Bureau of Efficiency; Federal Farm Loan Board. National Research Council; Council of National Defense U. S. Veterans' Bureau; Debt Refunding Commission Federal Narcotics Control Board Federal Fuel Distributor; U. S. Coal Commission Rapid Increase in the Number of Detached Agencies . XXI. ADMINISTRATIVE WAR AGENCIES Administrative War Agencies Established Prior to 1917 Aircraft Board; Committee on Public Information U. S. Food and Fuel Administrations War Trade Council and War Trade Board Alien Property Custodian; Censorship Board War Finance Corporation; Capital Issues Committee War Cabinet; Central Bureau of Planning and Statistics. Distinctive Features of War Administrative Organization Work of the President's Commission on Economy and Powers of the Bureau of Efficiency Establishment of Joint Committee on Reorganization New Departments Proposed; Reorganization of Department Opposition to the Creation of New Departments Preliminary Plan of Joint Committee on Reorganization THE DEVELOPMENT OF NATIONAL CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION The Function of Administration. Before beginning an intensive study of the development of national administrative organization in the United States, it is desirable to determine, with a maximum degree of precision, the exact meaning and scope of the term "administration," as used to denote one of the major functions of government, to differentiate between administration and other governmental functions, and to indicate the particular department or departments in the national government charged with the exercise of administrative powers. The history of political theory reveals the fact that only two distinct classifications of governmental powers have received widespread recognition and extensive support. The first is the so-called classical theory, which embodies a threefold division of governmental powers; namely, legislative, executive, and judicial. Aristotle, Cicero, Polybius, and other ancient political writers are looked upon as the originators of this system of classification. Aristotle, for example, designated the three classes of governmental powers as deliberative, magisterial, and judicial. Montesquieu was the first modern writer to propose this threefold division, and was the first to make the theory of the separation of powers a doctrine of liberty. Blackstone laid down, in his Commentaries on the Laws of England, essentially the same principle as that sponsored by Montesquieu. The second proposed classification which deserves recognition is that advocated by a number of French writers and by Professor 'Aristotle, Works, Vol. X, Politica (Trans. Jowett), Bk. IV, ch. 14 (1921). 'Montesquieu, Esprit des lois, Bk. XI, ch. 6 (1858). 'Blackstone, Commentaries on the laws of England, I, 51 (1773). Goodnow in the United States. These authorities recognize only two classes of governmental powers; namely, those which are concerned with the formulation and expression of the will of the state, and those which have to do with the execution of that will. Thus M. Ducrocq, one of the noted authorities on French administrative law, says: "The mind can conceive of but two powers: that which makes the law, and that which executes it." Goodnow designates these two powers as Politics and Administration." Mr. W. F. Willoughby offers what he believes to be a more satisfactory and logical classification of governmental powers than those hitherto proposed. This writer says that the defect in the threefold or classical division lies in the fact that it fails to distinguish and make separate provision for the functions of electoral action and administration. The electorate as a distinct branch of government is said to be the result of the rise of popular government, and is composed of that body of citizens exercising voting or electoral powers. In so far as any account at all is taken of the function of administration in the threefold classification of governmental powers, says the writer, it is confused with, and treated as a part of, the executive function. Mr. Willoughby feels that the confusion of the terms executive" and administrative" is exceedingly unfortunate, as the two terms should be employed as connoting operations which are distinct in character. "The executive function," he concludes. "is the function of representing the government as a whole, and of seeing that all of its laws are complied with by its several parts. The administrative function is the function of actually administering the law as declared by the legislative and interpreted by the judicial branches of the government.' From the standpoint of psychological analysis, it would seem that the "duality" theory, whereby all the actions of the state or Ducrocq, Cours de drcit administratif, I, 29 (1881). "There are, then, in all governmental systems two primary or ultimate functions of government, viz.: the expression of the will of the state and the execution of that will. There are also in all states separate organs, each of which is mainly busied with the discharge of one of these functions. These functions are, respectively, Politics and Administration." Goodnow, Politics and administration, 12 (1900). Willoughby, Introduction to the study of the government of modern states, 229 (1919). 'Ibid., 232. its organs are said to group themselves under two heads, designated as Politics and Administration by Professor Goodnow, provides the best system for the classification of governmental powers. Yet Professor Goodnow, himself, recognizes the obvious fact that the function of administration or the execution of the state will is composed of several distinct, if not primary, functions. In the first place, administration may be either of justice or of government. As no legislature or legislative body can express the will of the state with respect to all matters of human conduct so clearly that no dispute as to its meaning may arise, some authority, non-legislative in character, must be provided to interpret the will of the state in case of such dispute. The action of such nonlegislative authority is usually spoken of as the administration of justice, and the authority to which this branch of the function of administration is intrusted is usually called the judicial authority." The function of administration apart from its judicial side may be called the administration of government. The latter is also recognized as being susceptible of differentiation. Upon analysis, says Goodnow, it will be seen that it consists of several elements: (1) The executive function; (2) the quasi-judicial function; (3) the statistical and semi-scientific functions; and (4) the function of establishing, preserving, and developing the governmental organization." Thus it will be seen, that the three systems of classification referred to are not entirely incompatible with each other. In the threefold and fivefold systems, the judicial function is regarded as primary and coördinate with other functions, while in the twofold system it is regarded as a part of the primary function of administration.10 The electoral function recognized by Mr. "Goodnow, op. cit., 73. Ibid., 73 et seq. 10 Mr. Bondy, in his monograph on The Separation of Governmental Powers, takes exception to the “duality” theory in this respect, saying: "It might with equal propriety be said that all that is required to carry on government is that laws should be expressed and executed, and that two powers appear in every state, the legislative and the executive; that the legislative power is generally divided into two organs, the legislative, which is active, and which at its pleasure interprets and expresses the will of the state, and the judicial, which is inactive and has no initiative, but which interprets and expresses the will of the state whenever a legal controversy arises as to what that will is."-Columbia University, Studies in History, Economics and Public Law, V, 147-48 (1896). |