Americans have had a long and varied experience with military government. The names New Mexico, California, New Orleans, Memphis, Cuba, Manila, Mindanao, Samoa, Guam, Vera Cruz, and Coblenz by no means exhaust the list of places where American military or naval governors have exercised control over civil populations. Virtually no effort has been made before the present war to analyze this experience and to draw from it principles to assist in the solution of the problems of the present and immediate future. Military government is of vast importance for the world of tomorrow. It is the transitional phase between the active conflict of armies and the quiet of an established peace. Military government may be—and has been at times in American history—as important for ultimate solutions as major military campaigns.

“Military government,” according to the official definition set forth in the War Department's Field Manual 27–5, “is 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. In this definition, the term territory of the enemy includes not only the territory of an enemy nation but also domestic territory recovered by military occupation from rebels treated as belligerents.” The definition does not cover the whole range of actual occupations in American experience. Military government should not be thought of entirely in terms of enemy territory or enemy populations.

Almost every age in human history has developed philosophies of ethical and political pacifism which endeavor to treat in their own peculiar way questions raised by the realities of power and violence in human politics. The modern age being no exception, this essay has for its purpose an examination of the conceptions held by two major schools of pacifism in the political thought of the twentieth century. Although their philosophies are closely akin, they are yet sufficiently dissimilar in context and approach to justify separate treatment. With roots deep in the historic soil of past philosophies of non-violence, the twentieth-century interpretations yet strike a note of their own and pose in sharp form some of the most troublesome problems of modern politics.

The first is Hindu pacifism. At its heart is Hindu religious philosophy, which holds to the conception of a world in which individuals are separated from the whole, or from God. Desire and lust after the things of the world constantly keep men from losing themselves in the Reality which this world tends to hide or make obscure. The universe is dualistic: the material is evil, the non-material, or spiritual, good.

The development of the public power program in the Tennessee Valley area has had marked effects on inter-governmental relations, in some cases creating new relationships and in other cases modifying those already existing. Many of these relations concern coöperative activities of the T. V. A. and the state and local governments, and the results of their joint endeavors have done much to expand and improve governmental services. In its relations with the local governments, the Authority has consistently followed the policy of depending on their coöperative efforts to achieve the social and economic development of the Valley without attempting to impose its will on them. “The rôles of the states, and of cities, counties, districts, and voluntary associations within the states, are enhanced, not diminished, in importance, by this recognition of interest and jurisdiction. Coöperation, not destructive competition; Federal responsibility in Federal and interstate matters, with local initiative and self-reliance in matters of a local nature—these are policies by which the development of the Valley is being and should continue to be guided.” These principles have not always been appreciated by the local units, however, and their occasional unwillingness to assume responsibilities or to fulfil obligations to each other have presented problems that have tended to hinder the most successful conduct of the public ownership program. In fact, the readjustments in inter-governmental relations that have sometimes been necessitated, especially in connection with the power program and the resulting loss of taxes, have in some instances been accompanied by painful and significant friction.

In many of our modern industries, aptitude tests are given to new employees in order to determine the type of position for which each worker is best fitted. Unfortunately, in legislative bodies committee assignments are dependent upon several factors, only one of which is specialized ability. To serve the public best, however, no one can truthfully deny that individual competence ought to be the basic reason for placing a legislator on the committee which can make the most advantageous use of his particular training and experience. Putting an international lawyer on an agriculture and forestry committee would be a sheer waste of talent. With these thoughts in mind, the Senate Judiciary Committee has been studied for the purpose of determining the qualifications of the 219 men who have been members of this body since it was established in 1816.

The various suggestions for reorganization of the War Agencies now pending in the Congress pose two other questions, perhaps as fundamental to the successful prosecution of the war as the question whether the nation's war effort is itself best centralized and organized. The first is: Are the War Agencies, and is the war effort, correctly related to the various other portions of the government, that is, those portions of the executive branch of the government which were in existence prior to 1940? The second question is: Is the entire federal government, in all of its military, quasi-military, and civilian aspects, in need of far-reaching reorganization in order that the war effort may effectively be administered, and that the peace which is to follow may be well administered also?

Direct legislation has returned to excite considerable interest after a quiet period of a few years in which the traditional legislative processes were allowed to operate undisturbed in the states and cities. Old age pension plans put before the voters by initiative petitions in Colorado, California, and Ohio have excited more inspection of direct legislation procedures than at any time in their history. Several studies have been made of the laws governing the initiative and referendum, and also of their operation in the states. No less significant than state-wide initiatives and referenda have been the anti-picketing and labor regulating initiatives in Los Angeles; ordinances in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Oakland, California, requiring two operators on street cars; attacks upon proportional representation in New York by petitions; attempts by labor organizations in Detroit to set policies regarding working conditions on the city's street railways by initiative ordinances; or the attempts by firemen and police in many cities to obtain civil service and pension systems through the same device. Several of these cities now have approximately thirty-five years of experience with municipal direct legislation.

Numerous factors in American municipal politics have combined within the past fifty years to develop a sentiment for laying upon the electorate a portion of the responsibility for determining local policy. The idea that the voters of the municipality should be allowed, to decide certain policies was developed chiefly by the home rule movement.

In the report of the Association's Committee on War-time Services occurs the following passage: “It seems to the Committee that the customary individualism of the profession is a luxury that cannot be unimpaired in war-time; political scientists must not go through the war with a business-as-usual attitude toward research and critical writing. The crises upon the nation and awaiting the nation demand that the profession recognize priorities in its scholarly work…. Students, mature and immature, should know what men of affairs consider to be the more crucial issues … The Committee … does ask … that the profession be given leadership in determining what to do ….”

The Research Committee of the Association considered this challenge and sought an answer from those members of the profession who had temporarily left their academic halls and plunged into the war effort in Washington. This group gave generously of their time and thought to the matter. The Committee's own function became merely that of a reporter or synthesizer of the views thus expressed. It is this synthesis which this statement incorporates. The suggestions are deliberately not attributed to any one individual. In the first place, many suggestions were made by more than one person; in the second place, the total pattern is even more intriguing than the individual suggestions.