The doctrines of H. Krabbe, professor of public law in the University of Leyden, are to be found in his Die Lehre der Rechtessouveränität, published in 1906, and his Die moderne Staatsidee, the second edition of which appeared in 1919.

The political theory of Krabbe resembles that of Duguit in that it denies law-making power to the state, and recognizes law (as defined by himself) as the ruling power in human society, as sovereign, and, therefore, as above the state. However, as will presently be seen, Krabbe places the state upon a much higher plane than does Duguit. To Duguit, political rulership is nothing more than the bald fact that, in a given community certain persons, for some reason or other, possess and exercise, actual power of control over the actions of the other persons of a group. It is, as it were, an objective fact which cannot, and need not be, ethically justified. To Krabbe, upon the other hand, the state is, in essence, a community of persons unified by the general agreement of its members as to the valuation of public and private interests, and possessing organized instrumentalities for clarifying and formulating these common convictions, and, when necessary, enforcing them. To Krabbe, the state thus plays a necessary part in the declaration and enforcement of law, if not in investing it with essential validity as such.

We find, however, in Krabbe, and also in his translators, as will be later pointed out, that same mistaken idea which is to be discovered in Duguit, that an inquiry into the idealistic or utilitarian validity of law, as determined by its substantive provisions and the purposes sought to be achieved by its enforcement, has a relevancy to, and that its conclusions can affect, the validity and usefulness of the purely formalistic concepts which the positive or analytical jurist employs.

When James Otis in 1764 declared that government “has an everlasting foundation in the unchangeable will of God, the author of nature, whose laws never vary,” and that “there can be no prescription old enough to supersede the law of nature and the grant of God Almighty, who has given to all men a natural right to be free,” he was at once making use of one of the oldest and most important conceptions in the history of political thought and giving to that concept a distinctly American meaning. His was merely one of the earliest examples in this country of a kind of political theory which was to find reflection in the Declaration of Independence in one generation, in the higher law doctrine in another, and in a famous trilogy of decisions of the Supreme Court in still a third. However, the natural-rights theory is by no means the only usage found for the natural-law concept in the political thought of this country, and it is the purpose of this paper to trace briefly the various interpretations placed upon it and the different forms through which it has passed.

It is easy enough to say that natural law has meant just what the individual theorist desired to have it mean; for its content has varied from philosophical anarchy to paternalistic aristocracy, and from the assertion of strongly individualistic democracy to the defence of highly centralized government. But this statement does not dispose of the problem. It is necessary to know why and when these varying interpretations were advanced and what their exponents meant when they spoke so confidently of the laws of nature.

The bureau chiefs are the key figures in national administration. The units that they direct are inclusive enough to lend themselves to the purposes of supervision and coördination and to bring their heads in touch with the machinery of budget-making and legislation, but sufficiently focused to preserve for them a saving contact with details and technique. The importance of their positions can hardly be exaggerated.

Who are the present bureau chiefs? What has been their training? To what extent have they been recruited within the services they now direct, and to what extent from outside? What factors have influenced their selection? How long have they been in office? Judging by their experience as well as by the frequency with which their predecessors have been changed, how secure seems to be their tenure? These are the questions to which this paper is addressed. Its purpose is modest; it is not expected to uncover findings not already known, at least in general terms. A systematic canvass of the bare facts, however, will help to a more precise understanding of the actual situation and perhaps facilitate discussions of our working theory of the relation of politics to administration. The time is opportune for taking stock. Within the past fifteen years each of the great parties has swept into the seats of power after a period of deprivation.

In determining the scope of this inquiry, the term bureau is used somewhat broadly, to denote any major subdivision of an executive department.

Validity of Procedure. In the summer of 1925 the appellate division of the supreme court of New York held that the City Home Rule Amendment of 1923 had not been legally adopted and was invalid. In the case of Browne v. City of New York the court of appeals reversed this decision and held the amendment valid. The chief ground of attack on the amendment was, it is believed, unique. It may be stated as follows: The New York constitution requires an amendment to be proposed by one legislature, approved by the legislature chosen at the next election of senators, and then ratified by the voters. The City Home Rule Amendment was proposed by the legislature of 1922, approved by that of 1923, and ratified at the polls in 1923. It was an amendment to Article XII. But the legislature of 1922 had also approved an amendment to Article XII, relatively trivial in nature, which had originated in the legislature of 1920. This amendment was ratified in November, 1922, and went into effect in January, 1923, before the second legislative approval of the City Home Rule Amendment. In other words Article XII, which the City Home Rule Amendment changed, was not the same when the amendment passed the legislature for the first time as when it passed the second time. The appellate division held not only that the amendment must be the same when passed by the two legislatures but that the provision amended must also be the same.

The regular long session of the 69th Congress met in December to harvest the legislative fruits of the Republican victory of 1924, then almost too well dried by thirteen months' standing and a little damaged by some bad weather in the special session of the Senate. The spirit of quiet husbandry, almost bereft of partisanship, was signalized by the enactment of the Revenue Act of February 26, 1926, which at last virtually realized the oft-frustrated “Mellon plan” of tax revision. Within two months, however, the propitious, if hardly exciting, skies that looked down on these early scenes were darkened, and an almost dramatic transition from sunshine to the shadow of farm-relief perplexities and the distant thunder of the oncoming primaries invested the session with other points of interest besides its industry and output.

Since the war had necessitated resort to technical experts in the economic services of the French government, it was natural that after the armistice there should have been talk in various quarters of some sort of functional representation to meet post-war problems. Some suggested the development of the regional economic councils brought into being in 1917, while the Action Francaise was for setting up what was dubbed a new estates general. It was, however, the General Confederation of Labor (the C. G. T.) under the leadership of M. Jouhaux, which not only came forward with a carefully thought out plan but was sufficiently interested to pursue the matter until seven years later the general features of its program were finally incorporated into the public law of France.

The final results of a hotly contested by-election in Paris were given out on Sunday evening, March 28. Two communist deputies were elected to the Chamber to replace two conservatives by the narrow margin of 1,500 votes in a constituency which contained nearly 200,000 registered electors. This election is important not only because of the wide comment which it caused but also because it illustrates many of the working forces in present-day French politics.