pledged him and the legislature to the enactment of a civil administrative code "providing for the consolidation of boards, institutions, commissions, and different departments and agencies of government." In the spring of 1919 the legislature passed a bill grouping all of the activities, not assigned to officers and board of the constitution, into six departments. Each of these departments was given a single head appointed by the governor, with the approval of the Senate but for fixed terms to end with the governor's tenure. There is in this a limitation of executive power not consistent with the responsibilities of the office. Besides, the old legislative procedure remains unchanged, thereby depriving the people of open discussion of measures initialed by the executive with responsible officers present to explain and defend.

The Idaho reorganization code was passed in February, 1919. It provides for the consolidation of all functions, not assigned to officers and boards by the constitution, in nine departments as in Illinois, with slight differences in the distribution of duties. Each department has a single head appointed by the governor and with the exception of one is removable by him at will. The commissioner of immigration, labor, and statistics is a constitutional officer appointed by the governor with the advice and consent of the Senate for a term of two years. Idaho's gov

ernor, as in the case of Illinois and Nebraska, is deprived of the opportunity of personally appearing before the legislature in committee of the whole or otherwise as a matter of regular procedure, for giving publicity to measures advocated and clearly defining issues through open question and discussion of issues; and there is no provision for appeal in case of a deadlock, or an opposition majority.

"The Wisconsin Idea"

Wisconsin has been foremost among the states in its advocacy of " government of commission." In fact, its civic leaders have been so conspicuous in the propagation of this system of administration that the government-bycommission plan is frequently referred to as "The Wisconsin Idea "a designation taken from a volume written by Dr. Charles McCarthy which bears that title. Under the influence of a group of University of Wisconsin men, who interested themselves in making different branches of state administration more serviceable to the people, their government has been broken up into a large number of independent offices and boards.

While all of the states drifted strongly to this method of dealing with the boss in seeking to make the public administration more efficient many of them, in recent years, have abandoned the method in theory at least. Wisconsin, however, has held consistently to the government-by-commission theory. And during the last few years while consolidations have taken place the decentralized "commission" type of administration is still retained.

The type has already been described. Each main service branch, by act of the legislature, is made independent by being placed under the management of a board or commission - we may say, has been separately incorporated as an eleemosynary institution. The members of each public-service board are appointed for long and overlapping tenures. The public functions administered by each board are supported by continuing appropriations, thereby giving to them what amounts to a state endowment. Thus established, each board undertakes to develop a more efficient service by employment of staff experts.

But the various independencies did not have the machinery for giving balance and proportion to the state

administration as a whole- it lacked the means of developing a state program except as this came about in an informal and uninstitutional way through personal contact and understandings between propagandists leaders who were in no way connected with the processes of popular control. In developing an official means for giving balance and proportion to a state program a central commission was created the state board of public affairs, to which was assigned among other things the duty of preparing a budget. Thus the supervisory and inquisitorial function was performed by a super-board of which the governor and certain members of the legislature were members.

The weakness of this administrative system, lack of responsibility to the electorate and their representatives, has been recognized. And in the last legislature an effort was made to cure the defect in a way that points to a method of control which may be made consistent with the ideals of democracy by establishing a legislative premiership - a legislative majority leadership with power to control the administration. A bill was introduced which, had it become law, would have given to the representative branch of the government the right to dismiss the administrative heads by what would have amounted to a vote of "lack of confidence." This bill passed both houses and was prevented from becoming law only by executive veto. The implications of the enactment are deserving of special consideration, since it is the first attempt in our national political history whereby government by commission has attempted to face the question of popular control by providing procedure through which responsible leadership might be developed under conditions such that issues might be clearly drawn, reviewed, criticized, and approved or disapproved in the established forum of the people. The virtue of the measure lies, not in its provisions, but in the necessary

implication of its outworkings. Assuming that the measure passed by the Wisconsin legislature had not been vetoed by the governor, its necessary operation would be to develop an administrative cabinet responsible to the representative body and this body necessarily would have developed a responsible majority and minority leadership. Any effort to dismiss an administrative officer would have aligned the forces for and against such action. No such action could be initiated without leadership, and the leadership would cause the members of the representative body to take sides. The procedure of inquest into the office or acts or proposals of the officer would be given a dramatic setting that would give publicity to the issue involved. The continued operation of such a law would in the end develop a system of control much after the plan which has grown up in France-legislative leadership itself under such circumstances would carry with it political issues. This would accomplish the desired purpose of taking control out of the hands of an irresponsible political boss. The only leadership possible would be one which would be in the first instance responsible to the representative body, ultimate control being in the state electorate by making administrative leadership amenable to the representative body - the "parties " developed in the process of inquest and determination of issues would necessarily be made up of those who took sides. Thus the party management would be made up of the leaders who represented a majority on the one hand and a responsible opposition. The necessary result would be a legislative prime minister. In the evolution of such a system, whether the departments were managed by boards or by single heads, it would produce responsible government; a government made responsible through a leadership that would be under electoral control.

Wisconsin Idea vs. Illinois Plan

The measure, however, did not become law, and Wisconsin still has an administration which in type lacks the processes of popular control. Accepting the measure which was defeated as a declaration of intent and purpose and the contrast is striking by which the two neighbor states, Illinois and Wisconsin, are seeking to develop responsible government. The one, Illinois, has sought to square its institutions with the underlying principle of democracy through an elected executive prime minister; the other, Wisconsin, has sought to accomplish this end through a legislative prime minister. Neither method has been fully elaborated. Each is lacking in essential points. The Illinois plan still lacks a procedure by which the representative body may perform the function of inquest, discussion of issues raised by a responsible leadership with a right of appeal to the people. The Wisconsin plan for the establishment of a responsible leadership has not yet got beyond the academic stage. But in case the theory of legislative control comes to be established it must necessarily carry with it a procedure which, through the definition and discussion of issues that arise in the contest between leaders, will reach to the electorate.

The New York Standing Committee System

These two states are taken as types because they have gone farthest in the development of two methods of control over the administration which hold out promise to the electorate. New York is the most conspicuous adherent of the old type of control through standing legislative committees, the system which has contributed most to the persistent domination of the irresponsible boss and his machine. The Constitutional Convention of 1915 undertook to reorganize the state along the lines later followed by Illinois, but the plan was opposed both by the