Nothing is of greater importance to national defense than the morale of those who do the actual work, the men who pump the petroleum, roll the steel, build the ships and planes. An ounce more of spirit along the assembly line is worth more than a correspondingly higher percentage of armaments in a clash of troops. This is because modern wars are won by industrial strength, a fact that we are almost tired of hearing repeated, but the truth of which we are observing with every passing month of the present war.

War industries require raw materials, trained leadership, and sufficient funds to support the costly effort. A nation needs all of these. But all depend for their success upon the efficiency and ardor of designers, foundrymen, and machinists. Do they put their minds and backs and hearts into their work? Or do they merely go through the motions?

Organized labor may be fitted into a war economy in one of several ways. The workers can be virtually enslaved, as in Poland, and forced to labor with armed sentries standing over them. This method has never proved very efficient. Another way, which Hitler and Mussolini are using, is to appeal to the emotions of patriotism, to work men into a frenzy which must then be sustained.

Planning has always been regarded as a matter for the experts. Laymen affected by the plans have usually participated in the process only by accepting or rejecting through their representatives planning projects drawn up by technicians. The necessary importance of the rôle of technicians and the inevitable conflict between technical considerations, which must determine the recommendations of the experts, and political considerations, which must determine the attitude of representatives, have led many to regard the whole idea of systematic planning (in any large field of production) as undemocratic in its general trend. The whole idea of planning, they insist, points necessarily toward bureaucratic centralization of responsibility. The significance of the recently launched County Land Use Planning program lies in the effort to achieve from the first stages of the process and at the most local levels of organization that fusion between the skill and experience of the expert and the political choices of laymen which is the essence of modern democracy. Decentralization and localization of planning is, of course, particularly essential in agriculture because of the need to adapt methods for attaining general objectives to widely varying sectional differences. At the same time, lay participation in agricultural planning can mean widespread participation because of the wide spread of individual responsibility for individual farm enterprises. It may well be, therefore, that the lessons to be learned from this experiment in democratic planning for agriculture are not readily transferable to other fields of productive enterprise. That is a question that I must leave to others.

During the 1939 term, President Roosevelt made his fifth appointment to the Supreme Court. Mr. Justice Butler died on November 16, 1939. Attorney-General Frank Murphy was appointed to this vacancy and took his seat on February 5, 1940. Presidents Lincoln and Taft also appointed five members of the Court; only President Washington and President Jackson appointed more than five. By his policy of choosing younger men, President Roosevelt reduced the average age of the members of the Court from seventy-two to sixty-one in less than three years. This change is important because it brings to the work of the Court younger and more vigorous men; it is also important because it extends the President's influence, through his appointment of justices, over a much longer period of time. It seems probable that we shall have a “Roosevelt Court” for many years to come.

The sine die adjournment of Congress on January 3 brought down the curtain on the longest and one of the most hectic and unique sessions in American history. As early as January 3, 1940, when the session began, the leaders of the House and Senate were looking forward to a program involving much controversy. But it is doubtful whether anyone anticipated a session drawn out over 367 days, during which $19,069,548,775 would be appropriated and 941 laws enacted. Many important bills were pending on the Senate and House calendars on the opening day, and measures on trade treaties, labor, agriculture, taxation, and debt limitation were certain to arise. Many congressmen rightly guessed that much defense legislation would be enacted. Around the Capitol during the opening weeks of the session, nevertheless, there was much sentiment for a more nearly balanced budget and for a curtailment of national expenditures. Barrages of criticism were thrown up against a continuation of the extensive executive powers previously conferred on the President, and particularly urging removal of certain governmental regulations on individuals or businesses. Pleas were made for a return to “congressional government.” And many members urged an early adjournment in order that representatives and senators might go home for campaign purposes.

Only since 1939 have political scientists, as such, had much chance to gain entrance into the permanent federal civil service. This opportunity came as the result of two well-timed phenomena: (1) the demand of a number of federal agencies for young men and women educated in certain branches of political science, and (2) the United States Civil Service Commission's announcement of the Junior Professional Assistant examination, which included an optional called “Junior Administrative Technician.” This combination of happy circumstances, however, did not solve all the problems of the young political scientist or clarify all the requirements for federal employment; so, at the 1939 meeting of the American Political Science Association a committee was appointed to study the question.

On April 7, 1939, the Italian news agency, Stefani, announced officially that Italian troops had landed in Albania. Having overcome some resistance, they entered Tirana, the capital, the following day and then rapidly completed the occupation of the country. An attempt at legal justification followed this military action. The Italian press announced that after the landing of troops an Albanian provisional committee, quickly formed, convoked an Assembly composed of delegates from all Albanian provinces. On April 12, 1939, this Assembly, having vested itself with full powers, declared the decadence of the preceding régime and offered the crown of Albania to the king of Italy. The Italian law of April 16, 1939, n. 580, declared that the king of Italy, having accepted the crown of Albania, assumed for himself and for his successors the title of King of Italy and Albania, Emperor of Ethiopia. Then followed a series of measures legally entrusting Italy with full control over Albania.

In the “battle of committees” which has raged over the foreign policy of the United States in recent months, the committees which have played the most active and most publicized rôles have been such propaganda groups as the Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies, the America First Committee, and the No Foreign War Committee. Such groups have left untouched an important task: careful, sober research into the problems which the organization of peace presents to the American people. This latter task, however, has not been wholly neglected. A Commission to Study the Organization of Peace, initiated by Professor James T. Shotwell of Columbia University in the fall of 1939, has undertaken at least a part of the task. Its methods of functioning, its work, and its objectives are of current interest to political scientists, and the present note is intended to call attention to the more important features of the Commission's work.

Writing in the October Atlantic Monthly, Paul P. Cram insists that “the task of our teachers at the present moment is one of the most terrible responsibilities in modern times.” In less troubled eras, some of us would probably reply that teachers have little influence over college students, who are more interested in sex, football, and liquor than in democracy and war and peace. But Bismarck declared that the German history professor had more to do with winning the Franco-Prussian war than any other group in the Fatherland with the exception of the German High Command. And the fate of France demonstrates with terrible clarity the misfortune that may befall a nation if its people are mentally unprepared to meet existing emergencies.

In the summer of 1939, President Charles G. Haines set up this committee and instructed it to study broadly the contribution which political scientists are making to government, their relations with public officials, and how these relations might be made closer and more effective. The problem assigned to the committee is one of great importance to the future of political science. The challenge to political scientists to make an effective contribution to the improvement of government processes and institutions was never so real and so great as it is today. The preservation of democratic institutions, in the long run, will depend in large measure upon scientific study and research, and intelligent, imaginative, and constructive consideration of governmental problems. If political scientists are not making their full contribution to the development and improvement of government—and we believe they are not—it is time to stop and take stock, and to set about purposefully to attune political science to the needs of modern society. We are not unmindful of the very great contribution which all social sciences may make, but we believe that the responsibility of the political scientist is especially great.