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.

Much has been written of the mechanics of legislation in the Senate and the House of Representatives, and of the work performed by the committees of the Senate and the House. Little attention, however, has been paid to the sub-committees of Congress notwithstanding the fact that sub-committees perform a highly important function in legislation.

The Senate and the House are both such large bodies that it is imperative that the work of the bodies be handled initially through numerous committees. In the Senate there are seventy-four standing committees. In the House there are fifty-eight. The very reasons that make it advisable that committees be appointed at all in the Senate and in the House, make it desirable in certain cases that the work of the committees be even further sub-divided as occasion may warrant. When the work assigned to a standing committee of Senate or House is of a definite character that admits of practically no division, or when the committee itself of either body is small and appointed to have immediate consideration of a particular subject, the ordinary procedure is for the full committee to handle its work, without attempting to call upon members of the committee to act as a sub-committee, with the exception of sub-committee work in performance of a perfunctory duty, or, in the preparation, for instance, of a report where one member can prepare it far more expeditiously than could three members, five members, or the full committee.

Mr. Upson has shown us very clearly what has been accomplished in practice under the city manager plan in Dayton. There are, however, some considerations in connection with the theory of the city manager plan which are worthy of attention, and I am glad that Professor Hatton touched upon the theory side in his remarks.

I am an enthusiastic advocate of the city manager plan and we have several cities in Texas operating under that form and others now considering its adoption, largely as a result of the support given to the plan by our bureau of municipal research and reference. At the same time, I am not without some very grave misgivings as to how the plan will work out in practice because of the all important question of the kind of men who will be chosen for these places.

Of course it is apparent that the men chosen must be chosen for their expert qualifications and not for political reasons. That is axiomatic. But it is to my mind almost equally important that the proper kind of qualifications be insisted upon. It is not enough that the city manager be a first class business man or manager in the ordinary sense. If he is no more than that I confess I do not look forward to much advance in municipal ideals and accomplishments under this new plan.

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 idea of a unified and responsible court for a metropolitan district must not be looked upon as a competitor of the idea of a unified state court system; it is instead an elaboration of the state system intended to meet extraordinary conditions. The needs and conditions of administration in the great modern city are so different from those in rural districts that a system of courts applicable to a State which is wholly rural must necessarily be elaborated to adapt it to a State which has such a metropolitan center. In many cities the present situation is so desperate that it is plausible to hold that reorganization will come first in those cities and later in the States in which they are located.

In either case there will be no serious difficulty in adjusting the local court to the state system. And though we speak of it as a local court it is of course but the local agency for the exercise of a state function. The large city usually has suburbs which should not be excluded from the benefits of reorganization. The metropolitan judicial district may then be presumed to include the city, its suburbs, and such other territory as may be conveniently administered from the local center. In most instances this would mean the county in which the large city is located.

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 intent of the framers of the judiciary act of 1801 has been to the present day a matter of some doubt. On the one hand it has been shown that alterations in the judiciary system of the United States had long been agitated before the failure of the Federalist party in the elections of 1800. Soon after the establishment of federal courts in 1789 relief had been sought by the justices of the supreme court from the arduous duties necessitated in riding the circuits. In 1799 a bill designed to establish a system of circuit courts was reported upon which action was postponed. But this later became the basis for the act of 1801. It has, therefore, been contended that, quite apart from the political advantage given the Federalists by the passage of the act of 1801, such changes in the judiciary system were warranted by necessity.

At the same time it is equally clear that the amount of business before the courts of the United States, although it had been excessive, had begun to decline. No further prosecutions were to be expected under the alien and sedition acts, and a decrease in the number of suits before the federal courts involving other questions was observed even before the accession of Jefferson to the presidency.

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.