Justice Frankfurter is fond of quoting an old English saying that “the devil himself knoweth not the mind of men.” The mind of a man who happens to be a judge is the center of many contending impulses when he is making it up, and an external reconstruction of the process is quite impossible. However, the rules of the game require that judges supply clues to their thought processes in the form of written opinions. In every major case decided by the Supreme Court, one or more of its members provide a written justification for the decision announced. The individualistic tradition of Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence, moreover, permits justices who do not agree with the views of their brethren to say so, and to give their reasons for dissenting. Thus the Supreme Court on decision day takes on the aspect of a small legislature in which votes are cast pro and con on significant issues of public policy, with accompanying explanations much more coherent and systematic and better-reasoned than are customarily available in explanation of votes cast, say, in the United States Senate.

While it has not been usual to do so, these judicial votes can be subjected to the same kinds of analysis as have been traditionally employed for the study of legislative voting behavior.

Britain may fairly be called the classic home of two-party government. This claim is justifiable because of some characteristics for which the system, as employed in Britain, is distinctive. Chief among these is its long duration. Although there is room for disagreement among historians about the time and circumstances of its birth, it would be difficult to deny that two-party government was established earlier, has lasted longer, and at the present time is probably more firmly rooted there than in any contemporary state. Indeed, the practice of simplifying the complexities of politics into a contest for office between a pair of major claimants has endured in Britain through a catalogue of changes which would assuredly have wrecked a less effective system. In that country it has survived the evolution from an oligarchy of aristocrats to a democracy of the whole people; the transfer of power from monarchy to parliament and then from parliament to cabinet; the rise of large-scale industry with its social aftermath; the switch in economic policy from mercantilism to laissez faire and from this to state planning; and withal, the expansion and subsequent shrinkage of Britain's international might.

In March, 1952 the Carnegie Corporation made available to the Social Science Research Council a research grant to support a major study of factors influencing the popular vote in the 1952 presidential election. Under the sponsorship of the Council's Committee on Political Behavior this project is currently being carried out by the Survey Research Center of the University of Michigan.

The study was developed around six major objectives:

1. 1. To identify the voters and non-voters, Republicans and Democrats, within four major geographical areas, in regard to

   a. socio-economic characteristics;

   b. attitudes and opinions on political issues;

   c. perceptions of the parties and the candidates.

2. 2. To compare these groups to the corresponding groups in the 1948 presidential election.

3. 3. To trace the resolution of the vote with particular attention to the undecided and changing voters.

4. 4. To study the impact of the activities of the major parties on the population.

5. 5. To analyze the nature and correlates of political party identification.

6. 6. To analyze the nature and correlates of political participation.

Isolationism, a persistent refrain in the history of American foreign policy, has received its full share of recent investigation. These investigations have followed a number of approaches, varying from historical research into the interaction of isolationist and interventionist groups and individuals in the pre-World War II period to studies of the underlying causes of isolationist thinking. It is the purpose of this paper to consider one of the ambiguities that still remain; that is, the commonly accepted assumption that in recent decades the Midwest has been the hard core of isolationism.

Midwestern isolationism is actually only one part of the larger question concerning the existence of a regional or geographic isolationist sentiment. On the untested assumption that isolationism is regional has rested the geographic explanation that isolationism is strongest in interior states because of the sense of insulation from international affairs that such location fosters. In this paper certain non-regional factors will be examined for their possible relationship to geographical centers of isolationist strength. Non-regional, socio-political factors might actually form the basis for several separate studies, and their consideration here is only intended to be suggestive of the further limitations these factors impose on a simple geographic explanation of isolationism.

In an age of mass movements and pressure groups, even the most rugged individualists find that organization pays. So it is that the French peasants, surely among the most rugged of all individualists, have embarked since World War II on a major experiment in syndioal unity. In place of their prewar organizations, which were relatively weak and deeply divided, a single Confédération Générale de l'Agriculture has brought together approximately 80 per cent of all French farmers. In the lobbies of Parliament, in the antechambers of the ministers, in the Economic Council, and in some 280 government commissions, the CGA represents the interests of the agricultural profession. Its existence plainly constitutes a new socio-political factor in the Fourth Republic.

Potentially, a united farmers' organization would seem destined to be the most powerful pressure group in France. Organized labor has mass voting support; the organized employers have rich financial resources; but only the farmers possess both of those weapons. Yet the CGA today, after eight years of existence, continues to be a somewhat marginal power factor in French politics. Its dues-paying membership has dropped off markedly since the 1947 peak; its lobbying activities have produced only spotty results; its central organs are weakened by internal feuds and tensions. Critics proclaim from time to time that the CGA has no real influence among its members and no real prestige in the nation; they predict that it is doomed to disintegration or collapse. Clearly, the organization has not yet fulfilled the hopes of its founders.

The official American policy regarding a United Europe has developed rapidly since the end of World War II and has already gone far toward committing the United States to the establishment of a European Union of some kind. The first important overt act in this development was the declaration of policy in the Economic Cooperation Act of 1948. One purpose of this legislation, Congress declared, was “to encourage these countries [that is, European participants in the Marshall Plan] through a joint organization to exert sustained common efforts as set forth in the report of the Committee on European Economic Cooperation, signed at Paris on September 22, 1947.” With this encouragement the Organization for European Economic Cooperation was soon effected. The next step was to extend the area of American interest from the economic to the military field. One of the purposes of the Mutual Defense Assistance Act of 1949 was “to achieve international peace and security through the United Nations so that armed force shall not be used except in the common interest.” This legislation led eventually to the effort to organize a European Defense Community capable of playing an important role in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A further step was the Mutual Security Act of 1951, which declared American policy to be “to further encourage the economic unification and the political federation of Europe.” Thus the American government finally became involved in the projected establishment of a constitution for a United States of Europe.

International cooperation through multilateral organizations sharply distinguishes the post-World War II economic policies of the United States from those it employed following World War I. After World War I, the United States eschewed any form of international economic organization, which some governments thought should be continued; early in the more recent conflict, United States officials pressed hard for the acceptance of world-wide institutional cooperation. The purpose of the present article is to review, through an examination of its policy toward multilateral financial arrangements, some of the important discussions and decisions which moved the United States towards internationalism in economic relations; to emphasize the role of political factors in the development of financial organizations, in the retreat from international “democracy,” and in the growth of regional cooperation; and to examine some of the difficulties of international financial cooperation.

A primary objective of the United States government's postwar policy preparations was the re-creation of a method of conducting international economic transactions which would not result in economic warfare; the major technique was that of international agreement on accepted rules for conducting transactions. Government officials considered that this approach was not only desirable but also possible, in view of the success of wartime collaboration.

In 1866 an uncommonly knowledgeable gentleman, Alexis de Tocqueville by name, wrote as follows: “Je pense que dans les siècles démocratiques qui vont s'ouvrir l'indépendence individuelle et les libertés locales seront toujours un produit de l'art. La centralisation sera le gouvernement naturel.” Four score and five years later a distinguished compatriot documented the triumph of nature over art which de Tocqueville contemplated as a possibility, and analyzed at some length the instrumentality through which le gouvernement naturel has established its primacy over les libertés locales. Professor Jean Boulouis has recently pronounced a plaintive requiem for French local self-government culminating in these words: “On pourrait presque avancer, sans beaucoup d'exagération, qu'il n'existe plus de finances locales, mais tout au plus une localisation des finances nationales.”

The two most striking phenomena of local government finance in recent decades are, first, the absolute increase in the amount of money disbursed by local governments, and second, the substantial expansion in the proportion of local government disbursements financed from intergovernmental transfers of funds—grants-in-aid, shared taxes, and various other devices by which money is shifted from one level of government to another.

West of the one hundredth meridian, the average annual rainfall is generally less than twenty inches except for higher mountainous areas and the humid area west of the Cascade range in western Washington and Oregon and an area west of the Coast range in northwestern California. With less than twenty inches of rainfall, irrigation and dry-farming methods are required to supplement and conserve the native moisture if successful crops are to be produced. At twenty inches of rainfall successful agriculture is subject to extreme hazards from frequent droughts that call to mind the tragedy of crop failure and dust storms. In the humid Pacific Northwest the dry summer climate introduces another variable limiting successful agricultural production without supplementary water.

American institutional arrangements, sustenance patterns and resource policies were conceived in humid England and developed in the humid regions of the United States. However, the general aridity of the West stands in marked contrast to the humidity that prevailed in the physical environment where American social institutions and traditions were formed. This alteration of the physical environment has caused an important shift in the balance of human ecology requiring significant modification in institutional arrangements and social policy, especially in regard to the control and development of natural resources.

A public administrative system is the product of its environment—particularly of its political environment. It is not discrete, but is an aspect of this same environment, affecting and affected by the tendencies of the society of which it is a part. In the rapidly changing present, the complex of social pressures and tensions have created over large areas of the globe an unsettled environment for public service. At a time when effective public administration is more than ever needed to reduce areas of social conflict by achieving generally acceptable solutions to accumulating social problems, the public service in many countries lacks the unity of purpose and technical skill to meet the challenge.

This is notably true where nations, undergoing rapid social transition and attempting uncertainly through democratic government to bring traditional values and practices into line with contemporary needs, must mediate amidst a variety of pressures and counter-pressures. Democratic administration is never easy, even in countries with long histories of democratic government and with well-developed techniques of organization and management. Where the spirit and practice of democratic self-government have not become a living part of the environment and where the political tendencies of the community are contradictory or obscure, the situation of the democratic public official is truly difficult.

During the past four years several Middle Eastern countries have experienced governmental changes in which the army took an active part. In Syria and Egypt the army deliberately intervened to overthrow discredited regimes and to depose the heads of state. In Lebanon and Iraq the heads of state, themselves alarmed by an intense struggle among rival political parties, invited the army to intervene in order to maintain order. In Lebanon the army refused to crush the opposition, acting only as a caretaker; in Iraq the army agreed to support authority against disorder and the effect of its intervention cannot yet be foreseen.

This control of government by the military is indicative both of serious defects in democratic processes in the Middle East and of the eagerness with which Middle Eastern leaders seek high political office. In Western democratic countries, traditions have developed which tend to keep the army isolated from domestic politics, although military advice has often been sought on foreign policy, and persons whose careers have been in the military service are not infrequently elected, or appointed, to high political positions. This is a quite different matter, however, from the military's choosing to occupy high political office through the weapons of its own profession.

The textbooks contain singularly little systematic analysis of the role of party in local government. They abstract the relevant statutes. They expound more or less orthodox suppositions. Voting on local candidates corresponds closely with presidential voting. Party groups compete for control of local government more or less as they do on the national level. Or, the contrary notion is argued that party has little place in local politics. Personal followings or essentially non-party courthouse cliques determine all. This paper represents a modest attempt, by analysis of Ohio data, to test a few of the standard suppositions and to suggest lines of inquiry that might be fruitful in the study of local politics.

Relation of voting for county and presidential candidates. Contrary to the belief that the presidential tide almost invariably carries with it the local candidates of the winning party, the Ohio record indicates a fairly high degree of independence of national party trends in the selection of county officers. Although in most instances a Republican county presidentially chooses Republican county officers and a Democratic county, Democratic county officers, the departures from this consistency are of sufficient magnitude to excite attention.

In October, 1951 Winston Churchill returned to head Britain's government; the Labor ministry which had held power since the summer of 1945 had been narrowly defeated in a general election and Clement Attlee's six years as Britain's first Minister were ended. But this change of leadership marked no change in the British political wars—and one of the most interesting, and most revealing, of the areas of these wars has been that of the by-elections.

These by-elections, special votes to fill vacancies in the House of Commons, took place in ten widely separated districts during the fourteen months from the general election of October, 1951 to the end of 1952. Four of the vacancies they were held to fill were caused by the death of a sitting MP, two by resignation, and the other four by elevation or succession of the incumbent to the House of Lords.