace and war, in a new, organic, and scientific whole. Geopolitics, therefore, chooses at random and at its own convenience among political ideas and anthropological, historical, geographical, and legal data. In an attempt to incorporate them into the body of a brand-new “science of the state,” Geopolitik tries to apply its particular methods and basic principles to a wide sphere of “branch” sciences, such as psychology, medicine, and jurisprudence.

The all-pervasive influence of Haushofer's “portmanteau” science is most clearly evident in the new names of these synthetic, combined branch-disciplines, as coined by German scholars. The broad category of Geo-Wissenschafte now includes at least Geo-Psychologie, Geo-Medizin, and Geo-Jurisprudenz, as the result of the attempts thus far made at creating an encylopaedic totalitarian “science.”

Before Pearl Harbor, many thoughtful persons believed that civil liberty in this country could not survive our participation in another world war. Today, civil liberty enjoys a vitality which even the optimist had hardly dared hope for. There are several reasons for this.

First, since the last World War the American people have become “civil liberty conscious.” That war found us totally unprepared to deal with our sudden problems affecting civil liberty. Our legislatures had no experience in drafting, or our executive officers in enforcing, emergency restrictions upon free speech and press. Our trial courts faced new and difficult civil liberty questions with no established principles, no relevant Supreme Court decisions, to guide them. Since that time, the Supreme Court, in nearly a score of important decisions, has interpreted and strengthened our constitutional civil liberties. As a nation we are wiser; the costly mistakes of the last war have been thoroughly aired, and there is a healthy intention that they shall not be repeated.

Second, the complete suppression of civil liberty in Axis-controlled countries has been a shocking and impressive object-lesson. We are forced to consider whether the witch-hunter and the “patrioteer” who would arbitrarily suppress minority opinion may not have much in common with the Nazi.

Michigan has a metropolitan problem, but by no means confined to the one area of Detroit, commonly thought of as Michigan's only metropolitan region. Other Michigan cities also have “growing pains” as their populations sprawl beyond their formal boundaries. The Motor City continues to suffer from this ailment, but the disease has taken a new form. Not only are the urbanites moving to the suburbs, but the suburbanites are moving to the rural sections. In the smaller cities, the ever-widening circle of dispersion has been straightway from the core city to the unincorporated township. Here the migrating urbanites have not first formed incorporated suburbs, but have established themselves as that new specie, “rurbanites,” at once dependent on the unincorporated township for governmental services.

The 1940 census indicates that Michigan cities are losing population, but that considerable growth is going on beyond their city limits. Second-class cities in Michigan display what is undoubtedly happening to corresponding cities in other states as well. While this state has in Detroit one of the much-studied and publicized metropolitan regions, it has forty-two cities with between 10,000 and 175,000 people. Notwithstanding a state-wide population gain of 8.3 per cent in the last decade, 30 per cent of the state's cities of 10,000 or more lost inhabitants, whereas only four counties out of eighty-three showed a decrease. It is significant, however, that the counties which underwent the most rapid growth were those with large urban centers. For example, Genesee county gained 7.5 per cent, whereas it county seat, Flint, which is also the third largest city in the state, lost two per cent. Jackson county showed an increase of nearly one per cent, while the city of the same name lost 11 per cent.

The various suggestions for reorganization of the War Agencies now pending in the Congress pose two other questions, perhaps as fundamental to the successful prosecution of the war as the question whether the nation's war effort is itself best centralized and organized. The first is: Are the War Agencies, and is the war effort, correctly related to the various other portions of the government, that is, those portions of the executive branch of the government which were in existence prior to 1940? The second question is: Is the entire federal government, in all of its military, quasi-military, and civilian aspects, in need of far-reaching reorganization in order that the war effort may effectively be administered, and that the peace which is to follow may be well administered also?

The Beveridge, Scott, and Uthwatt reports are all concerned with the widening framework of governmental action within which our free enterprise system operates. None of them is revolutionary. The Scott report has even been called reactionary. The Beveridge and Uthwatt reports are based on a generation of practical experience. In their attempt to infuse a few clear principles into future policy, these two great reports, in their different ways, point towards greater order and system, the smoothing away of anomalies, the filling in of gaps. Procedures which have served certain categories of people or certain localities, they attempt to make universally and equally available to all people or to all localities. They mark a decisive step in the passage from the fragmentariness that is inseparable from experiment to the universality that is characteristic of good government.

Sir William Beveridge's plan for social security is nothing less than an attempt to abolish want by redistributing income. He assumes that society has somehow to pay the cost of privation in any case, and therefore might as well do so consciously and deliberately through the instrumentality of government.

Even before the outbreak of war between the United States and the Axis powers on December 7, 1941, public officials in Washington had taken steps to deal with public opinion problems arising out of the belligerent trends in international affairs. One of the first moves of the federal government was an effort to identify and disclose the extent and nature of propaganda activities on behalf of foreign governments in the United States. On June 8, 1938, Congress passed the McCormack Act vesting authority in the Department of State to issue and administer rules and regulations governing the registration of agents of foreign principals engaged in propaganda and related activities in this country. This action, designed to protect the American public mind by revealing the extent to which foreign countries were using American channels of communication to further their own ends, was soon followed by official actions to strengthen the public opinion and cultural bonds linking together the various peoples of the Western Hemisphere. On July 27, 1938, the Department of State established its Division of Cultural Relations.

Universal feeling seems to converge upon the postulate that after this war an International Government shall be formed to control war and peace of the world, and that the United States shall take full share in it. This dual demand is considered a fundamental platform on which all men of good-will can meet. There is a far-spread tendency, however, to postpone inquiries into its exact meaning and implications. This vagueness may have merits for winning popular support. It has none in preparing for final action. It may even defeat the movement's purpose, because little may come from the longing for International Government, unless details are well prepared in advance. Or, built with a marble façade on shaky foundations, International Government may lead to disaster rather than avert it.

None of the United Nations—at least none of the “Big Four”—has thus far given up its sovereignty. For this very reason, no insurmountable difficulty may lie in the way of continuing their alliance to some good purpose after the war, and gradually extending it to other nations. That is still a far cry, however, from the establishment of an International Government which, distinct from the governments of its constituent members, should have the power to take consequential steps independently. If we stake our hopes on this latter type, we must answer the question of how shall the powers be divided between the International Government and the governments of the national states? In passing through the immense flood of discussions on International Government, it is amazing to see how scant are the contributions to this question.

A recent Congressional debate appears to have been one of the opening skirmishes on the question of whether the postwar commitments of the United States should be accepted by treaty or by unfettered executive discretion. On August 13, 1942, President Roosevelt transmitted to Congress a request for the passage of an enclosed draft joint resolution ostensibly “authorizing the execution of certain obligations under the treaties of 1903 and 1936 with Panama, and other commitments.” The President's message, after referring to the “thoroughly coöperative” attitude of the Panamanian Government in the present crisis and stating that “on March 5, 1941, the President of the Republic of Panama issued a manifesto making available for use by the United States certain defense sites in the territory of that Republic,” added that the time had come to make certain concessions long desired by the Republic of Panama. “Accordingly,” continued the message, “I deem it advisable that this Government convey to Panama the water and sewerage systems in the cities of Panama and Colon; that it relinquish its extensive real-estate holdings in the cities of Colon and Panama, so far as these holdings are not essential to the operation and protection of the Canal; and that it liquidate the credit of two and a half million dollars made available to the Republic of Panama by the Export-Import Bank for the construction of Panama's share of the Chorrera-Rio Hato Highway, a road essential to our defense requirements and constructed in accordance with standards made essential by these requirements.”

Direct legislation has returned to excite considerable interest after a quiet period of a few years in which the traditional legislative processes were allowed to operate undisturbed in the states and cities. Old age pension plans put before the voters by initiative petitions in Colorado, California, and Ohio have excited more inspection of direct legislation procedures than at any time in their history. Several studies have been made of the laws governing the initiative and referendum, and also of their operation in the states. No less significant than state-wide initiatives and referenda have been the anti-picketing and labor regulating initiatives in Los Angeles; ordinances in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Oakland, California, requiring two operators on street cars; attacks upon proportional representation in New York by petitions; attempts by labor organizations in Detroit to set policies regarding working conditions on the city's street railways by initiative ordinances; or the attempts by firemen and police in many cities to obtain civil service and pension systems through the same device. Several of these cities now have approximately thirty-five years of experience with municipal direct legislation.

Numerous factors in American municipal politics have combined within the past fifty years to develop a sentiment for laying upon the electorate a portion of the responsibility for determining local policy. The idea that the voters of the municipality should be allowed, to decide certain policies was developed chiefly by the home rule movement.

The present war has now reached the stage when definite plans are being announced for the control and punishment of the enemy nations when they shall have been defeated. There is a strong and apparently growing sentiment among the citizens and officials of the United Nations for prosecution of the “Axis criminals” and quarantine of Axis nations. Committees of eminent scholars, some of them presumably acting under instruction from their governments, are now drawing up plans for these trials. Many individuals, however, doubt whether it will prove feasible to carry out these proposals. Others reject the whole idea of retribution or reparation against a defeated nation or its leaders as unethical and destructive of the ends for which we say we are fighting.

We wish to be neither vindictive nor gullible. Hence the popularity of suggestions that we must be prepared to give food and medicine to the people of the Axis nations during the early postwar months. But there is widespread support also for the belief that we must be ready to administer German economic and political life for some years if we wish to be sure that war will not come again from the same quarter. This balancing of generosity against sternness means, as Walter Lippmann puts it, that “our apparently contradictory war aims can be reconciled.”

In the report of the Association's Committee on War-time Services occurs the following passage: “It seems to the Committee that the customary individualism of the profession is a luxury that cannot be unimpaired in war-time; political scientists must not go through the war with a business-as-usual attitude toward research and critical writing. The crises upon the nation and awaiting the nation demand that the profession recognize priorities in its scholarly work…. Students, mature and immature, should know what men of affairs consider to be the more crucial issues … The Committee … does ask … that the profession be given leadership in determining what to do ….”

The Research Committee of the Association considered this challenge and sought an answer from those members of the profession who had temporarily left their academic halls and plunged into the war effort in Washington. This group gave generously of their time and thought to the matter. The Committee's own function became merely that of a reporter or synthesizer of the views thus expressed. It is this synthesis which this statement incorporates. The suggestions are deliberately not attributed to any one individual. In the first place, many suggestions were made by more than one person; in the second place, the total pattern is even more intriguing than the individual suggestions.

When the American form of government and our democratic way of life hang in the balance of armed conflict, the political scientist feels impelled more than ever to rally to the defense of these values. He Writes volumes to defend our system and to attack the systems of our enemies. He writes political philosophy and political ethics—just plain politics is forgotten.

The uninformed layman might expect from his title that the political scientist would be an expert in the analysis of political processes in his own community. He would be disappointed. The following comment made by Aristotle centuries ago applies with equal validity to the problem of political science today: “Must we not admit that the political science plainly does not stand on a similar footing to that of other sciences and faculties? I mean that while in all other cases those who impart the faculties and themselves exert them are identical (physicians and painters, for instance), matters of Statesmanship the Sophists profess to teach, but not one of them practices it, that being left to those actually engaged in it: and these might really very well be thought to do it by some singular knack and by mere practice rather than by any intellectual process; for they neither write nor speak on these matters (though it might do more to their credit than composing speeches for the courts or the assembly)….” Since the politician of today remains inarticulate when it comes to discussing his methods for publication, the responsibility of building a science of politics, if there is to be such a science, continues to rest with the political scientists.

Even before the actual outbreak of the war in Europe, there were indications of uneasiness among our politicians over the approaching storm. The Democrats, in their platform of 1936, and in speeches and actions of President Roosevelt (especially his “quarantine” speech of October, 1937), showed themselves somewhat more aware than the Republicans that the United States might somehow be involved; but, in the end, both parties united on the neutrality policy designed to keep us isolated and therefore presumably safe from the aggressions already clearly under way. Before the national conventions of 1940, however, Dunkirk and the fall of France made seriously possible the conquest of England and the surrender of the British navy, and the consequent danger to the United States began to influence materially the course of American politics. Within the Democratic party the third-term tradition was forgotten and Mr. Roosevelt was renominated, largely because of the war situation and his experienced leadership in respect to the problems involved. The Democratic party not only continued to stand aggressively for the New Deal, but had somehow become a “war party,” in the sense of anticipating possible war for the United States and preparing for it both by increasing our own defenses and by aiding those countries already resisting aggression.

The time has come to prepare in advance everything that can legitimately be prepared for the revival of international activities after the present catastrophe. Since there are too many unknown factors, it is impossible to envisage the international machinery of the future in all of its details. We cannot as yet foresee the shape that the agency or agencies eventually superseding the League of Nations will assume. The international organization-to-be will certainly assume a striking difference in character, dependent on whether the League is reconstructed or a different type of international agency is created. From an administrative point of view, however, the problems will not be so different from what they were before; it will therefore be fruitful to discuss some of these problems in the light of the Geneva experience.