One of the most noticeable phenomena in the world history of the last two or three hundred years is the subjugation of Asia by Europe. Asiatic civilization and institutions have in the shock of conflict with European civilization and European institutions either succumbed or have been made to suffer great modifications. In some instances political control has passed from Asiatic to European hands. In others, while Asiatic rulers have been able to maintain themselves in at least nominal control, their freedom of action has been curtailed by treaties forced from them by the fear of the loss of political independence.

Furthermore, in those few cases of contact between the European and the Asiatic in which the latter has not suffered a serious loss of independence, European commercial and industrial organization has exercised a remarkable influence over Asiatic life. The steamship and the railway, both European inventions, have bound together the East and West in bonds so strong that it is futile to think that they will ever be broken, and have at the same time given to most Eastern countries means of transportation which are surely and with continuingly increasingly rapidity transforming the conditions of Eastern life.

I have listened with unusual interest to the learned paper on “Reform in China” just read by President Goodnow. It seems to me, however, that the Occidental people find no end of difficulty in understanding and interpreting our Oriental laws, customs, and institutions. We are told, for instance, that the Chinese like other Asians, who are mainly agricultural peoples, are unfit for representative government. I doubt if this statement can stand the test of adequate proof. Take, for example, the people of China, whose recorded history runs back to 2800 B. C. These Celestials, these agriculturalists, had from time immemorial enjoyed local self-government, had been accustomed to “take communal action:” they would close up their business and resist the imposition of an unjust tax. It is to be remembered that the powers of the mother of parliaments developed in this fashion. “The financial functions of parliamentary assemblies are always the centre of their action.”

In India, another agricultural country, we had the village community which contained the true germs of representative government. These village communities have frequently been described by such authorities as Sir Charles Metcalf, Sir Henry Maine as “little republics.”

“For my part,” exclaimed Mr. Asquith at the great Guildhall meeting in September, 1914, “I say that sooner than be a silent witness, which means in effect a willing accomplice of this tragic triumph of force over law and of brutality over freedom, I would see this country of ours blotted out of the page of history.” In giving utterance to these remarkable words, the British Premier was thinking not only of the tragic fate of valiant little Belgium, but also of the life and death struggle for liberty and independence of another small state whose history and position are much less understood by Europe, or by the world in general—Servia. “Give a dog a bad name and hang him,” runs the old adage, which applies with peculiar force to the attitude of public opinion in this instance toward the Servian kingdom. For years the press of Austria-Hungary, copied unthinkingly by that of Germany and other European countries, has been at work deliberately giving Servia a “bad name.” Unfortunately there have been too many dark pages in Servian history—pages stained by violence, intrigue and crime—especially in political circles, not to give just cause for grave criticism. Yet it is manifestly unfair to pass a final judgment upon an intelligent and courageous people by looking only at one side of the shield.

In its broad outlines the state government of Illinois resembles that of most of the American States—but with the most recent tendencies as yet only slightly developed. The present state constitution, adopted in 1870, illustrates the political ideas prevalent in the middle of the nineteenth century—the election of all classes of public officials, the disintegration of the executive branch of the government, and the distrust of the legislature, and the provisions of this constitution are stereotyped by an amending article under which alterations have proved almost impossible. There has, however, been an increasing development of administrative authorities, created by statute, and added one to another with almost no attempt at systematic organization. From 1909 to 1913, there were not less than 34 new state offices, boards and commissions established, and the total number of such executive agencies is now approximately 130.

Under the present arrangements, there is no correlation between related offices, and little or no effective supervision; there is no budget system and no adequate accounting system. As a result the public administration is inefficient and wasteful; it fails to furnish the general assembly with satisfactory advice on legislation; and there is no clearly defined responsibility for the conduct of public affairs; appropriations and expenditures have been rapidly increasing, the appropriations in 1913 for two years amounting to nearly $38,000,000.

Apart from the agitation of such questions as the regulation of primary elections, equal suffrage, the initiative and referendum, and the debates on the establishment of the board of control of state institutions in 1898 and the creation of the state board of education in 1909, there has been little or no discussion of the problem of the reorganization of state government in Iowa until very recently. Indeed, a lively interest in the problems of reorganization seems first to have found expression in 1913 in the thirty-fifth general assembly which, besides endorsing the short ballot principle by providing for the appointment of the state superintendent of public instruction, the clerk of the supreme court, and the supreme court reporter, authorized the joint committee on retrenchment and reform to employ “expert accountants and efficiency engineers” and to “institute such changes in the administration of public affairs as will promote the efficiency and economical administration of the affairs of the State in its various departments.”

It was in accordance with the legislation of March 17, 1913, that the firm of Quail, Parker & Co. was engaged to assist the joint committee on retrenchment and reform and under the direction and supervision of that committee “to examine and report upon the existing procedures incident to the transaction of the business of the State in the various offices and departments located at the seat of government in the city of Des Moines; and to make recommendations with a view to the betterment thereof.” The sum of $10,000 was appropriated to meet the expenses of the proposed investigations.

During March of 1913 Governor George H. Hodges of Kansas was the most talked-of and written-about governor in the United States. His message of March 11 to the Kansas legislature was probably the most quoted message of the year. To students of state government this message presented nothing new. It probably would be just as true to say that much of this message presented little that was new to the great majority of intelligent voters. It certainly suggested nothing unfamiliar to most thinking legislators in Kansas. Nevertheless it was a unique message and it merited all the publicity it received. That this should be true is one of the paradoxes of American politics.

For years editors, students, and legislators themselves have been making the same criticism of our American methods of lawmaking that Governor Hodges makes. And from many quarters had come practically the same proposal for reform that the governor advocates. One of our American States had attempted the year before by direct popular action, to adopt a much more thorough going scheme of state reorganization. But we are a conservative people, and for some reason or another, we are but slightly stirred by criticism or suggestion for change in our governmental machinery unless it comes from an official source. Let congress suddenly discover that there is an insidious lobby at Washington and we all demand immediate house cleaning.

The governor of Minnesota, Hon. A. O. Eberhart, in his message to the state legislature in 1911, made an exhaustive statement concerning the defective and expensive administrative system of the state, pointing out the lack of adequate centralization, responsibility and coöperation, suggesting a definite plan of reorganization, and making an earnest plea for legislative action; but his plea fell upon deaf ears. Again in 1913 he reargued the case but restricted his suggestions to the reorganization and systematization of only two departments: (1) the department of public domain and (2) the department of agriculture. These departments were not reorganized; instead the House of Representatives appointed a committee on public accounts. This committee made a partial study of the situation and filed a report. Nothing further was done except to introduce more than half a hundred bills dealing with state economy and efficiency, one of which passed, an act providing for an educational commission for investigation purposes.

Perhaps one reason the legislature did not undertake a thoroughgoing reorganization of the administrative machinery of the state government is because the members wanted a scientific, impartial investigation of the whole subject made so that action might be taken only after full knowledge. However, the legislature did not provide for a general committee to study the whole situation but went at it piecemeal by providing for a commission to study a single problem.

The establishment of the system of direct government in Oregon—the initiative and referendum, the direct primary, and the recall of officers—has been followed by several important movements for the reorganization of representative government in all three departments.

The centralization of the state administration is involved in one of the earliest, as it is in the latest, of these movements. In 1909 and 1911 W. S. U'Ren and others of the People's Power League published a proposal for the “concentration of responsibility and power for the enforcement of the laws as nearly as practicable in one public servant,” as it was expressed, by reducing the number of elective officers to two—the governor and the auditor (besides the three proposed “people's inspectors”), and making most of the other state officers as well as the sheriffs and district attorneys both the appointees and the actual subordinates of the governor. The plan was advocated as the means of securing responsibility for the enforcement of the law, economy in administration, and relief from the burden of the ballot. But the proposal was generally condemned by the press as creating “a monster political machine,” a “monarchical” form of government. In view of this opposition and of the fact that the League was at the same time urging radical changes in the legislative department of the state government, the proposal was not submitted to the people.

The oft quoted remark of James Bryce concerning the government of American cities was certainly justified insofar as it condemned our American city government. To the extent, however, that it seemed to imply a recognition of the successful operation of our state governments it would appear to be in need of considerable limitation. Indeed there is evidence to show that the defects of our state organization made themselves pretty generally felt even before the evils of our city administration were recognized, and constitutional changes looking toward remedying those defects were undertaken before any serious attention was given to the consideration of municipal problems.

On the other hand, it is true that once the evils in our American municipal system were recognized a more comprehensive, wide-spread, and successful campaign has been waged against them than has even been inaugurated against the manifest defects in our state governments. It is no exaggeration to say that today there are immeasurably more persons seriously and actively engaged in the cause of good city government than there are persons interested in the same effective way in improving our state governmental machinery. There are, of course, several good reasons why one would expect this to be the case, but our prime interest is sufficiently served by pointing out the fact without going into an examination of the explanation.

The Massachusetts constitution of 1780 provided that there should be a council “for advising the governor in the executive part of the government.” The governor was authorized to convene the council at any time at his discretion “for the ordering and directing the affairs of the commonwealth.” Without the advice and consent of the council, the governor was declared to be incapable of exercising any of his powers of convoking, adjourning, or proroguing the legislature, of making appointments to office, of pardoning criminals, or of authorizing by warrant the expenditure of public moneys. The governor was not made dependent upon the advice and consent of his council in exercise of his legislative powers. He might at discretion recommend measures to the legislature and veto legislative enactments, but no executive authority whatsoever was entrusted to him alone, to be exercised without his council's advice and consent, except the command of the armed forces of the commonwealth. In short, the governor, though declared to be the supreme executive magistrate of the commonwealth, without the consent of his council was impotent in the conduct of state administration.

In the beginning the Massachusetts council was chosen by the legislature, and constituted one of the chief agencies relied upon by the revolutionary “fathers” to protect the people against the menace of executive usurpation and tyranny. Similar bulwarks of liberty were established in most of the other states.