Political science has dealt too long, on the one hand, with the ideal, and, on the other hand, with the abnormal and perverted features of political society, rather than with the normal and the eventual. Our theory of ideal democracy is perhaps more suited to the Greek and Roman city-state, with participation as the test of the good citizen. Representation has been heralded as the device which makes the ancient ideal possible on a large scale. But in practice it has been found that the enormous expansion of the public, i.e., the body of persons who have the right of participation, has made the problem far more complex than was at first thought possible. Greek ideals of education and coercion of the citizen body toward general improvement have been carried out with greater success, and our statute books reflect a Hobbesian attitude toward human nature which is true only in part. The political philosophy of democracy must be built on the facts of political life.

Shall we break with the Greek and Roman ideal of the participation of the citizen group in the affairs of the state? It is true that the present attitude is a revised form of the democratic ideal of antiquity, but with a different interpretation of the meaning of citizenship. All democratic governments must finally rest on some theory of the suffrage; any study of the fact of non-voting must be based on a theory of the suffrage likewise. With the expansion of the theory of citizenship to include all subjects, a corresponding theory of limited participation was developed—no doubt a product of the Middle Ages. The totality of citizens was distrusted, and some test of participation had to be devised. Such was the origin of religious tests for political participation; such was the origin of the distinction between the right to vote and the fact of citizenship.

American democracy is not combating crime successfully. We are given the unenviable distinction of leading the civilized world in murder, robbery, burglary and other of the graver crimes against person and property. As a nation we have a disconcertingly high criminal ratio and in our large cities, where the opportunities and temptations for crime are greater, constantly recurring crime waves threaten our social organization.

The administration of justice is a state function. Police officers are technically state officials and justices of the peace, police and municipal courts are performing state functions, yet it nevertheless is true that the prevention, detection and treatment of crime and criminals are of special importance to city dwellers and under our decentralized administration of justice the city ought to feel its responsibility and be given the opportunity to deal with the problem in an intelligent manner.

It has been estimated that in Cleveland, Ohio, two-thirds of those who commit serious crimes are never arrested, and of the one-third arrested two-thirds are never convicted. The administration of criminal law has been declared a failure in Cleveland but few of our other large cities have any special reason for self-congratulation. Our criminal statistics in general are very unreliable and inadequate. The census bureau has been making an ambitious attempt at securing criminal statistics but has found it difficult and at times impossible to secure even the simplest data.

When the report of Chinese opposition against foreign loans reaches the western world, a certain class of people at once call such opposition the outcome of the historical anti-foreign feeling, oriental exclusiveness, self-conceit, and Boxerism. They assume that the Chinese have no grievance at all, and that these orientals “kick” simply because they are self-conceited heathens who do not know what is good for them. The more representative class, however, do not unreservedly subscribe to this opinion. They interpret the opposition as a manifestation of “Chinese nationalization.” Thus the New York Tribune in an editorial calls the recent opposition to the Hankow-Szechuan loan as “a strikingly characteristic manifestation of the rampant spirit of ‘China for the Chinese’ which prevails in large parts of the country.”

There is much truth in this interpretation. But it points to only one of the many phases of the case. It is, therefore, inadequate to explain the whole situation and is misleading when taken as the premise for the solution of the problem. In order to understand fully and estimate aright these oppositions which are likely to exist in the future, we should examine closely the underlying causes from all points of view.

The operation of the newly devised systems of centralized control in state government has naturally raised many questions of the relative duties and responsibilities of department and bureau officials on the one hand and of the supervising and controlling authorities on the other. The process of change from an established method of conducting public business to another, based on different principles and requiring new obligations on the part of officers expending money is bound to be a period of readjustment accompanied by a certain amount of friction. This will be the more certain as the new system differs more widely from the old and restricts more completely the freedom of action formerly reserved to heads of the various state services.

The establishment of the state board of public affairs in Wisconsin in 1911, the enactment of the Civil Code in Illinois in 1917, the enactment of the Ohio Civil Code in 1921, and the legislation of Massachusetts culminating in the creation of the board of administration and finance, all made wide departures from the system of administration hitherto in operation. The essential characteristic introduced in each case was the imposition of an agency of review, of supervision, and in many respects of control upon officers and commissions who had hitherto conducted the work of their respective offices for the most part subject only to the necessity of securing approval of their expenditures by the auditor or controller.

The Revenue Act of 1943 will be remembered not only as the first one in history to be vetoed by the President, but also as the cause of an outburst in Congress against the executive capable of affecting the fortunes of the Democratic party in the 1944 elections. The significance of this last act in the drama (to date) may be clarified if we review the fiscal situation of the United States at the time, the Administration's tax proposals, and the revenue legislation actually resulting.

In January, 1943, the President's budget message estimated expenditures of $100 billion for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1944. Tax revenues for the same period were estimated at $35 billion. The President made three recommendations: (1) raise $16 billion in new tax revenue, or savings, or both, (2) simplify the income tax, and (3) put taxes on a pay-as-you-go basis. In the summer and fall of 1943, Congress enacted legislation to carry out certain parts of the last two proposals. Public discussion had forced on it some consideration of collecting taxes currently.

Among the experiments in government which have taken place in post-war Germany, one of the most varied in form is to be found in the theory and practice of direct legislation. The referendum, initiative, and a type of recall exist in national, state, and local governments. The experience of the German people with these constitutional practices has been treated occasionally in studies of the national and municipal governments, and this note is designed to perform a similar service with regard to the German states.

Studies of the constitutional convention at Weimar seem to indicate that direct legislation was adopted for the national constitution without a great deal of study. The Germans had, however, been acquainted with the idea of direct legislation for some time, and a proposal for its use had found expression in the Erfurter Program of the Social Democratic party. The provisional arrangements for the national government during the revolutionary period included machinery for an appeal to the electorate in cases of disagreement between the ordinary organs of government. But the widest use of the various forms of direct legislation is first to be found in the provisional constitutions of the states.

When the late Dr. Charles McCarthy wrote The Wisconsin Idea he put into it a prediction and a warning which deserve our most thoughtful study in these days of increasing complexity of government. He saw several great dangers facing the commission plan of administration. It is one of these dangers with which we are concerned: “In spite of vigilance the stiffness and red tape of the bureau may eventually appear. …. While some commissions may grow sluggish, others may be inclined to be arrogant toward their masters—the people. There should be some means whereby commissions may be called before the legislature in the same manner in which members of the English cabinet are subjected to questioning or interpellation in the British Parliament.

“In the case of the proposed Interstate Trade Commission, supplementing the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, the members should be subject to recall by a majority vote of Congress. It is the belief of the author that sooner or later such a plan will be developed in addition to the program which has been laid down in Wisconsin. When all is said there is no sure cure in commissions.”

The closing chapter in the history of the white primary in the South has seemed since 1944 to be in process of being written. In that year, the United States Supreme Court, by invalidating in Smith v. Allwright the white primary rule of the Texas state Democratic convention, dealt a stunning, if not immediately mortal, blow to this most significant political custom or practice of the Southern states. The refusal of this court on April 19, 1948, to review a federal circuit court decision invalidating the white primary arrangements of South Carolina, created in 1944 to circumvent the effect of the Allwright decision, seems to have administered the judicial coup de grâce. It would, however, be unsafe to predict when “finis” may be set down for all states, political areas, counties, and voting precincts where by one means or another the Negro has long been barred from participation in the all-important primaries of the Democratic party. The remaining suffrage requirements, registration restrictions, and election provisions, and the political and administrative methods of applying them which still are employed in some Southern states and in parts of others in order to render it difficult for Negroes to vote will not be immediately eliminated. Moreover, the effects of political action have not been fully tested by the Democratic leaders of the South. At the present moment, plans for united efforts on their part are under consideration; and these could have far-reaching results before the end of the current presidential election year. Whatever the abstract justice of the situation, traditional attitudes and customs cannot be uprooted easily and have a way of resisting judicial or legislative fiat, particularly when it is honestly felt by many that such fiat has been imposed from the outside and by people unaware of the difficulties and adjustments involved.