No serious consideration of the theory of democracy needs explanation or apology today. The scope and limitations of the present treatment of the subject, however, should be made clear at the outset. The object of this article is to deal with the political philosophy of democracy, or, more precisely, with attempts to ground democratic doctrine on first principles of right. Clearly this does not constitute a complete treatment of democratic theory. Such a treatment would have to deal, inter alia, with the practical operation of democratic processes under varying conditions. Probably the bulk of any full-length discussion of the theory of democracy should be devoted to such matters. Yet, essential though these considerations are, the problem with which this paper deals is of fundamental importance. For, in general, it may be said of all the “practical” arguments about democracy that whatever validity they have must depend upon some theory of ethics, upon some assumption as to the things that are valuable in this world. In other words, I shall not here concern myself with arguments that in practice democracy is less objectionable than other forms of government, because I feel the inadequacy of such arguments considered by themselves.

It is now more than one hundred years since the substance of the Connally Resolution was first adopted by a legislative body in the United States; it is almost fifty years since the United States, at the Hague Conferences, took the lead in pressing for an international court with much more power than the Court we have since failed to join; it is about thirty-five years since Congress itself, by a unanimous vote in both houses, adopted a resolution urging that the United States Navy be combined with other navies into an international police force for the preservation of peace; it is not quite thirty years ago that the political parties, without any of the present hullabaloo on the point, and at a time when the United States was not itself at war, achieved such a unity of position in their stand for effective American participation in world order as to make debate between them on that issue virtually nil; and it is not quite thirty years ago that the man soon to become the Republican leader in the Senate joined from the same platform with the Democratic President in an appeal for a League of Nations, and a League with force, both economic and military, at its command.

In a recent article in this Review, a social anthropologist, Professor W. F. Whyte, challenges American political scientists to “leave ethics to the philosophers and concern themselves primarily with a description and analysis of political behavior.” Only in this way, the author contends, can the study of politics become truly scientific and not only justify its name but fulfill its function as an important body of knowledge. The challenge presented is not a new, but a vital, one with which all political scientists must inevitably be concerned. For in the answer to it is involved not only the fate of political science as a significant body of knowledge, but, conceivably as well, the very nature of the political behavior that Whyte challenges us to describe with an objectivity divorced from all judgments of value.

In recent times, the point of view urged by Whyte has been perhaps most notably embodied in the writings of Pareto. But many eminent American political scientists have seriously probed the problem of methodology in politics and have arrived at conclusions similar to those urged upon us again by the author of this more recent challenge.

Change is the order of today, and the nightmare or the hope of tomorrow. For better or worse, the orbit of public policy is ever widening in all nations and in international organization as well. With its widening have come profound changes in the methods of policy formation; so much so that the normal vocabulary and thought patterns of the lawyer, and even of the political scientist, are among the chief obstacles to its understanding.

In the article that follows there are considered, first, the changes in the over-all culture of which public policy formation is a part; and, then, and only then, the more precise changes in policy formation itself.

Laws were once the typical expression of public policy. In this, their one-time characteristic rôle, they are now dying or dead, however reluctant many of our national leaders are to read the obituary column. Our so-called statesmen choose rather to live still in a world of dreams in which nostalgia for the days of a government of laws blinds them to the changed and paramount contemporary characteristic of government, which is organization to attain objectives. In the strict sense of the term, a law is a general rule of conduct. But today government consists largely, not of these general rules, but of continuous intervention—intervention by men in the relations between groups. The changing pattern of public policy formation is understandable only as change induced by this drastic alteration which lies at the very heart of the nature of government.

In its 1933 report, President Hoover's Committee on Recent Social Trends suggested that there might in time emerge a “National Advisory Council” to consider fundamental questions of the social, economic, and governmental order, in their interrelation and in the light of the trends and possibilities of modern science. This would involve neither “economic planning” nor “governmental planning” primarily, but a comprehensive consideration of all the social factors involved in the formation of national policy.

In July, 1933, the National Planning Board was set up by Administrator Ickes as a part of the Public Works Administration of that time. The membership consisted of Frederic A. Delano, chairman; Wesley C. Mitchell (chairman of President Hoover's Committee above mentioned); and Charles E. Merriam (vice-chairman of the same committee).

In 1934, this agency was made a presidential board by executive order and was composed of the Secretary of the Interior as chairman, the Secretaries of Agriculture, Commerce, and Labor, the Federal Emergency Relief Administrator, and the three members of the old Board. An Advisory Committee consisting of Messrs. Delano, Mitchell, and Merriam were placed in active charge of the work.

No nation has ever fought a tough war without overriding for the duration some of the civil liberties of its people. The war we are fighting is more than a tough war; it is a mortal struggle in which the life of constitutional democracy throughout the world is at stake. It presents a new kind of challenge to the vitality of American civil liberty. We know from grim experience that in the peace which follows a tough war, civil liberty faces new and increased dangers. High-keyed energies and emotions, suddenly released, seek a new outlet. Wartime patriotism tends to become peacetime intolerance, and wherever there is intolerance, the traditional civil liberties of unpopular minority groups are in grave danger of being brutally suppressed. The peace which will follow the war we are now fighting will be without precedent in the complexity of its problems, the power of the emotional reactions which it will generate, and the strength of the triumphant determination of our people to preserve intact the fruits of victory. This peace will bring in its wake an unprecedented temptation to abridge some of our basic civil liberties, and this new threat will be very dangerous indeed. This is the general subject which I wish to explore.

What I have to say falls into three parts. First, I wish to review some of the salient features of our national experience with civil liberty problems down to the eve of the present war; and by experience I mean our thinking about these problems as well as our behavior with respect to them.

The future of local government in the United States is likely to depend in no inconsiderable degree upon the extent to which the local units make a vital contribution toward winning the present war and solving the problems arising therefrom. It is therefore of special significance that many of the developments occurring in county and township government during 1943 were related directly or indirectly to the war and postwar problems. At the same time, progress continued along various lines which had become well established prior to the war. Public interest in rural local government was evidenced both by the large amount of state legislation enacted with reference thereto and by local action taken under legislative authority. Developments during the year will be summarized under the following headings: (1) areas; (2) organization and personnel; (3) functions; (4) finance; (5) optional forms of government; (6) intergovernmental relations; and (7) research and experimentation.

New Areas. State legislatures continued to enact statutes establishing or authorizing the establishment of local ad hoc authorities for various purposes. Wyoming established each organized county of the state as a predatory animal district, under the control of a district board, for the purpose of paying bounties for the killing of animals that prey upon domestic livestock, poultry, and wild game. General laws authorized the organization of weed-control districts in South Dakota, public library districts in Illinois, cemetery districts in Montana, and county water authorities in California. Georgia's constitution was amended to empower the governing authorities of Bibb county to establish and administer, within the county and outside the city of Macon, special districts for sanitation purposes, garbage removal and disposal, fire prevention, police protection, drainage, road building and improvement, and any other public services and facilities customarily afforded by municipalities of the state.

Integration and coördination are terms that have long been used to describe the objectives of administrative reorganization. Thus coupled, the two words have appeared to represent mutually compatible goals. And most efforts at reform of local, state, and even federal, administration have embodied elements of both integration and coördination.

A somewhat different note was struck in the report of the President's Committee on Administrative Management transmitted to Congress in January, 1937. Here the emphasis was upon an improvement of the staff organization of the Presidency, rather than upon any large-scale effort to re-group and consolidate existing administrative agencies. Accordingly, it would not be unfair to say that coördination, even more than integration, was the objective of the proposals submitted by the President's Committee.

This study attempts to appraise the dynamic forces at play in the shaping of Soviet foreign policy and to discuss some of the recent problems of international law and diplomacy as viewed by the U.S.S.R. In order to place Russia's recent tortuous foreign policy in its proper perspective, it is essential to begin with a résumé of the changing Soviet concepts of law, followed by a consideration of the economic factors influencing these concepts. The shifting line of recent Soviet foreign policy will be discussed in a later part of the article.

Originally, the Soviet concept of law was predicated on transitional socialism; Soviet theorists argued that proletarian revolution has for the first time in history created a socialist state of workmen and peasants. “This is the highest type of state—that of the dictatorship of the proletariat.” Having emerged victorious, the working class destroyed the oppressive, bourgeois state machinery and built a new state apparatus of its own. The new form of state, discovered by Lenin, is the Soviet Republic. The task of the workers is further to strengthen the dictatorship of the proletariat.

The ends of government may be stated as follows: (1) external security, (2) internal order, (3) justice, (4) general welfare, and (5) freedom.

To the state, which is the name usually applied to independent political associations, these ends are accorded on the basis of observation and reflection. They may be summed up under the term the “common weal,” or the common good. This assumes that there is a community, made up of human personalities, that there are purposes, values, and interests in common, that there is a commonly accepted organization for carrying out these common purposes.

It cannot be said that these functions are the property or responsibility of the state alone. They are shared by other agencies of human society, and without their coöperation the political society can do little. The state provides a broad framework within which other societies and persons may operate more effectively, and undertakes common functions which it can more conveniently carry on, than other associations.

The United States Army officially defines military government as “that form of government which is established and maintained by a belligerent by force of arms over occupied territory of the enemy and over the inhabitants thereof.” “It is a government imposed by force and the legality of its acts is determined by the laws of war.” An application of this definition in the formulation of an adequate and enlightened civil affairs policy brings many difficult problems in its train, and particularly is this true in the modern, complex organization of society and warfare.

Thrown into prominence by the war, such problems of military government at present occupy the attention not only of American political and military authorities, but also of numerous scholars and publicists. That the latter should display so keen an interest in what is apparently a strictly military matter is a sign of the growing realization that solution of the problems of military government is vital for the successful prosecution of the war and for establishing the conditions which will make possible an equitable peace settlement. American public opinion, to some extent led and moulded by scholars and publicists, is unmistakably concerned with civil affairs administration of allied occupied territories across the sea and with plans for those yet to be occupied.

There are abundant controversial treatises bearing on Soviet-Nazi relationships, with their consequent effect on world power politics. The observations summarized herewith may shed light on recent developments, suggesting the cataclysm that today shakes the world.

(1) Mutual distrust on the part of the British and French governments on the one hand and the Soviet régime on the other, dating back to the Revolution of October 7, 1917. In a large measure, this is due to the fact that there have been, and there are now, active Communists and sympathizers in England and in the United States to propagandize the Soviets' point of view and to apologize for the faults of the Stalin régime. Conversely, there have never been, and there are not now, democratic agents and sympathizers at large in Soviet Russia to represent and interpret Western ideas of democracy either to the Russian people or to the Soviet leaders. There is a school of thought represented by distinguished scholars in America and England which contends that the Soviet overtures at Geneva looking toward disarmament were naively insincere. Ambassador Litvinov's personal motives were, however, beyond reproach.

For the first time in American history, the majority of the voters in the presidential election of 1944 will be women. That party managers have realized this fact has been evidenced by their special appeals to the feminine vote in campaign literature, public statements, and management techniques. Furthermore, in a growing number of cases, women have been entrusted with responsible functions in party organization which up to now have been reserved for men. To cite but one example in national party structure, there is the appointment for the first time of a woman to serve as secretary of the Democratic national committee.

The unusual political responsibilities and opportunities which war conditions have made available to women bring up the question of the progress they have been able to achieve in national party organization during the years since the adoption of the suffrage amendment in 1920. In 1933, an analysis of the formal status of women in the national party organizations was made by Miss Sophonisba Breckinridge, and included in her volume, Women in the Twentieth Century, published as one of a series of monographs on “Recent Social Trends in the United States,” under the direction of President Hoover's Research Committee on Social Trends. As a formal measure of women's status in national party organization, Miss Breckinridge examined their participation in the national conventions and their position on the national committees of both parties from 1892, when they were first represented in a convention, through 1932.

The present study carries Miss Breckinridge's investigation through the 1936, 1940, and 1944 nominating conventions. The data used in both studies were obtained from the official convention records and from replies of national committeewomen to questionnaires.

Total war may be either the negation of constitutionalism or the ultimate test of its vitality. During the third year since Pearl Harbor, the leading constitutional cases decided in state courts have at last begun to show the operation of the principle of limited government in war-emergency conditions. The judicial veto has been vigorously used. Separation of powers in particular and, to some extent, non-delegability of legislative power have revived to new strength after a period of apparent decline. Minority rights, although only slightly curtailed in the readjustment to paramount war-time needs, have suffered more serious modifications in other respects. Otherwise there has been a notable absence of outstanding civil liberties cases. The courts have vied with legislatures in manifesting a growing conservatism toward the constitutional rights of labor. The position of the state, and especially the position of the state courts in the federal system, has been a continuing source of constitutional development. Problems of government and business have more than lost their depression-era dominance. Signs of judicial distaste for popular participation in the legislative process have persisted.

Interestingly enough, in the extensive consideration given to War Department reorganization immediately after World War I, almost no attention was paid to the possible value of the S.O.S., A.E.F., experience. Three thousand miles behind the A.E.F., in Washington, it may have seemed that there was little to distinguish between the Services of Supply and the Purchase, Storage, and Traffic Division of the General Staff with its accumulation of hostile reaction.

In August, 1919, the General Staff of the War Department presented its version of desirable legislation for the reconstitution of a peace-time Army. The measure provided for a General Staff Corps to consist of a Chief of Staff with the rank of General, five assistants to be detailed from the general officers of the line, five Brigadier Generals, and 220 other officers. The bill provided that the Chief of Staff should have “supervision of all agencies and functions of the military establishment” under the direction of the President or the Secretary of War; and it went on to provide that “the Chief of Staff shall be the immediate adviser of the Secretary of War on all matters relating to the Military Establishment, and shall be charged by the Secretary of War with the planning, development, and execution of the war program.

In 1942 the Democrats elected 222 candidates to the House of Representatives, while the Republicans elected 209. It was the most successful election for the Republicans since they lost control of the House in 1930, and marked a tremendous resurgence in their power from its nadir in the 1936 election. The change in the popular vote was not great; in 1936, 41.3 per cent of the major party vote went to Republican congressmen, while in 1942 they received 51.6 per cent of the major party popular vote. Yet clearly we have been witnessing a Republican trend; and the problem of this article is to discover the basis on which it rests.

I

It is well known that the majority of people in any election vote on party lines. Yet there are always a number of people not affiliated with either major party, and a number of “mavericks” who vote for the opposition candidate. If “issues” are involved in any election, their influence can be detected only in the votes of such people. Our first analysis will be directed to discovering what national issues, if any, were involved in the 1942 congressional elections.

On February 15, 1943, Wiley B. Rutledge, Jr., a judge of the United States Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, took the seat on the Supreme Court vacated by the resignation in October, 1942, of Mr. Justice Byrnes. There were no other changes in the Court's personnel. Disagreement among the justices abated somewhat. In only a dozen cases of importance did either four or three justices dissent, as against some thirty cases in the last term. The Court overruled two earlier decisions, both recent; and the reversal in each case was made possible by the vote of Mr. Justice Rutledge.

A. QUESTIONS OF NATIONAL POWER

1. WAR POWER-CIVIL VERSUS MILITARY AUTHORITY

West Coast Curfew Applied to Japanese-American Citizens. In February, 1942, the President issued Executive Order No. 9066, which authorized the creation of military areas from which any or all persons might be excluded and with respect to which the right of persons to enter, remain in, or leave should be subject to such regulations as the military authorities might prescribe. On March 2, the entire West Coast to an average depth of forty miles was set up as Military Area No. 1 by the Commanding General in that area, and the intention was announced to evacuate from it persons of suspected loyalty, alien enemies, and all persons, aliens and citizens alike, of Japanese ancestry.

The complaint about Congress which has been more or less chronic in this country's history became acute during the 77th Congress (1941–42). While some of the condemnation was abusive, personal, and partisan, much of it was a frank recognition of existing weaknesses emphasized by present responsibilities. Intelligent response to this criticism both inside and outside of Congress resulted in constructive suggestions intended to restore the representative branch to fullest prestige and usefulness. While far-reaching alterations in the working arrangements of Congress proposed by publicists and scholars may be completely sound, it would be naïve to assume that any reform could be imposed on Congress from without. Congressmen are notoriously jealous of their own prerogatives, and the only hope of modernizing the lawmaking branch rests with them. It is therefore highly significant that the members of the 78th Congress reacted to the criticism by introducing an unprecedented number of resolutions ranging from the smug suggestion for a committee to protect the integrity of Congress to two soul-searching recommendations for special committees to study all aspects of Congressional reorganization.