“Frenchman, too conservative to go communist, too anarchistic to like fascism, what are you going to do with yourself?” Thus was concluded a penetrating diagnosis of contemporary social trends in France published about a year ago. It is significant that such a survey should have come from the pen of a brilliant young journalist belonging to what may be called the post-war generation. For, whatever else recent dramatic developments in French public affairs may portend, there is no doubt that political control is passing to a new set of leaders, as well as, perhaps, to new ideologies.

France is now twenty-two years removed from the outbreak of the World War. Men born as late as 1900 are approaching middle age. Among the eighth of the population now over sixty years of age, only a handful of persons remain who can remember the Franco-Prussian War. Most of the men who were directing national policy through the World War and the peace settlement have died—Clemenceau, Poincaré, Briand, Painlevé, Barthou, Viviani, and Ribot.

On May 4, 1936, the Emperor Haile Selassie departed from Djibuti aboard the British cruiser Enterprise, en route to Geneva by way of Palestine and England. On May 5, the victorious legions of the Second Roman Empire, commanded by Marshal Pietro Badoglio, entered Addis Ababa after what appears to have been a week of looting and pillaging in the Ethiopian capital. A few hours later in Rome, Benito Mussolini thunderously declared to a hastily-summoned Adunata: “Ethiopia is Italian! Italian in fact, because occupied by our victorious armies; Italian in law, because with the gladiators of Rome, civilization triumphs over barbarity, justice over arbitrary cruelty.”

At the behest of its Duce, a grateful Italy surrendered itself, between May 5 and May 9, to the most riotous celebration in the annals of Fascism. To climax the memorable jubilee, Mussolini appeared on the balcony of the Palazzo Venezia, after consulting successively and rapidly with the Fascist Grand Council and the Council of Ministers in the late evening of May 9, to read to the second Adunata of the week the substantive provisions of a new royal decree-law. Therein (1) Ethiopia was declared to be under the full and complete sovereignty of Italy; (2) the assumption by the king of Italy of the additional title, emperor of Ethiopia, was proclaimed; and (3) announcement was made that Ethiopia would be governed in the future by a governor-general, with the title of viceroy of Ethiopia.

No mention of the cabinet is made in the Japanese constitution of 1889. Nevertheless, both before and after the proclamation of the fundamental law, a large part of the national administration of Japan has been initiated, directed, and supervised in a collective method by a body of officials which resembles in external characteristics the typical European parliamentary cabinet.

This cabinet has never enjoyed the unrivaled direction of administration as found in many parliamentary systems. First of all, the Emperor combines in himself all the rights of sovereignty and exercises these rights through various organs including not only the cabinet, but also the army and navy and the Imperial Household. The cabinet does not have a monopoly upon advice given to the Emperor. The right to advise is shared with the Genro (Elder Statesman), the officers of the Imperial Household, the Privy Council, and the advisers of the “supreme command,” including the chiefs of staff of the army and navy, the Board of Marshals and Fleet Admirals, and the Supreme War Council. The Privy Council is the special guardian of the constitution, consulted by the Emperor upon the propriety and wisdom of projects of law, ordinances, and treaties drafted or negotiated by the cabinet, and its advice may, and often does, run counter to that of the cabinet.

Since the 1932 election, developments have occurred which indicate a growing disposition to simplify the presidential election ballot and suggest that a revision of the mode of electing the chief executive may be eventually realized through constitutional amendment. The so-called “presidential short ballot” reform, which was first adopted in Nebraska in 1917, has moved forward rapidly in recent years. Sixteen states now have enacted statutes eliminating the names of presidential electors from the general election ballot, thus permitting their voters to choose electors by indicating a preference only for a party's presidential candidates.

As in previous lists, mention is here made only of units specifically authorized by law or established by the President by executive order under general authority vested in him.

Accident Prevention Conference. Public Act No. 629, 74th Congress, approved May 28, 1936, authorizes an appropriation for the “furtherance of the work of the accident prevention conference,” to be expended under the direction of the Secretary of Commerce. The Conference met at the call of the Secretary of Commerce early in 1936, but it is not, speaking strictly, a government agency. The appropriation authorized may be used for “fostering accident-prevention work on the part of organizations engaged in the promotion of safety and accident prevention; preparation and printing of material designed to enlighten the general public in matters of safety and accident prevention, such material to be disseminated through schools, newspapers, magazines, the radio, or any other means of intercourse or communication; the preparation and attempts to obtain enactment of uniform vehicle regulations in the several states; clerical assistance for the members of the General Committee of the Accident Prevention Conference; travel expenses incurred by members of the General Committee of the Accident Prevention Conference in the furtherance of the work of said conference.”

A balance sheet of local government in the metropolitan area of Chicago for the last five years would show that, while certain developments are tending to make government in the area more complicated, some progress has been realized toward simplified local government.

It becomes increasingly evident, for one thing, that non-governmental groups are organizing their work on a metropolitan basis. The Chicago City Manager Committee, for instance, is securing much of its support from people who do business in the city but who live in the suburbs. The Phi Beta Kappa Association of the Chicago Area, which was organized in 1935, has about one-third of its members living outside the city and about a tenth living outside the county. Consumers' coöperative stores in Chicago and suburbs are organized into a Chicago Coöperative Federation which issues a monthly “Chicagoland” paper.

Governmental studies looking toward the reorganization of present political and administrative arrangements by Los Angeles county and Los Angeles city, respectively, have been a feature of recent months in the metropolitan region of the Pacific Southwest. Three separate reports have been prepared, two of which are before the public. Certain areas of substantial agreement in principle are found in these two reports, and it now appears that by joint agreement some far-reaching changes will be proposed as charter amendments to the Los Angeles county charter. The most significant of these proposals look toward simplification of structural arrangements through reorganization of existing governmental agencies in the county and the establishment of certain centralized agencies of county-wide administration responsible for minimum standards of service throughout the entire area and available for additional service to those local communities which through their local councils order and pay for it. Likewise, the reports agree in recommending the establishment of the county-manager form of administrative organization.

In the approaching national election, one of the paramount issues seems to be the problem of adjusting our governmental structure to permit the consideration of economic and social questions by political agencies of appropriate size. The powers of government should be as broad as the problems with which they must deal. But this truth is equally applicable to affairs which, traditionally, have been of municipal concern. The area of the city's influence has been widening and the centrifugal forces have had too great speed and volume to permit solution by the earlier method of enlarging city boundaries to encompass urban areas.

The summer school, it is generally conceded, is an American invention. It was at Chautauqua, New York, beginning in 1873, that the essential elements of a summer school were first combined in one institution. Originally a Methodist camp meeting, the “Chautauqua” became an assembly for serious educational effort and for refreshing the intellectual interests of its members. But the recreational needs of the thousands of people who each summer flocked to Chautauqua were not forgotten, and organized recreational facilities were from the first an integral part of the movement. Thus the summer school, with its central idea of study in a vacational atmosphere, was born and started on a career during the course of which it has profoundly affected other institutions, such as churches, universities, agencies for adult education, and political parties.