“The impression of an inward principle,” asserted Thomas Aquinas, “is to natural things what the promulgation of law is to men; because law, by being promulgated, impresses on man a directive principle of human actions.” Promulgation is of the very essence of law, and a sine qua non of legal obligation. This is true both logically and historically.

The very idea of obedience presupposes knowledge of that which is to be obeyed, without which knowledge there could be only the coincidence, never the obligation, of obedience. If human relationships are to be calculable, the people of a community must know, and know in advance, the rules by which they are to act and by which they may expect other men to act. Here is a proposition of such obvious force that any conception of legal obligation is almost bound to deal with it as an ethical obstruction to law enforcement which must be obviated by promulgation and a supplemental overall presumption that “everyone knows the law.”

In December, 1922, a resident of Berlin finished the manuscript of a book which, although far from becoming a best-seller, was destined to make history, if only through its title. The book was Das Dritte Reich, and its author, Arthur Moeller van den Bruck, was a German intellectual, then in his forties, who had a theory purporting to explain Germany's downfall as well as a vision of her recovery and return to a leading position in the world.

One may well be uncertain as to whether Moeller, had he lived, would have found himself altogether in agreement with the policies and methods of the régime for which he accidentally furnished so attractive a label, or whether he would have found himself among the dead on the morrow of June 30, 1934; but there can be little doubt that the author of Das Dritte Reich belongs among the contributors to the creed in the name of which Germany is ruled today.

Moeller van den Bruck was born in 1876 in the Rhineland, the son of a middle-class architect and Prussian official whose family went back to Lutheran pastor stock in Saxony. From his mother's side he inherited Dutch-Spanish blood and, from her Dutch maiden name, the more romantic-sounding portion of his pen name. His formal education was never completed after he was expelled from the Gymnasium at Düsseldorf as penalty for his indifference in class, resulting from his preoccupation with modern German literature (social lyrics) and philosophy (Nietzsche), which to the lad of sixteen seemed of vastly greater “social significance” than what his teachers had to offer.

In times of national or international stress, public attention tends to become focused upon spectacular events transpiring in the nation's capital or chief cities, with little interest displayed in the more prosaic affairs of rural local government. As a consequence, normal progress in rural institutions and activities is likely to be retarded. During 1940, with but few state legislatures in session and popular interest diverted to other fields, little that was distinctly novel occurred in the field of American county and township government. The rural units seemed, in a sense, to be marking time while the national government, and, to a lesser degree, states and cities, concentrated upon various phases of the national defense program. Yet certain developments took place during the year which, if not extraordinary, were nevertheless significant. As in former years, events will be summarized under the following headings: (1) areas; (2) organization and personnel; (3) functions; (4) finance; (5) optional charters; and (6) intergovernmental relations.

A predominant note in the speculations of liberal-democratic thinkers on the subject of post-war reconstruction has been an insistence on the need for “some kind of a federation.” As a popular catch-word, “federation” has undoubted propagandist value. It has come to acquire some of the magic properties once associated with phrases like “a parliament of man,” “league of nations,” and “outlawry of war.” For the pamphleteer and orator, therefore, it is a readymade formula which should be fully exploited for the purpose of engendering a readiness for international collaboration.

In the titanic struggle for leadership in Europe, Great Britain is resisting the most formidable challenge to her supremacy. For centuries, her principal foreign policy was to prevent any establishment of hegemony over the entire European continent. After the first World War, British statesmen, however, were convinced “that they could no longer bear the burden of regulating world affairs alone. They urged a League of Nations…. But national sovereignties were no more prepared to collaborate in a democratic world organization than they had been to submit to British domination. Thus, instead of the League of Nations succeeding to the British imperial hegemony, the world fell into anarchy in a new struggle of several states, each striving to become the dominant Power.”

On April 7, 1941, while the Axis Powers were invading Yugoslavia, Ante Pavelik, the well-known Croat terrorist, broadcast from Italy an appeal to the Croats to secede from the Serbs and to support Germany and Italy. Three days later, when the German troops entered Zagreb, Sladko Kvaternik, another Croat leader, proclaimed there an independent Croat state, and on April 12, a national committee declared Pavelik, who was still abroad, head of the new state. The following day he entered Zagreb, and two days afterwards he took effective power, receiving the title of Poglavnik, the Croat equivalent of Führer or Duce. Immediately upon his telegraphic request of April 15, Germany and Italy granted recognition of Croatia, subject to their joint determination of the new state boundaries. Pavelik at once dissolved the old political parties and on April 17 formed the first Croat government, in which he became president of the council of ministers and minister of foreign affairs; Kvaternik, his substitute and supreme commander of the armed forces; and a Dr. Kulenovich, vice-president of the council. An upper council of the Croat state was designated to function with the government.