¹ The orderly reconciliation of antagonistic interests is, indeed, the fundamental problem of democratic government, as James Madison convincingly demonstrated in his essay upon the causes and methods of control of factions in a democracy. After indicating some of the conflicting interests which arise from an unequal distribution of property in a society, he asserts that “the regulation of these various and interfering interests forms the principal task of modern legislation, and involves the spirit of party and faction in the necessary and ordinary operations of the government.” The Federalist (Lodge, ed.), p. 54Google Scholar. The basic antagonism and necessity for compromise between private and public rights is illustrated admirably in the recent Minnesota moratorium case. Speaking for the majority of the court, Chief Justice Hughes writes: “It is manifest … that there has been a growing appreciation of public needs and of the necessity for finding ground for rational compromise between individual rights and public welfare.” 290 U. S. 398, at 442 (1934). Professor Corwin's, E. S.The Twilight of the Supreme Court (New Haven, 1934)Google Scholar, is a stimulating record of the effects of the constant clash between antagonistic principles upon the development of American constitutional law.

² Dr. Leonard D. White attributes the early efforts to introduce the merit system more to “a desire to protect the foundations of American democracy” than to the desire to secure a more efficient service. See Trends in Public Administration (1933), p. 10Google Scholar. The disastrous effects of the spoils system undoubtedly impelled early emphasis on the need for the elimination of this evil, although the ultimate aim would seem to have been higher efficiency in administration.

³ The board-control plan has no reference to the paid board of administrators. This type of agency, whether partisan or bi-partisan, violates a dogma of good administrative practice in that it combines responsibility for quasi-legislative, quasijudicial, and administrative functions in one body. For a discussion of this principle and the evils arising from its violation, see Willoughby, W. F., Principles of Public Administration (1927), pp. 119–139Google Scholar.

⁴ A spirited attack upon the board-control plan in welfare administration is McCombs, C. E., “State Welfare Administration and Consolidated Government”, National Municipal Review, Vol. 13, pp. 461–473CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Professor F. W. Coker has made an excellent defense of the use of lay boards in administration in his “Dogmas of Administrative Reform”, American Political Science Review, Vol. 15, pp. 399–412Google Scholar.

⁵ Many illustrations of the demand for increased executive responsibility are to be found in recent surveys of state administrative organization. See, for example, State Administrative Consolidation in Maine (1930), p. 24Google Scholar; Report on a Survey of Organization and Administration of the State Government of New Jersey (1930), pp. 7–11Google Scholar; Report on a Survey of Administration and Expenditures of the State Government of New Jersey (1932), pp. 30–31Google Scholar.

⁶ The recent growth of executive responsibility in administration has raised doubts as to the advisability of placing so much power in a political agent. “The last two decades, and principally the last ten years, have witnessed a profound modification of the American administrative system. We are now faced with the question whether American chief executives are to be primarily political or administrative officials.” White, , Trends in Public Administration, p. 233Google Scholar.

⁷ A detailed treatment of the controversy over the one-man and board-control principles of organization and a comparison of the results of their application in several state welfare departments may be found in the writer's State Welfare Administration in New Jersey (1934), Chap. 11. The freedom from executive control of a department head who is under the direction of a board may be restricted severely by placing the control of financial procedure in the hands of the chief executive. In many instances, this has been done by creating staff agencies under the sole direction of the chief executive, with extensive powers over budgeting, purchasing, and accounting.

⁸ Report on a Survey of the Organization and Administration of State and County Government in Mississippi (1932), p. 562Google Scholar; Report on a Survey of Administration in Iowa (1933), pp. 238–239Google Scholar; Report of Ohio Joint Committee on Economy in the Public Service (1929), pp. 8, 11–12, 142Google Scholar; Final Report of Fact-finding Committee to the Senate, California Legislature (1933), pp. 11–13Google Scholar.

⁹ As Professor Coker says, “there is a vast amount of useful coördination that can be accomplished in our state administrative systems without making too much of a fetish out of the principle of one-man responsibility and control.” Loc. cit., p. 411.

¹⁰ The participation of representatives of employer and employee groups in the administration of state labor law is in point. In the administrative process, these groups must be represented and compromises between their conflicting demands devised. For example, the industrial commission in the Illinois state department of labor, with functions of arbitration and conciliation, is composed of five members, two representing the employer group and two the employee group. The fifth number is not identified with either the employing or employee classes. Illinois Civil Administrative Code of 1917, as in Force July 1, 1933 (compiled by Edward J. Hughes).

¹¹ Citations in support of this view may be found in the writer's State Welfare Administration in New Jersey, Chap. 11. This study indicated that under the board control plan New Jersey has been highly successful in excluding partisan politics from the administration of a progressive welfare program by qualified executives. The experience in certain states employing the one-man control plan (Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York) lead to the conclusion that one-man control, while perhaps strengthening gubernatorial responsibility, affects adversely the quality of the directing personnel. Ibid., p. 46.

¹² The principle of “less eligibility,” once the root principle of English and American poor-law systems.

¹³ “The functions of government have changed from being mainly negative into being mainly positive, that is to say, governments have come to be engaged not merely in preventing wrong things from being done, but in bringing it about that the right things shall be done.” Wallas, Graham, “Government”, Journal of Public Administration, Vol. 6, p. 3CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁴ Adequate plans for examination, classification, discipline, promotion, compensation, and retirement allowance are, of course, essential elements of a good merit system.

¹⁵ John W. Davis in an address before the Institute of Public Affairs of the University of Virginia, July 10, 1934.

¹⁶ “If there is one thing, more than any other, which all government now requires in this highly complicated and interrelated (sic) world, it is the much abused and much distrusted expert. The day of haphazard government is over. ‘Brain Trusts’ may go out of fashion, but not the need for brains.” Cummings, Homer, Liberty Under Law and Administration (1934), p. 124Google Scholar.

¹⁷ White, L. D., Public Administration (1933 ed.), pp. 63–66Google Scholar. This writer says of the dilemma: “With the constant evolution of special technique and the increasing complexity of organization and function, how can a working connection be maintained between the official and the public? … It was the real merit of the decentralized and self-governmental form of administration now gradually being replaced that it remained in close touch with the people. To maintain popular confidence in a vast bureaucracy far removed from popular control and increasingly required to interfere in the personal life of the individual is a far more difficult, and also more important, problem.” Ibid., p. 476.

¹⁸ The office of city-manager has been created for the purpose of eliminating entirely political considerations in municipal administration. It substitutes professional management in place of political management. An encouraging sign is the progress which has been made in the development of professional standards for city-managers. See Ridley, Clarence E. and Nolting, Orin F., The City-Manager Profession (1934)Google Scholar, Chaps. III, IV.

¹⁹ See J. R. Howard Roberts' article for a similar idea with reference to local administration in England, “The Professional Expert and Administrative Control”, Journal of Public Administration, Vol. 7, pp. 247–251Google Scholar. This principle seems hardly less important with respect to the service functions than the other functions of administration, including the “house-keeping” or staff functions, police, taxation, regulation of public utilities, etc., the execution of which is rapidly becoming technical and specialized in character.

²⁰ “As a general rule, the specialist is rightly so enthusiastic about his own particular work that he is in danger of lacking that sense of proportion and that recognition of political, financial, and practical limitations which every administrator must learn to possess.” “The first essential quality of the good administrator is adaptability. … Adaptability is not a distinguishing feature of the specialist.” SirFloud, Francis L. C., “The Sphere of the Specialist in Public Administration”, Jour. of Public Admin., Vol. 1, pp. 121, 124–125Google Scholar. Recognition of the two principles suggested would provide a greater incentive to the permanent employees, since appointment of the most promising to positions of department leadership would not be uncommon, and would at the same time attract from outside the service a higher grade of employee. Although the tenure of the departmental head would be limited where the chief executive possesses unlimited power of removal, it is not entirely improbable that a profession of department director would evolve, some what as has the city-manager profession.

²¹ For an extended treatment of the origin, growth, and aims of these organizations, see W. Brooke Graves, Uniform State Action; A Possible Substitute for Centralization (1934).

²² Public Management, Vol. 15, pp. 13–15Google Scholar.