More than once in its history, the American Political Science Association has met in a period of national emergency. Our Philadelphia gathering of 1917 (the thirteenth in the series) found the country occupied with a major conflict overseas for which it still was arduously preparing more than eight months after the declaration of a state of war by the Congress. Our Detroit meeting of 1932 (the twenty-eighth, and one of the most thinly attended in a decade) took place at a time when two and a quarter years of industrial depression and social disintegration had cast a pall of pessimism and despair over a national scene so recently—and so deceptively—effulgent, and when there was much shaking of heads over the outlook for our entire political and economic system. Twenty-three years ago this week, indeed, the continuity of our annual conventions was broken by the omission altogether of a meeting which was to have been held in Cleveland, a request having been made by our own sixth president—then in the White House—that railroads groaning under the task of transporting fifty thousand tons of supplies every twenty-four hours for the use of two million soldiers in France (even though no longer actually fighting when our meeting-time came round) should not be burdened with carrying people to gatherings that could be dispensed with or postponed.

In any party system, it would seem of some importance to establish rules and qualifications for membership in the different party groups, in order to bring together those persons, and only those persons, who adhere to the respective party principles. That should be particularly important in a two-party system, where the principles and issues are presumably sharply defined and clearly distinguishable. This matter has received increasing attention during recent years, and the importance of the problem was well stated by the Chicago Tribune, in an editorial referring to the Illinois primary campaign of 1938:

“The advantages of party organization and party responsibility have been proved over a long range of political testing, and although the abuses at times seem substantial. If a party is to be recognized as having legal standing, and if it is to make its nominations under the direction of law, there should be, it would seem, some determined qualification of its voters…. There shouldn't be a pretence of one thing and a fact of another. If Democrats and Republicans are to have legal standing as such, then Democrats should not make Republican decisions and Republicans should not make Democratic decisions. To permit this is to commit a fraud against the citizens who are trying to make their organization and their decisions according to the prevailing theory of political action and party responsibility.”

Under our Constitution, the national administration is an agent of the people acting through the Congress and the President. The legislature determines policies, establishes or authorizes the creation of administrative agencies, appropriates funds for their work, and attempts to control their operations by directions and limitations before and checks after the administration acts. But the establishment of controls at once effective and not unduly restrictive has become increasingly difficult as the business of government, legislative as well as administrative, has expanded and become more technical. Consultation with and advice to administrative agencies by citizens and their organizations are important, but they supplement rather than supplant legislative control, which remains the principal means for supervising the administration. The standard works on public administration discuss methods of control, but do not deal in detail with this relation between legislatures and particular agencies. The present analysis of congressional control of the Work Projects Administration has been undertaken in the belief that “case studies” may be useful for verification, modification, or contradiction of general propositions about legislative control of administration.

Rarely in history has a legislative body been confronted with problems, the implications of which are so far-reaching, the solutions of which are so important to civilization, as is the present American Congress. The questions with which the Seventy-seventh Congress has to cope include national defense, civil liberties in times of crisis, fundamental labor policies, forms of taxation, and possibly monetary standards.

In two administrations over a period of approximately eight years, President Franklin D. Roosevelt has established a record in his exercise of the veto power—not a record in quantity of measures disapproved, but a record in the wide range of subjects drawing his attention and his adverse action. President Cleveland, in his two non-consecutive administrations, retains the record for total number of measures disapproved, although President Roosevelt has run ahead of him in the use of the pocket veto. It should be noted, however, that most of the Cleveland vetoes were applied to individual pension or military relief bills. The practice of Congress in more recent administrations has been to combine pension and relief measures into one omnibus bill, to be consistently, although not always successfully, disapproved by successive presidents.

As in previous lists, mention is here confined generally to units specifically authorized by law or established by the President by executive order or reorganization plans under general authority vested in him. Changes in units created by heads of departments or independent establishments are excluded unless of major importance.

Coast Guard. Transferred from the Treasury Department to the Navy Department by Executive Order 8929 of November 1, 1941, under authority of the act of January 28, 1915 (38 Stat. 800). On April 7, 1917, the Coast Guard was transferred to the Navy by Executive Order 2587, and on August 28, 1919, it was returned to the Treasury Department by Executive Order 3160.

The Constitutional Atmosphere. In examining the effect of the present war on the English constitution, we are obliged to consider that constitution in its own context. Whether for good or ill, there is no international standard of practice, nor any universally accepted philosophical dogma, by which one may estimate its qualities. One cannot usefully apply to the English constitution the test of conformance to the ideals of Plato or Aristotle (or even of Thrasymachus the Sophist), or of Marx or Pareto, or even of Hamilton or Jefferson. It is profitless to wonder how well the English institutions of today might suit contemporary France, let us say, or contemporary America; nor is it relevant for either me or you to say “I like” or “I don't like.” The historical context of the English constitution is Locke and 1688, Disraeli and Gladstone, Asquith and 1911, Baldwin and 1926.