Custom has decreed that the president of this Association, as almost his final act before leaving his briefly-held office, shall deliver an address to those of his colleagues who are hardy enough to assemble to hear him. In this address he endeavors to give something of his best thought concerning some political question. Thereby he generally contrives, also, to convey to his fellow-members something of a feeling of corporate unity and a sense of professional direction.

As my thoughts have turned recently toward the consideration of political science as a whole, as a unified discipline, and as a factor in the government of man, I thought I would discuss with you the question of the rôle of political science in the conduct and preservation of what we now call democratic government.

Standing before you a year ago, President Frederic Austin Ogg spoke thoughtfully and with eloquence of American democracy after the war. He directed his remarks in part to the gloomy predictions of various speculative writers who prophesy the end in our age of democracy and constitutional government. With masterly competence, he showed that the modern trend toward strong executive leadership is not at all the same as a drift into dictatorship. In the United States this trend primarily means that the executive office is being developed to fulfil its true function in a democracy that intends to become stronger, more active, and more efficient.

The chief lesson of the war to date for constitutional interpretation is that the Constitution is an easily dispensable factor of our war effort—perhaps one might say an “expendable” factor. That the Constitution is not needed as a source of national power for war purposes has been stated by the Court itself. Speaking in 1936 for himself and brethren in United States v. Curtiss-Wright Export Corporation, Justice Sutherland said: “The investment of the Federal government with the powers of external sovereignty did not depend upon the affirmative grants of the Constitution. The powers to declare and wage war [my italics], to conclude peace, to make treaties, to maintain diplomatic relations with other sovereignties, if they had never been mentioned in the Constitution, would have been vested in the Federal government as necessary concomitants of nationality” (299 U.S. 304, 318).

The Purpose: Perspective on the Larger Aspects. The present purpose is not to examine in detail the first year of war administration, but to place some of the larger aspects of the record in such perspective as is possible at close range. Accordingly, four topics will be considered: (1) the theoretic requirements of total-war management; (2) some qualifying factors that must be taken into account in applying these theoretic requirements to appraisal of the actual administrative record; (3) observations pertinent to such appraisal; and (4) conclusion.

Managerial Requirements of Total War. Public administration is never so difficult or so crucial as in time of total war. It then becomes the appropriate function of Congress to vote the vast lump-sum appropriations, and to make the broad delegations of power that the President needs, and for the rest, to prod the Commander-in-Chief and his civil and military aides by constructive criticism and suggestion, and to act as a sounding board for public opinion back home, so as to enable executive leadership to deal intelligently with that opinion. Indeed, the latter functions must be exercised with courageous discretion, if fatal errors are not to be forced upon administrators by selfish pressure-groups or uninformed lay opinion.

Like all other aspects of public administration, intergovernmental relations are undergoing constant readjustment to the times and conditions. War so alters conditions in public affairs that federal-state-local realignments are taking place from month to month. Never before have so many administrative operations at the local level been guided by so many directives out of Washington. Coöperative government by federal-state-local authorities has become a by-word in the prodigious effort to administer civilian defense, rationing, and other war-time programs. The first year of war brought new forces into the field of administration, but developments have followed an evolutionary rather than a revolutionary pattern. Intergovernmental administration, while it is a part of all levels of government, is turning into something quite distinct from them all.

The states have coöperated in passing war-time legislation; in ironing out transportation problems created by diverse state regulations; in controlling aliens and relocating Japanese-Americans; in foregoing construction of new public works; in building public works in war-affected communities where in-migration has resulted from concentrations of war industries and military personnel. New programs affecting the lives of all Americans, such as civilian defense, price control, and rationing, are making demands upon localities and states for intergovernmental action. In the absence of any complete overhauling of the federal-state-local tax systems, the Bureau of the Budget has written a new chapter in the intergovernmental field by giving a set of directives for state and local governments to follow or to ignore at their own risk.

Before Pearl Harbor, many thoughtful persons believed that civil liberty in this country could not survive our participation in another world war. Today, civil liberty enjoys a vitality which even the optimist had hardly dared hope for. There are several reasons for this.

First, since the last World War the American people have become “civil liberty conscious.” That war found us totally unprepared to deal with our sudden problems affecting civil liberty. Our legislatures had no experience in drafting, or our executive officers in enforcing, emergency restrictions upon free speech and press. Our trial courts faced new and difficult civil liberty questions with no established principles, no relevant Supreme Court decisions, to guide them. Since that time, the Supreme Court, in nearly a score of important decisions, has interpreted and strengthened our constitutional civil liberties. As a nation we are wiser; the costly mistakes of the last war have been thoroughly aired, and there is a healthy intention that they shall not be repeated.

Second, the complete suppression of civil liberty in Axis-controlled countries has been a shocking and impressive object-lesson. We are forced to consider whether the witch-hunter and the “patrioteer” who would arbitrarily suppress minority opinion may not have much in common with the Nazi.

Even before the outbreak of war between the United States and the Axis powers on December 7, 1941, public officials in Washington had taken steps to deal with public opinion problems arising out of the belligerent trends in international affairs. One of the first moves of the federal government was an effort to identify and disclose the extent and nature of propaganda activities on behalf of foreign governments in the United States. On June 8, 1938, Congress passed the McCormack Act vesting authority in the Department of State to issue and administer rules and regulations governing the registration of agents of foreign principals engaged in propaganda and related activities in this country. This action, designed to protect the American public mind by revealing the extent to which foreign countries were using American channels of communication to further their own ends, was soon followed by official actions to strengthen the public opinion and cultural bonds linking together the various peoples of the Western Hemisphere. On July 27, 1938, the Department of State established its Division of Cultural Relations.

Even before the actual outbreak of the war in Europe, there were indications of uneasiness among our politicians over the approaching storm. The Democrats, in their platform of 1936, and in speeches and actions of President Roosevelt (especially his “quarantine” speech of October, 1937), showed themselves somewhat more aware than the Republicans that the United States might somehow be involved; but, in the end, both parties united on the neutrality policy designed to keep us isolated and therefore presumably safe from the aggressions already clearly under way. Before the national conventions of 1940, however, Dunkirk and the fall of France made seriously possible the conquest of England and the surrender of the British navy, and the consequent danger to the United States began to influence materially the course of American politics. Within the Democratic party the third-term tradition was forgotten and Mr. Roosevelt was renominated, largely because of the war situation and his experienced leadership in respect to the problems involved. The Democratic party not only continued to stand aggressively for the New Deal, but had somehow become a “war party,” in the sense of anticipating possible war for the United States and preparing for it both by increasing our own defenses and by aiding those countries already resisting aggression.

Naturalization procedure is a complex process involving a dozen different steps from the time the alien enters the country until he finally receives his order of admission from the court. In recent months, considerable attention has been given it in the hope that part of the red tape and resulting delay may be obviated. Criticism of red tape and useless steps in the procedure has been widespread. As a student of the administrative process, I tried, during my period of service in the Department of Justice, to devote as much time as possible to improvement and simplification of naturalization, and in this I was encouraged by the Attorney General and other officials of the Department. In my treatment of this subject, the analysis and recommendations are primarily the result of my own thinking and analysis, but it can also be said that on the general approach, all of us in the Department who were concerned with this problem saw eye to eye. In the study of administrative procedure and the determination upon improvements, we in Washington have been greatly assisted by the administrative studies of the National Council on Naturalization and Citizenship.

Before we can deal intelligently with administrative analyses and recommendations, we must make up our minds as to the results we are trying to achieve. I am one of those who think that administration cannot be intelligently considered apart from the social problems and objectives which it subserves; for if it is so considered, it is almost sure to fall wide of the mark. What kind of citizenship are we interested in producing? Some of the most important administrative determinations to be made depend upon the answer given to this question.

Canada has recently instituted a significant war-time fiscal plan. As a federal state, the Dominion has been plagued by the complicated problems of federal finance; and to meet the severe burdens of war finance, it has found it necessary to simplify the federal financial structure. This change has been accomplished by formal agreements between the Dominion and the provinces whereby the latter have agreed to retire from certain fields of taxation for the duration of the war.

The agreements do not require amendment of the British North America Act (1867), but they do necessitate abstinence of the provinces from exercising a portion of their authority under it. By the terms of that fundamental law, the provinces are authorized to levy “direct taxation within the province in order to the raising of a revenue for provincial purposes” and “shop, saloon, tavern, auctioneer, and other licenses in order to the raising of a revenue for provincial, local, or municipal purposes.” The Dominion, however, is granted the power to raise revenue by “any mode or system of taxation.” Under this distribution of tax authority, it was natural that various sources should eventually be taxed by both the Dominion and the provinces. By 1940, not only the provinces and the Dominion, but also in some instances municipalities, were levying income and corporate taxes. Inasmuch as the rates varied from province to province and from municipality to municipality, there was inequality of the tax burden throughout the Dominion. In order to secure a maximum of revenue for war purposes, the Dominion government deemed it necessary to tax corporations and incomes at the same rate throughout Canada; and for this reason, the government requested the provinces (and municipalities) to retire from these fields of taxation for the war period.