Page:CRS Report 95-772 A.djvu/4

CRS-4 supplemented acts of Congress to carry out minor details. The use and scope of executive orders and proclamations expanded, however, with the Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt.

President Roosevelt's theory on the presidency, the "stewardship" theory, was based on his view that the President was vested with residual powers which were neither enumerated in the Constitution nor assigned broadly to a specific branch; instead, they simply resided in concepts like national security or the public good. Thus, Roosevelt stated: "My view was that every officer, and above all every executive officer in high position, was a steward of the people. . . . My belief was that it was not only his right but his duty to do anything that the needs of the Nation demanded unless such action was forbidden by the Constitution or by the laws." This expansion of executive power, however, did not firmly take hold until the Presidency of Woodrow Wilson.

With the onset of World War I, President Wilson was able to expand the discretion of the presidency through the use of emergency powers. During his tenure, Wilson issued over 1800 executive orders. This period appears to mark the beginning of legislative and judicial tolerance towards expanded executive power during times of national emergency. Nothing underscores this more than the use of executive orders by President Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR). Taking office during the depression, FDR was given great latitude by Congress to implement his New Deal program. In his first year, FDR issued 654 executive orders, including his Inaugural Day proclamation closing all banks for four days to restructure the financial system and to establish the administrative mechanism necessary to implement his New Deal programs. World War II provided further impetus for him to continue the expansion of executive power. Without statutory authority, but as he put it, pursuant to the powers vested in him "by the Constitution and laws of the United States, as President of the United States of America and Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States," FDR issued an executive order on June 9, 1941, seizing North America Aviation's plant in California. Two years later, Congress acquiesced in this and other seizures by passing the War Labor Disputes Act which provided statutory authority for presidential seizure of plants, mines, and other facilities. However, as the war drew toward an end, Congress began to regain control of legislative activity which in large part had been relegated to the executive in a time of national emergency. In 1944, Congress invoked its power of the purse to prevent the President from using appropriated funds to finance agencies created by executive