Hostname: page-component-84b7d79bbc-l82ql Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-27T18:43:17.176Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

President-Cabinet Relations: A Pattern and a Case Study

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2013

Richard F. Fenno Jr.
Richard F. Fenno Jr.
Affiliation:
University of Rochester
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

A common generalization about the distribution of power in the American political system states that it is fragmented and decentralized. In accordance with this view, the making of public policy decisions can be explained largely in terms of the continuous interaction, competitive or cooperative, among many diverse semi-autonomous centers of power, some governmental, others non-governmental. Each power-holding unit—individual or group, private or public—is a discrete, describable entity existing within a plural political universe. It must be perceived and understood not in isolation but as one unit in a larger system of interrelated parts. Within such a network, multiple role-playing, group cross-pressures, and institutional rivalry must be considered normal. This paper is an attempt to apply the generally pluralistic viewpoint so expressed to a much neglected political institution, the President's Cabinet, and to the power relationships involving an individual Cabinet member.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 52 , Issue 2 , June 1958 , pp. 388 - 405
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1958

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 For an early statement on the need for study, see Fairlie, John, “The President's Cabinet,” this Review, Vol. 7 (February, 1913), p. 29Google Scholar. A recent comment is that of Corwin, Edward S., The President: Office and Powers (New York, 1948), p. 516Google Scholar, note 88. The two books most commonly cited for reference by political scientists are essentially historical treatments, i.e., Hinsdale, Mary, A History of the President's Cabinet (Ann Arbor, 1911)Google Scholar; Learned, Henry B., The President's Cabinet (New Haven, 1912)Google Scholar.

2 Herring, Pendleton, “Executive-Legislative Responsibilities,” this Review, Vol. 38 (December, 1944), p. 1159Google Scholar.

3 Long, Norton, “Power and Administration,” Public Administration Review, Autumn, 1949, p. 258Google Scholar.

4 Truman, David, The Governmental Process (New York, 1951), p. 409Google Scholar. For a brief discussion of the Cabinet in particular, see ibid. pp. 405–407.

5 Herring, op. cit., p. 1160.

6 Truman, op cit., p. 437. For a similar viewpoint see also Brownlow, Louis, The President and the Presidency (Chicago, 1949), pp. 94–100Google Scholar; Appleby, Paul, “Organizing Around the Head of a Large Federal Department,” Public Administration Review, Summer, 1946, pp. 205–212Google Scholar.

7 Daniels, Jonathan, Frontier on the Potomac (New York, 1956), p. 29Google Scholar.

8 The Hoover Commission Report (New York, 1949), pp. 3–5Google Scholar.

9 Corwin, Edward S., “Wanted— A New Type of Cabinet,” New York Times Magazine, October 10, 1948Google Scholar.

10 Hinsdale, op. cit., p. 326; also, Learned, op cit., p. 4.

11 Ogg, Frederick A., “The American Cabinet,” Parliamentary Affairs, Winter, 1949, p. 36Google Scholar. For a good example of what we might label the Compensatory Cabinet theory, there is the following assertion regarding Warren Harding: “He could not be a Mellon, but he got Mellon; he could not be a Hughes, but he got Hughes; he could not be a Hoover, but he got Hoover; he could not be a Hays, but he got Hays.” Stoddard, Henry L., It Costs To Be President (New York, 1938), p. 476Google Scholar.

12 See notes 69 and 70 below.

13 Learned, op cit., p. 6.

14 Rabb, Maxwell, “The New Cabinet,” Speech delivered at Jacksonville, Florida, February 14, 1957Google Scholar; Steele, John L., “The New Model Cabinet,” Life, October 8, 1956, pp. 89–104Google Scholar.

15 House Joint Resolution 602, approved September 13, 1940.

16 Timmons, Bascom, Jesse H. Jones (New York, 1956), p. 259Google Scholar.

17 Jones, Jesse and Angly, Edward, Fifty Billion Dollars (New York, 1951), p. viiGoogle Scholar.

18 New York Times, January 25, 1945, p. 14Google Scholar.

19 Hearings on H. R. 5667, U. S. Senate Banking and Currency Committee, 77th Congress, 1st Session, 1941, p. 14.

20 86 Congressional Record, 76th Congress, 3rd Session, p. 11862.

21 When they did subject him to a normally (for others) warm interrogation, Jones was quick to show a hair shirt and to take personal offense. For example, see Hearings on Petroleum Investigation, U. S. House Subcommittee of the Committee on Foreign and Domestic Commerce, 77th Congress, 2nd Session, 1942, pp. 105–107.

22 Timmons, op cit., pp. 263–265.

23 Ibid., p. 264.

24 83 Congressional Record, 75th Congress, 3rd Session, p. 1988.

25 Hearings on Department of Commerce Appropriation Bill for 1943, U. S. Senate Subcommittee of Committee on Appropriations, 77th Congress, 2nd Session, 1942, p. 64. See also, Jones and Angly, op. cit., p. 545.

26 Timmons, op. cit., p. 153.

27 Jones and Angly, op. cit., p. 3.

28 Hearings on Amendment of Budget and Accounting Act of 1921, U. S. Senate Committee on Expenditures in the Executive Branch, 78th Congress, 1st Session, 1943, p. 104.

29 Hearings on Department of Commerce Appropriation Bill for 1944, U. S. House Subcommittee of Committee on Appropriations, 78th Congress, 1st Session, 1943, p. 11.

30 Jones and Angly, op. cit., pp. 257, 536; Timmons, op. cit., p. 250; New York Times, January 25, 1945, p. 14Google Scholar.

31 Hearings on Department of Commerce Appropriation Bill for 1942, U. S. House Subcommittee of Committee on Appropriations, 77th Congress, 1st Session, 1941, p. 9.

32 Hearings on Amendment of Budget and Accounting Act of 1921, op. cit. pp. 29–31.

33 Ibid., pp. 113–114 (italics supplied).

34 Ibid., pp. 118–119.

35 Hearings on Department of Commerce Appropriation Bill for 1944, U. S. House, op. cit., p. 8.

36 Ibid., p. 10 (italics supplied).

37 Hearings on Department of Commerce Appropriations Bill for 1944, U. S. Senate Subcommittee of Committee on Appropriations, 78th Congress, 1st Session, 1943, p. 63.

38 Hearings on Department of Commerce Appropriations Bill for 1945, U. S. House Subcommittee on Committee on Appropriations, 78th Congress, 2nd Session, 1944, p. 107. Jones argued again in 1944 for the restoration of the original amount, using the same rationale. See ibid., pp. 2, 6, 9, 13–14.

39 Hearings on Increasing the Borrowing Authority of the RFC, U. S. Senate Committee on Banking and Currency, 77th Congress, 1st Session, 1941, pp. 12–14, 20.

40 Hearings on Increasing the Borrowing Authority of the RFC, U. S. Senate Committee on Banking and Currency, 77th Congress, 2nd Session, 1942, p. 6.

41 Ibid., p. 8 (italics supplied); see also, ibid., pp. 10, 41.

42 Timmons, op. cit., p. 249 (Italics supplied).

43 Jones and Angly, op. cit., p. 262.

44 Timmons, op. cit., p. 394; see also, ibid., p. 257.

45 Jones and Angly, op. cit., p. 290; see also, ibid., p. 283.

46 Ibid., pp. 262–3; Timmons, op. cit., p. 252.

47 Gunther, John, Roosevelt in Retrospect (New York, 1950), p. 128Google Scholar.

48 Timmons, op. cit., pp. 266–267.

49 Daniels, Jonathan, The Man of Independence (New York, 1950), p. 243Google Scholar.

50 Rosenman, Samuel, Working With Roosevelt (New York, 1952), pp. 84–85Google Scholar.

51 Jones and Angly, op. cit., p. 218.

52 Harris, Joseph P., The Advice and Consent of the Senate (Berkeley, 1953), p. 147Google Scholar.

53 Timmons, op. cit., p. 330.

54 New York Times, January 25, 1945, p. 15Google Scholar.

55 For some examples, see Houston, David, Eight Years With Wilson's Cabinet (New York, 1926), I, 40–41Google Scholar; Daniels, Josephus, The Wilson Era (New York, 1944), I, 451, 447–448Google Scholar; Pusey, Merlo J., Charles Evans Hughes (New York, 1951), II, 427Google Scholar; Colby, Everett, “Charles Evans Hughes,” Scribners, May, 1928, pp. 564–565Google Scholar; Hull, Cordell, The Memoirs of Cordell Hull (New York, 1948), I, 204, 207–209, 598, 902Google Scholar, II, 1156–1157; Perkins, Frances, The Roosevelt I Knew (New York, 1946), pp. 198, 268–273Google Scholar; Ickes, Harold L., “My Twelve Years With FDR,” Saturday Evening Post, June 5, 1948, pp. 81–82Google Scholar; Morgenthau, Henry, “The Morgenthau Diaries,” Saturday Evening Post, September 27, 1947, p. 82Google Scholar; Millis, Walter (ed.), The Forresial Diaries (New York, 1951), pp. 21, 232Google Scholar.

56 Jones and Angly, op. cit., p. 303.

57 Ibid.

58 Ibid., pp. 278, 303–304; Lawrence, David, The True Story of Woodrow Wilson (New York, 1924), pp. 90–91Google Scholar; Redfield, William, With Congress and Cabinet (New York, 1924), p. 67Google Scholar; Pusey, op. cit., II, 427; Stimson, Henry and Bundy, McGeorge, On Active Service in Peace and War (New York, 1947), p. 561Google Scholar.

59 Merz, Charles, “At The Bottom of the Oil Story,” Century, May, 1924, p. 89Google Scholar; Nation, March 21, 1928, p. 310Google Scholar; Pusey, op. cit., II, 568; Adams, Samuel Hopkins, Incredible Era (Boston, 1939), pp. 409–410Google Scholar; O'Connor, Harvey, Mellon's Millions: The Biography of a Fortune (New York, 1933), pp. 268–269Google Scholar.

60 See Baker, Eay Stannard, Woodrow Wilson: Life and Letters (New York, 1931), IV, 298Google Scholar; Houston, op. cit., p. 217; Pusey, op. cit., II, 427; Independent, March 28, 1925, p. 342Google Scholar; Farley, James, Jim Farley's Story (New York, 1948), p. 135Google Scholar; Perkins, op. cit., pp. 134–135; Hull, op. cit., I, 204.

61 This statement is based on interviews with Cabinet Secretary Maxwell Rabb, his Assistant, Bradley Patterson, and with several of the departmental officials who are in closest contact with the Cabinet Secretariat.

62 For four examples of the Cabinet acting as a political sounding board see: (1) Baker, op. cit., VI, 487–488, 502–507; Houston, op. cit., I, 241–244; Seymour, Charles, The Intimate Papers of Colonel House (Cambridge, 1926), II, 461Google Scholar. (2) Hull, op. cit., I, 203, II, 1057–1058; Stimson and Bundy, op. cit., p. 390; Perkins, op. cit., p. 377; Hearings on the Pearl Harbor Attack, U. S. Congress, Joint Committee for the Investigation of the Pearl Harbor Attack, 79th Congress, 2nd Session, 1946, II, 5432; Albertson, Dean, Roosevelt's Farmer, unpublished Ph.D. Thesis, Columbia University, 1955, pp. 380–381Google Scholar. (3) Farley, op. cit., pp. 103–107; Morgenthau, op. cit., October 4, 1947, p. 21; Ickes, Harold L., The Secret Diary of Harold L. Ickes (New York, 1954), II, 240 ffGoogle Scholar. (4) Steele, op. cit., pp. 100–103.

63 A reading of memoir materials such as the Ickes diaries or of informed secondary accounts such as Donovan, Robert, Eisenhower: The Inside Story (New York, 1956)Google Scholar makes it amply clear that the Cabinet meeting performs this intangible function regardless of the predispositions of the President involved. For a good statement of it with respect to the Truman Cabinet, see Millis, op. cit., p. 280.

64 See, for instance, Koenig, Louis, “The Sale of the Tankers,” in Stein, Harold (ed.), Public Administration and Policy Development (New York, 1952), pp. 436–532Google Scholar; Maas, Arthur, Muddy Waters (Cambridge, 1951), pp. 73–83CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Huzar, Elias, The Purse and the Sword (Ithaca, 1950), pp. 129–130Google Scholar; Kile, Orville, The Farm Bureau Through Three Decades (Baltimore, 1948), pp. 101–102Google Scholar; Albertson, op. cit., pp. 306, 311 ff., 378, 390, 394.

65 See note 14, supra.

66 Eisenhower, Dwight D., The Crusade in Europe (New York, 1948), p. 75Google Scholar.

67 Christian Science Monitor, January 17, 1957, p. 1Google Scholar; January 23, 1957, p. 1.

68 The relation of Mitchell's views to those of the President will be found in New York Times, March 4, 1954, p. 12Google Scholar; December 9, 1954, p. 20.

69 For example, Corwin, op. cit.; Baker, R. S. and Dodd, W. E. (eds.), The Public Papers of Woodrow Wilson (New York, 1925), pp. 26, 112–113, 127–129, 222Google Scholar; Finletter, Thomas K., Can Representative Government Do the Job? (New York, 1945)Google Scholar, Chaps. 10, 11; Galloway, George, The Legislative Process (New York, 1953), pp. 445 ff.Google Scholar; Hyneman, Charles, Bureaucracy in a Democracy (New York, 1950)Google Scholar, ch. 25; Kefauver, Estes, “The Need for Better Executive-Legislative Teamwork,” this Review, Vol. 38 (April, 1944), pp. 317–325Google Scholar.

70 For example, Dimock, Marshall, The Executive in Action (New York, 1945), p. 242Google Scholar; Nash, Bradley, Staffing the Presidency, National Planning Association pamphlet (Washington, 1952), p. ixGoogle Scholar; Hobbs, Edward, Behind the President (Washington, 1954), pp. 214–216Google Scholar; Somers, Herman Miles, Presidential Agency: OWMR (Cambridge, 1950), pp. 222–223CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.