Americans have had a long and varied experience with military government. The names New Mexico, California, New Orleans, Memphis, Cuba, Manila, Mindanao, Samoa, Guam, Vera Cruz, and Coblenz by no means exhaust the list of places where American military or naval governors have exercised control over civil populations. Virtually no effort has been made before the present war to analyze this experience and to draw from it principles to assist in the solution of the problems of the present and immediate future. Military government is of vast importance for the world of tomorrow. It is the transitional phase between the active conflict of armies and the quiet of an established peace. Military government may be—and has been at times in American history—as important for ultimate solutions as major military campaigns.

“Military government,” according to the official definition set forth in the War Department's Field Manual 27–5, “is that form of government which is established and maintained by a belligerent by force of arms over occupied territory of the enemy and over the inhabitants thereof. In this definition, the term territory of the enemy includes not only the territory of an enemy nation but also domestic territory recovered by military occupation from rebels treated as belligerents.” The definition does not cover the whole range of actual occupations in American experience. Military government should not be thought of entirely in terms of enemy territory or enemy populations.

It is inevitable that any undertaking should be judged primarily from the point of view of what was originally attempted by the participants and expected by onlookers rather than by a strict standard of actual achievement. In most of the unfavorable discussion that has been current during and since the conference, the point of criticism is the opinion that the conference has not fulfilled its avowed purpose, rather than a complete denial of the usefulness of such results as actually have been accomplished. At the very opening session of the conference, M. Nelidoff in his presidential address pointed out in disillusioned language the impossibility of realizing certain general ideals that had been entertained with respect to these great meetings. He admitted that “we need not be discouraged from dreaming of the ideal of universal peace and the fraternity of peoples, considering that the essential condition of all progress is the pursuit of an ideal towards which we always strive without ever reaching it. Nevertheless, we should not be too ambitious.” He concluded by saying: “Let us set bravely to work, our path lit up by the bright star of universal peace which we shall never reach but which will always guide us.” While some among M. Nelidoff's audience approved of his cautious conservatism, others felt that his utterances had received an unduly pessimistic tinge from the unfortunate position in which Russia has found herself since the war. Nevertheless, when we now review the efforts and the accomplished work of the conference, we may take as the keynote, the words of the presiding officer, pointing out inevitable limitations and bidding us look for results not in sweeping resolutions, but in detailed and specific arrangements which at first sight may appear somewhat trivial and of a purely technical nature.

In a previous paper foreign relations as a phase of governmental activity were considered chiefly as an international phenomenon. Such relations were there discussed largely in their political bearing and some attempt was made to deduce from practice the considerations which affect foreign offices and the conditions encountered by diplomatic personnel. The problems of secrecy in negotiations and of secret treaties were examined and an effort made to indicate how much knowledge of both may be justifiably concealed. The present paper is a study of legislative control over foreign relations.

Systems of legislative handling of foreign relations may be distinguished as of three types, which we may designate as the continental, the executive, and the American. The American type is characterized by an imposed agreement between the executive and legislative departments of government before treaties can become binding upon the state. The continental type is characterized by a less complete dependence of the executive upon the legislative department in respect to treaty ratification. The executive type is characterized by an almost complete independence of the executive respecting treaty ratification.

All systems recognize definitely that the conduct of foreign relations is an executive function. None denies the patent facts that it is the place of the executive to speak and act for the state, and that, in all matters not definable as legislation, the minister can definitely bind the state. Innumerable decisions under all systems are reached by the department of foreign affairs without any but the executive branch of the government knowing anything of them until they are recorded facts.

Mr. W. J. Shepard, in a review of my work, Die moderne Demokratie, remarks that I have forgotten its spirit in the study of its forms. “It is not the vitalizing spirit,” he writes, “the impelling motive force, the broadly based popular sentiment of democracy that is of interest, but only the forms and mechanism ‥‥ of democratic-republican states.” Now I have in the fifth chapter of the second book presented the theory of political democracy, in the sixth that of social democracy, and in the seventh that of democratic socialism; and in the first of these three chapters I have discussed popular sovereignty and active citizenship, the supremacy of the majority in a democracy, the unlimited constituent power of the people (pouvoir constituant), in which European science has conceived the essence of this form of the state to reside in contradistinction to other forms. But Mr. Shepard has a different conception of its nature. He has raised an interesting question in this connection which I should like to discuss in the following pages.

Brief though his statement on this point is, no one can doubt that he considers the supremacy of public opinion as the essence of democracy, since he writes: “No discussion of the nature, elements and effects of public opinion, no appreciation of the spirit of democracy is to be found in the covers of this volume.” As a matter of fact I have treated of this subject in the above-mentioned first division of the fifth chapter, which is devoted to the discussion of popular sovereignty, though certainly in the brief compass which appeared to me sufficient for the understanding of the nature of democracy.

Throughout the United States there are provided special, though simple, forms of municipal government for villages under the various names of village, borough or town. Oddly enough the notable exceptions to this general practice are to be found in New England, the region which includes three of the most densely populated states in the Union. Moreover, it is in the two most densely populated of these that the least progress has been made toward the development of an orderly system of village government.

At one time the whole area of New England, except certain unorganized tracts in the north, was under town government and so continued until the growth of urban conditions led to city incorporation. In every case incorporation was by special act, and such is the method employed in every case to the present time. The readiness of the town government to assume the functions proper to an urban community not only retarded city incorporation, but prevented, in large measure, the growth of special forms of government for villages. It is not unusual to find towns which include within their limits many square miles of rural territory, providing all or part of its population with fire protection, water, sewers, lights, side-walks, parks and libraries. But there has grown up, sometimes under general laws though more commonly as a result of special legislation, a heterogeneous collection of municipal governments and taxing authorities variously denominated villages, fire, water, lighting, sewer, highway and improvement districts, producing a confusion comparable only to the conditions in England before the municipal reforms of recent date.

The contested status of the science of politics has compelled its supporters to pursue their endeavor in an atmosphere of continual apology. The contemporary exponents of scientific aspirations in the realm of political phenomena remain on the defensive as they are confronted with the tenacious persistence of two focal problems: (1) Does the study of politics reveal the potentiality of a science, in view of the immense diversity of human behavior, which appears to be unpredictable and beyond control for the purpose of observation? (2) What would constitute the criteria of a science of politics, provided that the possibility of establishing such a discipline is conceded? In its essential features, this dual issue represents the current manifestation of a controversy which emerged in Utilitarian thought. The parties to the dispute were James Mill, Thomas Babington Macaulay (the only participant who cannot be identified with Utilitarianism), and John Stuart Mill. The respective arguments of the contestants were presented in James Mill's Essay on Government (1828), in Macaulay's article, Mill's Essay on Government (1829), and John Stuart Mill's A System of Logic (1843). Although these works have suffered no neglect in the history of political theory, the controversy which they reveal in their combined context has not commanded as much attention as its pertinence to contemporary problems merits.