Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 77.djvu/288

282 introduced during an ordinary session are special, local or personal in whole or in part, while far the larger part of the committee work and public debate appears to be devoted to special or local interests! Naturally little time and thought are left for general laws, touching alike the entire citizenry; and naturally the custom of special legislation under party control opens easy way for such machine organization that a half-dozen shrewd manipulators may assume leadership in either house and completely dominate legislation. So far has this tendency run that it is to-day a grave question—the gravest in our history—whether our current laws are framed in the interests of our ninety millions or in the interests of special privilege reducible in the last analysis to a scant dozen "captains of industry": and hence whether after all representative government is inherently and permanently stable. The "propensity" of the congress "to legislate too much" has indeed been checked from time to time in the manner forecast by Morris; for while some administrations acquiesce, others hold out for a stricter conformity with the constitution. George Washington sought to carry out the intent of the instrument framed under his chairmanship, and was so savagely assailed for "usurpation" that he declared death preferable to public service; Abraham Lincoln carried forward the administrative affairs of his terms through sheer force of personality, aided indirectly by the military activity of the time; no less competent authority than the present president of the United States once signalized Grover Cleveland's insistence that the presidency carries power coequal with those of the congress as the notable feature of his administrations; and Theodore Roosevelt's policy was consistently parallel and still more vigorous, even to his final and most trenchant presidential message pointing out the unconstitutionality of an item in the sundry civil act passed as his term closed. Meantime some heads of executive departments shrank from assuming administrative responsibilities; yet under growing necessity they have gradually become our chief administrative officers. Verily the price of indefiniteness as to the administrative function in our fundamental law has been large! Not only have confusion and friction arisen, with enormous attendant expense, but the relatively simple duties of administration are ill-performed. The advocates of waterway improvement were among the first to notice that nearly all our waterway enactments to date are special, and tend to magnify rather than merge sectional and political interests; and that the flood of special bills and local items has so far diverted effort from general legislation that even unto this day the country lacks fundamental laws relating to waters, and is weakly perpetuating monarchial common-law doctrines not only unsuited to current conditions but such as the constitution was designed to annul or forestall! The waterway workers are no longer slow to condemn methods which have permitted—if indeed they have