CHAPTER XXIII

EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT: PRESIDENT'S ASSISTANTS

The Cabinet. Unlike the presidency, the cabinet was not created by the Constitution. When the organization of the executive power was under discussion, it was proposed that an executive council be created to act as a check upon the president, and there was also some discussion as to the wisdom of forming an advisory body to assist him, without giving it any power to control his action. Neither of these plans received the sanction of the Convention, and the Constitution makes no provision for a body possessing the character and functions of the president's cabinet. The only approach to such a provision is found in the clause giving the president the right to "require the opinion in writing of the principal officer in each of the executive departments upon any subject relating to the duties of their respective offices." There were, then, to be executive departments whose chief officers were to advise and otherwise assist the president; but it was evidently contemplated by the Convention that such assistance would be required from each separately, not that they would be formed into a council for the purpose of consulting and advising upon matters of general administrative policy. The executive departments have been created by acts of Congress, but the cabinet, with its peculiar functions, though made up of the heads of these departments, is the creation neither of constitutional nor of statute law. Its relations to the president and

to Congress have been determined by custom only. It has no legal position as an advisory body, and the president is in no way legally bound by its advice, though its opinion may and usually does have influence with him. No official record is kept of cabinet meetings.

Relations of Cabinet Officers to President. The head of an executive department is more than a mere administrator of the business of his department. The actual performance of such duties can be intrusted to the assistant secretaries, the heads of bureaus, and minor officials; but the secretary must understand his department as a whole, must know its need, must see that it is administered in conformity with the policy of the administration. His function as member of the cabinet is even more important than his function as head of the department. He is first of all the president's adviser, not only in regard to the business of his own department, but in matters of general policy as well. Under our present system of party government, therefore, it is important that there should be harmony in the cabinet if a policy is to be chosen and consistently pursued. The secretary ought to be not only of the president's political party but also in close personal sympathy with him. It is now thoroughly understood that if a cabinet member finds himself out of harmony with the president's policy, it is his duty to resign or the president's privilege to remove him. It is for this reason that the president is given so free a hand in the choice of his cabinet, and partly for this reason also that he usually forms an entirely new cabinet upon his accession to office, even though he may be of the same political party as his predecessor. All cabinet members are appointed by the president, nominally with the consent of the Senate (though the Senate practically never refuses its consent), and all receive the same compensation, $12,000

1

The president alone has the power to remove

per annum. cabinet officers.

Executive Departments: Organization. The executive departments are very thoroughly organized. They are divided first into bureaus, each with a commissioner at its head, who is directly responsible to the secretary; the bureaus are again divided into divisions, each with its chief of division responsible to the commissioner; while subordinate to these chiefs of division and responsible to them is the great army of clerks employed in the administrative work of the government.

Executive Departments: History. Those departments whose heads form the president's cabinet have been created from time to time by acts of Congress, as the need for them became apparent. When the government was organizing under the Constitution in 1789, Congress created three departments - the Department of State, the Department of the Treasury, and the Department of War; and the heads of these departments (called secretaries), together with the Attorney-General, whose office was created the same year, formed Washington's cabinet. The department over which the Attorney-General has control - the Department of Justice was not created until 1870. In 1798 there was added the Navy Department, naval affairs having been up to this time attended to by the War Department; and in 1829 the Postmaster-General, whose office had existed since colonial times and whose department had been conducted since its creation in 1794 as a part of the Treasury Department, was made a cabinet member. The Department of the Interior was added in 1849. A Department of Agriculture was organized in 1862, but its head was not made a cabinet officer until 1889. Finally, in 1913, the Department of Labor was established. It will be seen, then,

that the creation of a new executive department and the calling of its chief officer into the president's cabinet are not always coincident. The departments have been created in the following order: State, Treasury, War (1789); Postoffice (1794); Navy (1798); Interior (1849); Agriculture (1862); Justice (1870); Commerce (1903); Labor (1913). Their chief officers have become members of the president's cabinet in the following order: Secretary of State, Secretary of the Treasury, Secretary of War, Attorney-General (1789); Secretary of the Navy (1798); Postmaster-General (1829); Secretary of the Interior (1849); Secretary of Agriculture (1889); Secretary of Commerce (1903); Secretary of Labor (1913).

State Department. The chief cabinet officer is the Secretary of State, commonly called the head of the cabinet. At cabinet meetings he occupies the seat of dignity at the right of the president. His chief duty is the conduct of foreign affairs; and since the president, because of the pressure of other business, is compelled to give him a very free hand, he practically controls the foreign policy of the nation, subject only to the restraints imposed by the Senate. Thus he is brought much more prominently into public notice than are the other cabinet officers. It is his business, except in cases where special officers have been appointed for the purpose, to conduct all negotiations with foreign countries. He receives the representatives of foreign powers and presents them to the president, conducts all official correspondence with them, carries on all necessary correspondence with United States ministers and consuls to foreign countries, and issues passports to citizens of the United States who wish to travel abroad. All these duties are concerned with foreign affairs, but he has also some domestic duties to perform. It is through him that the president