The doctrine of the pluralistic state has found its most outspoken advocate in this country in Mr. Harold J. Laski,—an Englishman, recently of Harvard University, and more recently still called back to England to the London School of Economics of the University of London. A number of channels of thought have come together in Mr. Laski's present formulation of the doctrine. Among those in England from whom he received much inspiration and suggestion may be mentioned the late Professor Maitland, and Dr. J. Neville Figgis, as well as Mr. Graham Wallas, and Mr. Ernest Barker.

Professor Maitland's work in this field is closely associated with that of Dr. Otto Gierke in Germany, to the third volume of one of whose works, Das Deutsche Genossenschaftsrecht, which Professor Maitland translated, he wrote his famous Introduction in which he stated his own views with regard to the real and truly corporate personality, not only of the state but of other social groupings as well. Another of Gierke's works is Die Genossenschaftstheorie, in which it is attempted to show, to quote Dr. Figgis, “how under the facts of modern life the civilian theory of corporations is breaking down on all hands, and that even in Germany, in spite of the deliberate adoption of the Romanist doctrine, the courts and sometimes even the laws are being driven to treat corporate societies as though they were real and not fictitious persons, and to regard such personality as the natural consequence of permanent association, not a mere mark to be imposed or withheld by the sovereign power.”

In the historical development of individual nations revolutions come and go as tremendous earthquakes, upsetting the standing order and creating new constellations and configurations. After an earthquake on former plains new mountain ranges arise and, vice versa, enormous peaks suddenly disappear; quite so in the case of a revolution, which overturns century old institutions and organizations. At the time when the upheaval occurs, it often seems that the whole social structure is destroyed forever and that something entirely new is being created. And yet, everyone who has studied history knows very well that even in revolutions we have a constant evolution, that much of the old order remains and that the new institutions have many attachments in the past, no matter how completely new they may seem at the moment of their political birth.

Take the French Revolution of 1789 as a most vivid example. It might have seemed to contemporaries that the whole former French state and government, the social as well as the economic structure, had disappeared and were utterly destroyed.

For the first time since its sessions began in 1904, the American Political Science Association was last year unable to hold its regular annual meeting. For fourteen years, in unbroken series, the association had brought its members together for conference and discussion; but last year, with more matter in its field engaging thought and provoking study than ever before, the association had to suspend its activities. This was due to circumstances so well known that the matter would be scarcely worth mentioning were it not that it exhibits a plight in which political science is apt to find itself whenever the ordinary course of events is interrupted by some great catastrophe.

In President Lowell's standard work on Governments and Parties in Continental Europe, he remarks that to him “the State sometimes presents itself under the figure of a stage-coach with the horses running away. On the front a number of eager men are urging the most contrary advice on the driver, whose chief object is to keep his seat; while at the back a couple of old gentlemen with spy-glasses are carefully surveying the road already traversed.”

Under the happiest of conditions it is scarcely to be expected that democracy should result in a high degree of efficient government. For the very object of democracy is to give expression to desires and impulses which can only with difficulty be brought into harmony. Whether taken in the sense of the direct government of the people or in the sense of government by representatives of the people, democracy involves the reconciliation of conflicting views, resulting after much discussion and delay in the adoption of a compromise more or less unsatisfactory to both sides. In the formulation of its policies democracy is thus reduced to what is feasible and expedient in view of the present state of public opinion, while in the administration of its laws it must depend upon the executive ability not of its ablest citizens but of those who have succeeded in winning the confidence of their constituents. Moreover, in spite of obvious duplication of functions it is important that government be kept decentralized in order that the individuality of local areas may be preserved where national unity is not essential.

An observer who had much to do with the departments at Washington once remarked that the whole philosophy of rank in the government service was unsound. Anyone, he reasoned, could be the head of a department; to be the head of a division was much more difficult; while the office boy must be a real diplomat. There is doubtless much of truth in this view; and it may perhaps be pleaded in excuse of the habit which discussions of the federal personnel problem seem to have developed, of beginning (and, not infrequently, also ending) with the case of the government clerk.

Nevertheless, it is to be questioned whether the government clerk, or the subordinate personnel of the administrative services of the government generally, presents nearly so difficult a question as does the directing personnel. By and large, doubtless the most immediate problem of the federal personnel system today is to secure in the posts of responsibility and discretion a capable type of administrator.

In this view, logically the first item to be considered in a discussion of the federal personnel problem is the method of selecting the chief of the administration—the President; and, next in order, the method of selecting the chiefs of the executive departments—particularly, the chiefs of the predominantly administrative departments—post office, war and navy.

In Belgium there are two units of local government, the province and the commune.

Belgium is divided into nine provinces, the boundaries of which were drawn somewhat arbitrarily by the government of the French Revolution after the conquest of the country in 1795. All the provinces except one are about equal in territorial extent, but they differ considerably in respect to population, which varies from 250,000 to 1,200,000. Thus the province of Luxemburg, whose area exceeds that of any of the others by about a third, has the smallest population; it has neither industrial centers nor any important city (its largest city has a bare 10,000 inhabitants), and it is in large part covered with forests. The differences in population have increased during the last fifty years, as much from the great development of industry in certain provinces as from the growth of certain great urban centers like those of Brussels and Antwerp.

There are 2630 communes in Belgium; their boundaries were not established systematically by a single act, nor by a series of acts of the legislative authority. Almost all grew up in the course of centuries, and their boundaries have come into existence only in accordance with very ancient traditions. There are great differences among the communes, not only in respect to their territorial extent (which varies from some hundreds to some tens of thousands of acres), but also in respect to their population. Some little villages have scarcely a hundred inhabitants, whereas Antwerp had more than 300,000 in 1914. Some communes take the name of cities, others are called villages; but that does not make the least difference so far as the law is concerned, nor in respect to the administrative régime to which they are subject.

On October 15, 1919, a press dispatch from Buffalo, New York, indicated that the primary election returns in that city gave an average of about three hundred votes to the three candidates whose names appeared on the ballot as representatives of the Communist party, the protagonist of the soviet form of government in the United States. The total number of votes cast was 54,000, which shows that the Communist vote was insignificant, numerically. Newspapers ridiculed the diminutive radical vote. All phenomena have a genesis, and it is the fact that a Communist ballot was cast rather than the quantitative character of the vote that has significance for the student of political philosophy and action. To those who saw the revolutionary left wing of the old Socialist party organize the Communist party and the Communist Labor party in Chicago during the first week of September, 1919, this initial appearance of the revolutionary Communists in American political life presages important developments. The event was heralded by revolutionists in this country and in Europe as the emergence of a new era in the political and economic life of the United States. The widespread dissemination of ultra-radical propaganda in connection with recent strikes is further evidence of the revolutionary purposes of Communists in America.

Optimistic prophecies are prevalent to the effect that bolshevism will find no fertile soil in the United States, since American workmen are too prosperous to become susceptible to revolutionary political and industrial philosophy. Similar predictions were voiced even on the floor of the Socialist emergency convention and the Communist Labor party convention last September.

As shown in the struggle recently ended, modern war means “a nation in arms.” The old-time distinction between fighters and workers was almost obliterated, and there was an industrial army as well as an army in the field. The labors of the men and women behind the lines were essential to the effective operations of the men in arms. That this condition was recognized by the governments themselves is shown by the classifications of workers, according to which those whose special skill or ability was essential to the conduct of war industries were taken out or kept out of the army and retained in the factories, mines, workshops, and fields. In various ways the old lines between soldier and civilian, between war operations and the work of production, were broken down. The Germans made no distinction between war vessels and merchantmen. They deliberately destroyed coal mines and factories, growing crops and cattle; this was done with a military purpose, for the sake of lessening the military strength of the enemy. So, too, the former distinction between contraband and free goods was obliterated. Whole nations were in arms, and all their resources were mobilized to carry on the titanic struggle.

This world conflict has taught us that war is not waged altogether by armies in the field. It is a contest between the industrial organization and technique of the opposing nations. It is not carried on by money alone, but by the total resources, material and human, that can be concentrated in a combined, productive effort. The World War gave the first opportunity for a complete application of the modern factory system of production in warfare.

Why should legislative proceedings in the grand duchy of Luxemburg be given consideration? It is a country with an area less than that of Rhode Island and with a population (260,000) which would barely fill a second class city—a mere atom in the world's history. Nor has it played an heroic part in the great crisis. Here is the excuse. The discussions in the chamber of deputies have reflected, not in their depths but in their shallows, nearly all the phases of the seething unrest which agitates larger nations, and therein lies the reason for offering a few pictures drawn from the official records of the grand ducal chamber— the German reports as they are sent out daily, translated from the proceedings in French, and the final French comptes-rendus. They are miniatures of the processes of readjustment in progress across the Atlantic.

The Luxemburg chamber of deputies is a legislative body that has been evolved by a series of still visible leaps and jumps from the simplest feudal conditions to the assembly recently elected by universal adult suffrage on a basis of proportional party representation according to the system of the scrutin de liste. Its modernity is so complete that a Socialist woman has obtained a seat, yet the conservative character of the forbears of the body is not entirely lost to view in the mists of the past.

The old duchy of Luxemburg—a countship until raised to higher dignity by an imperial brother of its count (1354)—lost its early independence in the fifteenth century (1441), and thenceforth shared the political lot of the Belgic provinces under Burgundian, Spanish and Austrian rule.

The Iowa constitution of 1857 was one of the first to prohibit the passage of special laws for cities and towns. Section 30 of Article III of the constitution enumerates six subjects upon which the legislature is forbidden to pass any special act; the fourth of which proscribes the passage of any act “For the incorporation of cities and towns.” The same section also declares that “In all the cases above enumerated, and in all other cases where a general law can be made applicable, all laws shall be general, and of uniform operation throughout the state.” In addition to these provisions Section 6 of Article I of the Bill of Rights requires that “All laws of a general nature shall have a uniform operation; the general assembly shall not grant to any citizen or class of citizens, privileges or immunities, which upon the same terms shall not equally belong to all citizens.”

Just what prompted the convention which drafted the constitution of 1857 to declare against special legislation for cities and towns is not clear. The proceedings of the convention do not disclose any debate upon the provision when adopted. The experience of other states may have impressed the constitution makers of Iowa with the evils arising from the unlimited exercise of powers over municipalities by legislative bodies, but that these evils had manifested themselves seriously in Iowa as early as 1857 is almost beyond belief. In 1856 the total population of Iowa was only 517,875 and this was largely rural. The federal census of 1860 shows but two cities in the state with a population above 10,000 and these were both under 15,000.

To understand the real nature of the government which now, under its new constitution, is attempting to guide the German nation through the perils of reconstruction is indeed a baffling problem. We are as yet too close to the events which brought it into existence and clothed it with constitutional forms to attempt their evaluation or to determine their significance. The revolution was so unlike what we should have expected as necessary to shift the ultimate power in the state from a narrow military and landed oligarchy to the masses of the people, that a doubt forces itself upon us as to its genuineness. The war, with its shattering of national ideals, its appalling toll of life, the grinding misery which it imposed, and the insuperable financial bondage to which it condemned the nation for an indefinite future, might account for a thorough popular disillusionment which would sweep the nation into the current of democracy. But if this were the case, we would expect a general enthusiasm for the new government, an evident popular sense of the passing of the dark night of autocratic rule and a joy in the light of a new and happier day.

This is exactly what does not exist. There are three classes in Germany today. The first, who constitute only a small minority, are the nationalists and militarists who are bitterly opposed to the republic, and even now are agitating at every favorable opportunity for the restoration of the monarchy in its old form. The second class are likewise a comparatively small minority. They are the revolutionaries, the Spartacists with some of the Independent Socialists, who are just as strongly opposed to the government, using wherever possible the instruments of direct action to inaugurate the revolution which they believe has not yet been achieved. The vast mass of the nation appear to be utterly indifferent with respect to forms of government.

Little attention has been devoted in this country to political areas and their relationship to each other. Not much is to be gained from a theoretical discussion of this subject, and this article is based upon a detailed study of conditions in Illinois. Similar problems present themselves in every state, although the details vary in different parts of the country, and the effort is made here to bring out the general issues involved, using the conditions in a single state as the basis for discussion.

Attention should at the outset be called to the fact that the situation is complicated by the fact that this state has but one great city. The position of Chicago and Cook County constitutes one of the serious political problems in connection with reorganization of state and local government.

The work of the Supreme Court during the term concluded last June was quite unusual both in the nature of the problems involved and the importance of certain of the results achieved. The center of interest in constitutional interpretation has swung, for the time being at least, decidedly from questions of state power to those of national power. This is partly the aftermath of the war, partly the corollary of recent amendments to the Constitution. By the same sign, the court has been confronted in recent months with not a few problems of considerable novelty—some indeed being questions of first impression—with the result that it has been called upon to enunciate principles which must guide its interpretation of important provisions of the Constitution for years to come. In preparing this review, the unique quality of the court's work during the period under consideration ought to determine the procedure. Accordingly the greater part of the space is devoted to a few outstanding cases, all of which involve questions of national power, while less striking results have received much briefer consideration, often only cursory mention.

Several of the cases already considered under the commerce clause involved further questions under the Fourteenth Amendment. Georgia's misuse of the mileage ratio in applying the unit rule to the taxation of wandering cars was found so arbitrary as to violate the requirement of due process. The minority insisted that “the case presents no question of taxing a foreign corporation with respect to personal property that never has come within the borders of the state.” This was not specifically denied by the majority who seem to base their decision on excessive valuation of property within the jurisdiction rather than on taxation of property outside the jurisdiction. Yet in substance the case is one of taxing extra-state values though not extra-state tangible objects.

Missouri's excessive fee for certificates authorizing the issue of bonds secured by railroad property within the state, which was held an unconstitutional regulation of interstate commerce, was alleged by complainant to be a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment as well. The opinion of the court did not pass on the due-process question, but the cases cited under the commerce clause relied also on the Fourteenth Amendment.

Problems left unsolved rather than measures which were passed are the noteworthy features of the special session of the Sixty-sixth Congress—from May 19 to November 19, 1919. The senate was almost exclusively occupied with the Peace Treaty, the session ending in a deadlock over the reservations to the League of Nations covenant; and the treaty, together with the Anglo-French-American alliance and the other agreements of the Paris Conference, went over to the regular session. The appropriation bills, a resolution submitting the woman suffrage amendment to the states, the repeal of daylight saving, and the prohibition enforcement law, constitute the most important legislation which was completed. The two latter measures were passed over the President's veto and evidenced a disposition on the part of Congress to reassert the authority which during the war had been limited by presidential control.

The session of Congress which began on December 1, 1919, adjourned on June 5, 1920, to permit the members to attend the presidential nominating conventions and to participate in the campaign. It came to an end with a remarkable interchange of telegrams between President Wilson and the heads of seventeen railroad workers' unions. The chief executive expressed himself in no uncertain terms. During the nine months that the Sixty-sixth Congress had been in session, he said, no attempt had been made to deal with the cost of living, or to revise the tax laws. The railroad legislation was "so unsatisfactory that I could accept it, if at all, only because I despaired of anything better.”