Suchergebnisse

Although my subject is President Roosevelt's Latin-American policy (to March, 1935), I shall take the liberty of treating it in a broad way so as to include some developments prior to the advent of the Roosevelt Administration, in order to have a background for the better understanding of the more recent developments.Although the subject, as stated, envisages merely foreign policy, it should be borne in mind that foreign policy and domestic policy cannot be kept entirely separate, as if they existed in water-tight compartments. A united front in foreign policy is sometimes urged, and it is argued that party politics, as the saying goes, should stop at the water's edge. This, however, is a specious argument intended to put into the position of being unpatriotic those who oppose the foreign policy of the Administration. A united front in respect to foreign relations is no more possible or to be expected than in domestic affairs, because foreign and domestic affairs are closely related.

Writing in 1919, Mr. W. F. Willoughby declared that "at the present time few reforms of government in the United States are more urgent than that of the reorganization of the administrative services of our state governments, so as to put them upon the integrated or departmental basis." This need for state administrative reorganization is now generally recognized, not only by political scientists and students of administration, but also by public officials and practical administrators. This is indicated by the large number of governors who, in public messages, have urged upon their legislatures the adoption of measures of administrative reform; by the investigations and reports of efficiency and economy commissions or similar bodies created in many states; and by the laws actually passed providing for administrative reorganization in Illinois, Idaho, Nebraska, Ohio, Washington, Massachusetts, and other states.A movement of this character naturally follows the line of least resistance, and consequently the changes in administrative organization heretofore made have been through statutory enactment rather than through constitutional revision. Inasmuch as, in most states, a faulty organization of the administration is stereotyped in the constitution, thoroughgoing reorganization by mere statutory enactment is practically impossible. The constitutional difficulties which impede the movement for administrative reorganization should warn us against the insertion in the organic law of detailed administrative provisions.

The pathology of political parties is illustrated under especially illuminating circumstances during time of war. The internal political conditions of every important nation are influenced to some extent by its external relations. War on a world-wide scale is the external relation which has the most profound influence upon the internal political conditions of every participating nation. This influence varies in different cases, depending upon the proximity of the particular nation to the scene of the conflict, the extent of its participation, the relative danger of invasion by its enemies, the character of the internal governmental organization, the length of the conflict, and other factors. In normal times, it has been found by experience in nations operating under the two-party system that oscillations in the fortunes of the two principal parties occur with a surprising degree of regularity. This see-saw of party politics may have an injurious effect upon the continuity and constructiveness of the nation's foreign policy even in normal times; its continuation in time of war when the nation's fate may be hanging in the balance would be a serious, if not intolerable, danger. One effect of war upon the party system, therefore, is to bring about, at least for a time, a relatively greater stability of party control, if not complete quiescence of partisanship, either through coalition or through cessation of party opposition, or both.

About twenty years ago, Mr. Bryce, with microscopic vision, observed that the state governor was "not yet a nonentity." On the other hand the state legislature was "so much the strongest force in the several states that we may almost call it the Government and ignore all other authorities." The strangeness of sound with which these statements strike our ears at the present day is indicative of the length of the road which we have since traveled and of the change which has taken place within recent years in the relative positions of the governor and the legislature in our state governments. The unmistakable tendency which now prevails in many quarters towards an enlargement of the power of the governor directs attention anew to the administrative and political position which that officer occupies and to the manner in which his influence and prestige have been, and may be still further, increased.

"References" at end of most of the chapters. ; Mode of access: Internet.