legislative manuals, and standard texts which give information on governmental structure. Satisfactory texts have recently been issued which give the necessary information with respect to American and European governments. This volume is prepared to supplement the works now available on the description and the analysis of governments. The primary object is to aid in the acquisition of a method for the investigation of government problems. It is believed that the study of government will be effective in proportion as the direct method of investigation is used. Each chapter is intended to serve merely as an introduction to the consideration of the problems and principles involved and to provide a background for the pursuit of independent inquiries. Though the primary purpose of the book is to consider some of the important issues relating to the operation of the American government, certain features of foreign governments and administrative practices are briefly discussed in order to afford a basis for comparison and contrast. The three introductory chapters are intended to furnish the perspective which is regarded as necessary for the study of modern political problems. The chapters are presented in their natural order, but may be omitted when these topics are elsewhere considered, or may, when thought desirable, be deferred for use at the end of the volume. Prepared primarily for use in an elementary course in colleges and universities, it is hoped that this text may also prove helpful to persons who are now seeking an introduction to the study of some important characteristics of government organization and control. The authors are indebted to Mr. Arthur W. MacMahon of Columbia University for reading the manuscript and for offering suggestions which have added to the serviceableness of the volume. C. G. H. B. M. H. PRINCIPLES AND PROBLEMS OF GOVERNMENT CHAPTER I THE ORIGIN AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF GOVERNMENT POLITICAL institutions, like the other results of human association, are in a constant process of change. At times the transformations come more rapidly, but significant changes are always under way. The extraordinary burdens and difficulties of the world's greatest war and the consequent problems of reconstruction have brought a period of rapid transformation. Whither present institutions are tending and what will be the outcome, no one can foresee. We can feel sure only that the governments under which we now live are passing through a reconstructive process which will affect profoundly all of our social and political relations. A cursory examination of the process through which modern political institutions have evolved will aid in the understanding of this reconstructive process. Consequently, the origin and development of government will be reviewed. In the brief cutline and summary of the continuous evolution thus presented are suggested some of our greatest political problems. EARLIEST EVIDENCES OF POLITICAL ORGANIZATION Recent researches into history and archeology have carried the beginnings of government and social institutions back many thousands of years by bringing to light well defined organizations of society in nations which have been regarded as primitive and undeveloped.1 In these societies customs and law based upon religion, arbitrary taboos, and social sanctions controlled the life of man. Government, though often crude and simple in its organization, is evidenced in the rules and regulations as well as in the customs and traditions which regulated with inexorable rigor the life of primitive communities. The laws and political institutions of such nations as Babylon, Egypt, Persia, Arabia, and India, just as much as the language and architecture of these Oriental peoples, are matters worthy of study and admiration. To ignore these ancient races as though they possessed no well-defined political organizations is not justified by the evidence of their political evolution. Recently, through the combined results of archeology, anthropology, paleontology, geology, and ethnology, scientists have arrived at a new estimate of the age of the race and the antiquity of man has been pushed back hundreds of thousands of years, varying in different estimates from 250,000 to 600,000 years.2 It is difficult to think in terms of hundreds of thousands of years. Moreover, many errors result, and mistaken conclusions are formed by confining attention to the few thousand years of human history which have intervened since the time of the Greeks. Many of the variations in man's development now evidenced in the differences in culture of present peoples may be attributed to the change in environmental influences to which man was subjected in the thousands of years antedating the use of symbols and the introduction of written records. In these ages the forces of nature and "It was not until some fifty years ago, after the evidence had been available for a century and a half, that the eyes of scientific men were at last opened to the fact of the enormously long sojourn of man upon the earth."-J. H. Breasted, Ancient Times (Ginn & Co., 1916), p. 6. 2 Cf. H. F. Osborn, Men of the Old Stone Age (Charles Scribner's Sons, 1916), illustrations, pp, 18, 41. |