form of government will be executive authority, yet in performing that service the presidential office will be surrounded by influences which will tend to preclude the subversion of its representative character by the caprice or presumption of the individual who may chance to hold the office. The situation is such that only by entire accord and close association with a majority in the House of Representatives can such an exaltation of presidential authority be sustained, so that the aggrandizement of the office can be accomplished only under conditions insuring democratic control. CHAPTER XXVIII THE ULTIMATE TYPE THE principle of elective kingship, as repre sented by the masterful Mayor, Governor, or President, in which democracy puts its trust, does not tend to a suppression of parliamentary agencies of government, such as took place in Europe during its period of emergence from feudalism; but it tends rather to subordinate their action to general requirements, as in England, so that all that there is in them of public utility will be preserved for the use of the new type of government which American democracy is perfecting. The greatest curtailments of the authority of legislative bodies are those which have taken place in municipal charters and in various state constitutions; but even at their lowest point of authority such bodies are retained as an indispensable part of the apparatus of government, open to an invigoration of their functions when political conditions correspond to such development. In national politics, the form of the legislative agencies of government has remained intact, and changes that have taken place in their functions have been sustained by their own activities. The House of Representatives has practically subjugated its elaborate organization for the representation of local interests, by developing a collective authority, which needs only direct association with executive policy to become an effective organ of responsible national control. The monstrous list of committees may very well continue, as now, to serve as convenient cemeteries for undesired legislation; the complicated system of rules may still serve a useful purpose in controlling the moblike characteristics naturally appertaining to so large a body; and it will quite suffice for all the purposes of a responsible administration of public affairs under representative institutions if that resistless engine of control, forged by the development of the Speaker's authority and by the creation of the mandatory powers of the Committee on Rules, is made part of the apparatus of executive authority. So far as the constitution of the House of Representatives is concerned, party organization has very little left to do in completing the means of administrative union. between the executive department and the legislative branch. The uniform experience of other countries has shown that when the executive power has been directly connected with the legislative branch, the tendency is not towards an increasing subordination of the legislative branch, but is just the other way the legislature is apt to annex the functions of the executive department. The invigora ― tion of legislative control by direct association with executive authority is the ground upon which some of our wisest statesmen have urged the deliberate adoption of measures to bring the administration face to face with Congress. The subject has been considered by a Senate committee of exceptional ability, whose report is so important a document that the main portion is given as an appendix to this work. The measure recommended has never developed any practical strength, as it was not appreciated by public sentiment, nor did it meet with any favor in Congress, where it encountered the latent opposition of particular interests naturally conservative of the opportunities which they now derive from representative institutions unaccompanied by responsible government. The development of executive authority, as an agency of popular control over the government, may, however, transform political conditions in a way that will promote a direct administrative union between the executive and legislative branches. Such an association between the presidential office and the House of Representatives, as must sooner or later ensue from their coöperation in suppressing the oligarchical power of the Senate, will have the result of making the House the real base of administration-not, as in the early days of the republic, by a transient location of support, but by firm establishment, fortified by party interests, and garrisoned by the activities of practical politics. The relations of particular interests to the general control, which then will have been established, will be such that the same inclinations which now conspire to make the House membership deferential to the senatorial oligarchy, will then tend to favor the most extensive contact possible between the House and the administration. Members now run after senators because senators have arbitrary powers of control over offices, imposts, and appropriations; when the administration obtains control of the situation, particular demands will be no less avid, but they must then operate under new conditions. It is not likely that the mass of the members will be satisfied to allow privileges of effective access to the government to be monopolized by committee chairmen, and they will find that their best opportunity, under the circumstances, will be obtained by embodying the administration directly in the House, where it will be open to direct negotiation and engagements. The ultimate type of democratic government will be reached by a natural development, promoted by the political opportunism which affords the only safe process, as it always keeps in touch with practical expediency. Much more extensive in character and radical in nature are the changes which are likely to take place in the executive department under such conditions. The presidency now combines two distinct functions - one ceremonial; the other practical which advancing civilization, makes |