REPRINTED FROM 
 
 
 The American 
 
 olitical Science Review 
 
 It ’ 
 
 BOARD OF EDITORS 
 
 Henry Jones Ford, Princeton University 
 W. F. Dodd, University of Illinois 
 W. B. Miinro, Harvard University 
 A. R. Hatton, Western Reserve University 
 
 Jesse Reeves, University of Michigan 
 Paul S. Reinsch, University of Wisconsin 
 Benjamin F. Shambaugh, University of Iowa 
 Eugene Wambangh, Harvard University Law School 
 
 W. W. Willoughby, Managing Editor, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md. 
 
 Vol. VI 
 
 MAY, 1912 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 No. 2 
 
 pi' 
 
 J'.il;!:! i! S‘ . 
 
 iiidii. 
 iiiipdliill 
 iliii* 
 
 Govermnental Regulation of Insurance in Canada 
 
 Avard L. Bishop .. 175 
 
 The Parliament Act of 1911... .A. L. P. Dennis. ... 194 
 
 The New Role of the Governor...J. M. Mathews. .216 
 
 Notes on Current Legislation...Horace E. Flack...229 
 
 British National Insturance Act; Civil Service; Legislative Investigations; Reports of Occupa¬ 
 tional Diseases and Accidents; State Fire Prevention. 
 
 News and Notes: 
 
 Personal and Bibliographical.. —W. F. Dodd.__ _ .... 245 
 
 Wfeconsin State Board of Public Affairs..... 266 
 
 Book Reviews....268 
 
 ^ Recent Government Publications of Political 
 
 Interest.Carl Hookstadt. 
 
 320 
 
 Index to Recent Literature, Books and Periodicals. .335 
 
 (For list of Book Reviews, see second page of cover) 
 
 Published Quarterly by The American Political Science Association 
 
 Entered at the Post Office, Concord, N. H., as second-class matter, under the Act of July z6,1894. 
 
REVIEW OF BOOKS 
 
 Ross —The Changing Chinese. A. B. Hart... 268 
 
 Reinsch —Intellectual and Political Currents in the Far East. 
 
 A. B. Hart. 268 
 
 Goodnow —Social Reform and the Constitution. E. S. Corwin... 270 
 
 King —History of the Government of Denver. Frank A. 
 
 Updyke. 276 
 
 Ilbert —Parliament. Thomas F. Moran. 278 
 
 Reinsch —Public International Unions. C. D. Allin. 278 
 
 Marriott —English Political Institutions. George H. Haynes.... 281 
 
 Fite —The Presidential Campaign of 1860... 282 
 
 Hill—World Organization as Affected by the Nature of the 
 
 Modern State. Francis W. Coker.... 284 
 
 Jellinek —Ausgewahlte Schriften und Reden. Ernst Freund.... 286 
 
 Chadwick —Relations of the United States and Spain. J. H. 
 
 Latan4. 288 
 
 Hart —The Obvious Orient. Edward A. Ross.. 291 
 
 Morse —The International Relations of the Chinese Empire. 
 
 Jesse S. Reeves.. 291 
 
 Hackett —Reminiscences of the Geneva Tribunal of Arbitration. 
 
 Jesse S. Reeves....... 293 
 
 Hammond —The Village Laborer, 1760-1832. Edward Porritt 294 
 Hang —The Commercial Code of Japan. Arthur K. Kuhn...... 297 
 
 Dasent —The Speakers of the House of Commons. Edward 
 
 Porritt. 299 
 
 Wilcox —Municipal Franchises. W. F. Willoughby. 301 
 
 Leu'pp —The Indian and His Problem. Karl F. Geiser. 304 
 
 Learning —A Philadelphia Lawyer in the London Courts. 306 
 
 McCall —The Business of Congress... 307 
 
 Hauriou —Precis de droit administratif et de droit public. 7th ed. 
 
 J. W. Garner. 309 
 
 Childs —Short Ballot Principles. Arthur Ludington. .. 310 
 
 Patterson —The Constitutions of Ohio. T. L. Sidlo. 315 
 
 Schuster —^The German Commercial Code. E. M. B... 316 
 
 Reed —The Territorial Basis of Government under the State 
 
 Constitutions. J. M. Mathews. 317 
 
 Perkins —France and the American Revolution. C. W. Alvord. 318 
 
 Schroeder —Obscene Literature and Constitutional Law. I. 
 
 Maurice Wormser. . .. 319 
 
 The American Political Science Review is supplied to all members 
 of the American Political Science Association. 
 
 The annual dues are three dollars a year. Single numbers of the 
 Review are sold for seventy-five cents each. 
 
 Correspondence with reference to contributions to the Review, and 
 books for review, should be sent to W. W. Willoughby, Managing Editor, 
 Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md., U. S. A. 
 
 Copyright, 1912, by The American Political Science Association. 
 
I 
 
 / 
 
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 * 
 
 
THE NEW ROLE OF THE GOVERNOR. 
 
 JOHN M;' MATHEWS 
 
 « • • 
 
 University of Illinois 
 
 About twenty years ago, Mr. Bryce, with microscopic vision, 
 observed that the state governor was ^^not yet a nonentity.’ 
 On the other hand the state legislature was ^^so much the strong¬ 
 est force in the several states that we may almost call it the 
 Government and ignore all other authorities. The strange¬ 
 ness of sound with which these statements strike our ears at 
 the present day is indicative of the length of the road which we 
 have since traveled and of the change which has taken place 
 within recent years in the relative positions of the governor and 
 the legislature in our state governments. The unmistakable 
 tendency which now prevails in many quarters towards an 
 enlargement of the power of the governor directs attention 
 anew to the administrative and political position which that 
 officer occupies and to the manner in which his influence and 
 prestige have been, and may be still further, increased. 
 
 The administrative position of the governor has been unsat¬ 
 isfactory since the original organization of the state governments. 
 The first state constitutions were largely adaptations of the 
 colonial charters to new conditions and were framed in the light 
 of colonial experience. The conflicts that had taken place 
 between the colonial governors, appointed by the crown, and 
 the colonial legislatures, composed of representatives of the 
 people, had embittered the colonists against the exercise of 
 executive authority. Hence, in the new state constitutions, 
 the predominant legal position was assigned to the legislature, 
 which was made the controlling and regulating force in the 
 state governments, while the executive was rendered weak and 
 inefficient both in organization and function. As Madison 
 
 1 American Commonwealth, 3rd ed., vol. I, p. 532. » Ihid., p. 534. 
 
THE NEW ROLE OF THE GOVERNOR 
 
 217 
 
 1 
 
 o* 
 
 ox 
 
 i 
 
 succinctly expressed it in the Convention of 1787, ^^The execu¬ 
 tives of the states are in general little more than ciphers; the 
 legislatures omnipotent/’^ In no state was the governor given 
 an independent power of appointing the administrative officers 
 of the commonwealth, but this power was largely vested in the 
 legislature, and in the majority of states, even the governor 
 himself was appointed by the legislature. 
 
 The reaction towards democracy which swept over the country 
 during the early part of the last century served to curtail the 
 power of appointment both of the legislature and of the governor 
 and to lodge it nominally in the people but really in the party 
 managers, where it has since remained. In the constitutions 
 adopted by the new states admitted during this period and in 
 the revisions effected by the old ones, the chief administrative 
 officers of the state are, in nearly all cases, made elective by 
 the people and thus independent of each other and of the gov¬ 
 ernor. Even in those cases in which the governor retained a 
 limited power of appointment, no power of removal was allowed 
 him s^jJffcient to create any practical control over administra¬ 
 tion. In the leading case of Field v. People,"^ decided in 1840, 
 the Supreme Court of Illinois declared unwarranted the attempt 
 of the governor to remove his secretary of state from office, on 
 the ground that the general grant of executive power by the 
 Constitution to the governor did not include the power of 
 removal, and that he could exercise no power not expressly 
 granted to him in the Constitution or laws. In 1873 a further 
 illustration of the impotence of the governor in respect to re¬ 
 moval was afforded in New Jersey. The police commissioners 
 of Jersey City, who were state officers and charged by the state 
 with the enforcement of the law^ in that city, were tried and 
 convicted in the county court upon indictment for conspiracy 
 to defraud the city of public funds. The governor, with the 
 laudable intent of ridding the state administration of officers 
 whose unfitness had thus been unequivocally demonstrated, 
 undertook to remove them from office. The supreme court of 
 the state, however, held that the right to remove a state officer, 
 
 »Elliot’s Debates, vol. V, p. 327. «3 Ill., 79. 
 
 
218 
 
 THE AMERICAN POLITICAL SCIENCE REVIEW 
 
 even for proved malfeasance in office did not belong to the 
 executive, that the act of removal was judicial in character 
 and belonged only to the court of impeachment.^ The result 
 was that, until the cumbrous machinery of impeachment could 
 be brought into operation, the people of the state had to 
 endure the unedifying spectacle of the enforcement of the law 
 entrusted to men who not only ought to have been, but were, 
 convicts. 
 
 The governor’s lack of the power of removal is apt also to 
 produce a serious disharmony in administration when, as not 
 infrequently happens, important administrative officers serve 
 for longer terms than does the governor himself, and may also 
 belong to the opposite political party. A recently elected gov¬ 
 ernor was much embarrassed to find, upon his election, that 
 his attorney-general, whom he could not remove, would hold 
 office for a longer term than his own, and had presided over 
 the party convention which had nominated his leading 
 opponent in the gubernatorial campaign. 
 
 The manifest incongruities which this diffusion of executive 
 power produces have caused a slight reaction towards allowing 
 the governor a larger control over the administrative officers 
 of the state. This has been effected in some states by granting 
 him, either constitutionally or by statute, a greater power of 
 appointment and removal, and also the power to require infor¬ 
 mation from executive officers as to the working of their depart¬ 
 ments. For example, by the Illinois Constitution of 1870, the 
 governor was given the power ^To remove any officer whom he 
 may appoint, in case of incompetency, neglect of duty, or mal¬ 
 feasance in office.”® A number of states have adopted a similar 
 rule, either by constitution or statute, and substantially the 
 same provision is copied into the constitution of New Mexico. 
 By the constitutions of thirty-two states, including those 
 recently adopted in Alabama, Oklahoma, Michigan, and Ari¬ 
 zona, the governor is empowered to require information in 
 
 6 State V. Pritchard; 7 Vroom (N. J. L.), 101. 
 
 e Thorpe, Charters and Constitutions, vol. II, p. 1025. 
 
THE NEW HOLE OF THE GOVERNOR 
 
 219 
 
 writing from the officers of the executive department upon 
 any subject relating to the duties of their respective offices. 
 
 The slight reform which has thus been wrought in the direc¬ 
 tion of centralizing the control of state administration in the 
 hands of the governor has not, however, assumed sufficient 
 dimensions to produce any great change in his administrative 
 position nor to place in his hands any very effective control over 
 the law-enforcing officers of the state. The result has been 
 and is that the will of the majority of the people of the state 
 presumably expressed in the law is frequently thwarted and 
 set at naught. The prevalent non-enforcement of state law 
 is largely due to the fact that the diffusion of executive power 
 deprives state-wide public opinion of any adequate facilities 
 for the control of public policy. Adverse local sentiment and 
 the malign influence of ^Apolitical experts’’ cause petty executive 
 officers to interpret the state will to suit their own purposes, and 
 in many instances the latter actually control the determination 
 of public policy within the range of their official activity or 
 possible non-activity. State excise and other laws remain unen¬ 
 forced because upon the officers charged with their enforce¬ 
 ment there rests no continuous pressure of responsibility to the 
 general public, capable of being applied by the governor. State 
 election laws will doubtless continue to be violated and whole¬ 
 sale election frauds to be connived at under a system in which 
 a community of interest exists between the political managers 
 and their appointees, the sheriffs, and in wffiich the latter officers 
 in turn practically control the selection of the grand juries. 
 
 Of many startling examples of the disregard of law due at 
 least in part to the disintegration of the state administrative 
 system, the so-called ^Tobacco war” in Kentucky may be cited 
 as an example. 
 
 AAfn December, 1905, in Todd County, in the circuit court 
 room, packed by excited men, a lawyer declared that if they 
 (the night riders) did violate the law they ought not to be pun¬ 
 ished, and would not be prosecuted while he was Common¬ 
 wealth’s attorney, and the very next night one tobacco factory 
 was burned and another set on fire, and the following Monday 
 
220 
 
 THE AMERICAN POLITICAL SCIENCE REVIEW 
 
 night a large band of armed and masked men held up a railroad 
 train and searched it for tobacco and dynamited a snuff factory, 
 and although the circuit court was in session, with a grand 
 jury empaneled, no one was indicted or punished.’^^ 
 
 Local officers and even judges were in sympathy with the 
 night riders, and it is significant that the judges and state’s 
 attorneys were elected by the people and not subject to removal 
 or correction by the governor. Those who bewail the prevalent 
 disregard of law and attribute all lawlessness to the pusillanim¬ 
 ity of sheriffs, state’s attorneys and grand juries may well 
 consider whether this condition of affairs is not due rather to 
 the system of nominal popular election of local executive officers, 
 . who are thus actually placed under the control of sinister unof¬ 
 ficial influences, and to the consequent lack of general popular 
 control over them which might otherwise be exercised through 
 the effective administrative supervision of the governor. 
 
 From this sketch of the administrative position of the governor 
 it appears evident that the increase in the power and prestige 
 of that officer, noted at the beginning of this paper, arises not 
 at all, or only slightly, from an increased control over adminis¬ 
 tration. We therefore turn to inquire what influence the gov¬ 
 ernor exerts over legislation. 
 
 In the first state constitutions, as has been pointed out, the 
 legislature was given a position completely overshadowing the 
 other departments of government. Since then, however, a 
 popular distrust of the legislature has arisen and steadily grown 
 until it has become one of the most striking political phenomena 
 of the present day. A history of state legislatures would be 
 largely concerned with the successive development of various 
 methods of curtailing the almost absolute power which those 
 bodies originally possessed. Leaving for the moment out of 
 account the usurpation of legislative power by the so-called 
 ^Third house,” we may say that this general movement has 
 manifested itself in the transfer of legislative power from the 
 
 1 Message of Governor Willson of Kentucky to the legislature of that state, Jan¬ 
 uary, 1908, quoted in Reports of American Bar Association, vol. XXXIV, p. 416. 
 
THE NEW HOLE OF THE GOVERNOR 
 
 221 
 
 legislatures (a) to the courts, (b) to the people, and (c) to the 
 governor. 
 
 The transfer of legislative power to the courts arose, of course, 
 through the early development of the power of the judiciary 
 to annul unconstitutional legislation. The more recent ten¬ 
 dency to incorporate ordinary legislation in state constitutions, 
 to prescribe narrowly in those instruments the powers of the 
 legislatures and the manner in which they may be exercised, 
 and to define minutely the organization and functions of various 
 branches of the government, has served greatly to increase the 
 power of the judicary over legislation. 
 
 The prevalent distrust of the legislature further manifests 
 itself in the adoption of the popular initiative and referendum 
 as applied, not to matters of constitutional revision or of merely 
 local interest, but to ordinary legislation of state-wide concern. 
 These ‘^newer institutional forms of democracy’’ appear to 
 give a greater popular control over legislation, but their legiti¬ 
 mate application is confined to those matters upon which the 
 people are capable of passing, viz., simple and broad questions 
 of public policy. It may be noted, in passing, that provisions 
 for the introduction of the initiative and referendum incidentally 
 place a check upon the legislative power of the governor by 
 forbidding him to exercise his veto in regard to measures referred 
 to the people.^ It would seem probable, however, that in so 
 far as this is a real check upon ^the power of the governor, it 
 will not prove to be permanent. On the whole, the initiative 
 and referendum appear to be passing phenomena, useful perhaps 
 in an emergency, but not fitted to serve as a steady regimen. 
 True reform towards real democratic state government lies not 
 in the direction of these popular nostrums, but in the direction 
 of the increasing control of the governor over the state’s legis¬ 
 lative product. ^^The true initiative of the people is not a 
 legal initiative, but the originating and stimulating force of 
 articulate public opinion operating through the effective instru¬ 
 mentality of the responsible executive head of the state gov- 
 
 8 See, for example, the Constitution of Oklahoma, Thorpe, op. cit., vol. VII, p. 
 4278, and the Constitution of Arizona, art. iv, sect. 1. 
 
222 
 
 THE AMERICAN POLITICAL SCIENCE REVIEW 
 
 eminent.’^^ The increasing influence of the governor over 
 legislation is the comparatively new role which he is now begin¬ 
 ning to play, and which, in its relation to popular control of 
 government, bids fair to become one of the most important 
 developments in the history of the state governments. 
 
 Legally speaking, the governor has exercised from the begin¬ 
 ning a certain amount of control over legislation by means of 
 his veto. Conferred but grudgingly at first, and not at all 
 except in two states, it has been gradually extended until now 
 only one state still withholds it.^® At the same time the size of 
 the majority required to overcome the veto has steadily increased 
 until now in most states it approximates two thirds. Further¬ 
 more the efficiency of the veto has been increased through the 
 power now granted the governor in more than thirty states to 
 veto separate items of appropriation bills, and in three states 
 this privilege has even been made to apply to any bill.^^ In 
 all these cases, of course, the governor’s veto is a qualified one 
 only, but it may become absolute with regard to legislation 
 passed shortly before the adjournment of the session. Mention 
 may also be made in this connection of the lengthening of the 
 governor’s term of office, and of the partial abandonment of 
 the provision which renders him ineligible to succeed himself. 
 It thus appears that the tendency of constitutional development 
 has been towards increasing the legal power of the governor 
 over the course of legislation. But this tendency has not yet 
 advanced far enough to give the governor any very real and 
 effective control over the shaping of legislative policy. The 
 veto power is evidence in the law of the general recognition of 
 the desirability of granting to the governor some share in the 
 formulation of the will of the state as embodied in legislation. 
 But in spite of the legal sanction of this principle, the veto power 
 is illogical and insufficient in that it carries only one side of 
 that principle into practical effect. The plain fact is that the 
 
 » The New Stateism, by the present writer, in the North American Review for June, 
 1911. 
 
 loDealey, Our State Constitutions, p. 31. 
 
 Ibid, p. 32. 
 
THE NEW ROLE OF THE GOVERNOR 
 
 223 
 
 governor is held responsible for controlling the course of legisla¬ 
 tion, but is not given the legal power commensurate with^ 
 that responsibility. He can sometimes block • vicious legisla¬ 
 tion, ^^jokers,’’ ^hiders,’^ and ‘^jobs,’’ but he has legally no 
 correlative power of initiating and pushing through legislation 
 which is demanded by intelligent public opinion. Unless the 
 governor is given both these powers he ought not rightfully 
 to be held responsible for the course that legislation takes. 
 But whether rightfully or not the people are holding him respon¬ 
 sible because he alone stands out conspicuously among state 
 officers. In the hydra-headed legislative body no strikingly 
 prominent figure can be found, upon whom responsibility can 
 be saddled. The course of legislative procedure is so confused, 
 and desirable legislation may be emasculated, smothered, and 
 killed in so many different ways in the scuffle and scramble of 
 legislation that the people find it impossible to fix the blame 
 within the legislature. As has been so often observed, the 
 actual process of legislation has deserted the legislative cham¬ 
 bers, and now takes place behind the closed doors of committee 
 rooms. And even if the progress of the public business within 
 the committee rooms were entirely open to the public view, the 
 people would doubtless still be confused by the multiplicity of 
 committees, each responsible for only a comparatively small 
 part of the whole field of legislation. Since no one looms up in 
 the legislature that can be held responsible, the governor, who 
 stands off exasperatingly powerless, is made the scapegoat. 
 The deplorable morass into which the state business thus falls 
 has led some publicists to advocate the entire abolition of the 
 legislature.Others, such as Mr. U’Ren,^^ Mr. Croly,^^ and 
 Mr. White,disgusted by the results of the present great 
 diffusion or responsibility both in administration and in legis- 
 
 12 Cf. Dealey, op. cit., p. 9. 
 
 13 Bill for a Law and Suggested Amendments to the Constitution of Oregon, 
 pamphlet, Portland, Oregon, August 14, 1909. 
 
 i< The Promise of American Life, chap. XI. 
 
 1* PoHtical Science Quarterly, vol. XVIII, p. 655. 
 
224 
 
 THE AMERICAN POLITICAL SCIENCE REVIEW 
 
 lation, advocate a thoroughgoing reorganization of the state 
 governments upon entirely new linesd® 
 
 Meanwhile, however, a development is taking place and 
 being gradually wrought out before our eyes which may render 
 any radical reconstruction of the state governments along legal 
 lines not only unnecessary but undesirable. “The whole coun¬ 
 try,’’ says Governor Wilson of New Jersey, “since it cannot 
 decipher the methods of its legislation, is clamoring for leader¬ 
 ship, and a new role, which to many persons seems little less 
 than unconstitutional, is thrust upon our executives. The 
 people are impatient of a President who will not formulate 
 policy and insist upon its adoption. They are impatient of a 
 governor who will not exercise energetic leadership, who will 
 not make his appeals directly to public opinion and insist that 
 the dictates of public opinion be carried out in definite legal 
 reforms of his own suggestion.Some of the subtle, extra- 
 legal, and largely unforeseen influences which have raised the 
 President to the predominant position which he occupies in 
 the National Government are now, in spite of the greater legal 
 difficulties in the way, beginning similarly to affect the position 
 of the governor. By the gradual accretion of precedent, and 
 by the growth of custom, the governor is forging the instrument 
 of control over both the initiation and the passage of legislation. 
 This extra-legal instrument is the personal influence of the 
 governor, supported by the full force of “pitiless publicity” 
 and public discussion. This is a much broader power than 
 that which is usually associated with the right of sending mes¬ 
 sages to the legislature. It is true, as has been recently pointed 
 out,^^ the message power has not been used by governors to 
 the extent which the language of the state constitutions would 
 warrant. They “give him the right to recommend measures 
 and do not limit him in respect to the form in which he shall 
 
 16 These plans are summarized in Beard, American Government and Politics, pp. 
 504-6. 
 
 Address before the Commercial Club of Portland, Oregon, May 18, 1911. 
 
 13 Address of Governor Woodrow Wilson of New Jersey before the House of Gov¬ 
 ernors, Frankfort, Kentucky, November 29, 1910. 
 
THE NEW ROLE OF THE GOVERNOR 
 
 225 
 
 make his recommendations. He can make them in the form 
 of bills if he pleases.”^® But, as Mr. Henry L. Stimson has 
 remarked, ^^the executive ought not to be forced to resort to 
 innovating constructions. The course of co-operation between 
 governor and legislature ought to be made easy and natural, 
 instead of forced and difficult.Xo obviate this difficulty a 
 method of procedure has already been devised through the 
 introduction in state legislatures of so-called ^^administration 
 bills,’’ which are nominally fathered by some member of the 
 legislature but which really emanate from the governor. But 
 in securing the passage of such bills after their introduction the 
 personal influence of the governor comes into play. Already 
 in some states we find the governor appearing before informal 
 meetings of legislative committees, discussing with them ques¬ 
 tions of public policy, and advocating the measures that 
 public opinion demands. The personal influence of the gov¬ 
 ernor is not the influence of coercion or the selling of appoint¬ 
 ments for favorable votes on administration bills. Such tactics 
 sooner or later undermine the influence of the executive. 
 But the real influence of the governor over the legislature, as 
 Governor Wilson has pointed out, consists in his power to repre¬ 
 sent, to persuade, and to lead the people.^^ If by his qualities 
 of leadership and the force of his arguments, he can persuade 
 the people during the campaign, the same qualities will give 
 him such a personal ascendancy over the legislature after his 
 election that he will be able to lead that body also.^^ The 
 
 Ihid. 
 
 20 Address delivered at the McKinley Day Banquet of the Tippecanoe Club of 
 Cleveland, Ohio, January 28, 1911, pamphlet, p. 13. 
 
 21 In the Frankfort address. 
 
 22 A step has been taken in New Jersey towards granting the governor or candidate 
 for governor in each party a greater influence over the formulation of the public 
 policy which, as governor, he may have to carry into effect. By a recent enactment 
 of that state it is provided that a state convention of each party shall be held annually 
 for the purpose of adopting and promulgating a party platform, which convention 
 shall be composed of the party candidates who have been nominated at the party 
 primaries for the office of member of the Assembly or State Senator, together with 
 hold-over Senators, members of the State Committee, and “the candidate of the 
 party for Governor nominated at the said primaries in the year in which a Governor 
 
226 
 
 THE AMERICAN POLITICAL SCIENCE REVIEW 
 
 legislature must be led by some person or persons. It cannot 
 pass upon all measures that come before it without guidance 
 from some source. Legislative policies do not, as a rule, origi¬ 
 nate in the legislature itself. They usually emanate from out¬ 
 side sources, sometimes legitimate but too often illegitimate. 
 The bosses have too frequently dictated the passage or the 
 sidetracking of measures. ^Tn his new role the governor 
 becomes the virtual boss and shapes the course of legislation for 
 the general benefit, instead of for private and special interests. 
 There is little danger in such bossism, for the governor can be 
 held accountable by the people, while the unofficial boss cannot. 
 This does not imply that the governor is in continual conflict 
 with the legislature and wields the big stick of his personal influ¬ 
 ence over them. On the contrary, he works, as far as possible, 
 in entire harmony and co-operation with them. Co-ordination, 
 not separation, is the proper relation between the executive 
 and legislative departments which the governor endeavors to 
 foster. But, in the case of a recalcitrant legislature, the gover¬ 
 nor's power of appealing directly to the people always remains 
 in reserve, though its existence would usually render its exercise 
 unnecessary. . . . For, no matter how jealous a legislature 
 
 may be of its own prerogatives, no matter how incapable it 
 may be of being bulldozed, wheedled, or cajoled by threats or 
 intimidation on the part of the governor, it cannot withstand 
 the force of pitiless publicity wielded by a vigorous, independent, 
 and courageous governor, supported by the pressure of intelli¬ 
 gent and aroused public opinion. And it is the function of the 
 governor to keep it aroused by a continuous and relentless 
 application of repeated doses of publicity throughout the whole 
 
 course of legislation.^^^3 
 
 The open leadership of an able, responsible, and fearless 
 governor is thus becoming an effective instrumentality for the 
 
 is elected, and in each year in which no Governor is elected, the Governor of the 
 State shall be a member of the convention of the pohtical party to which he belongs.’’ 
 New Jersey Session Laws of 1911, Chap. 183, p. 276. 
 
 This passage is quoted from an article by the present writer on The New Stateism 
 in the North American Review, June, 1911. 
 
THE NEW HOLE OF THE GOVERNOR 
 
 227 
 
 control of public policy by public opinion. Only men of unusual 
 ability are capable of playing this new role of the governor, but 
 the opportunity which thus presents itself for the display of 
 statesmanlike qualities will induce a much abler type of man to 
 become a candidate for the office than has hitherto been the 
 case. A ^^House of Governors,’’ if composed of a number of 
 such able and independent leaders, will, though entirely extra- 
 legal in character, become one of the most influential bodies 
 in the country in shaping the course of general state legislation. 
 
 The significance of the increasing influence of the governor 
 lies in the fact that through him the people have found a means 
 of controlling the formulation of public policy. The concentra¬ 
 tion of large power in the hands of a single responsible officer no 
 longer excites fear of tyranny, but is seen to be a step towards 
 true democracy. Government becomes, if not by the people, 
 at least for the people. 
 
 The natural desire of the people for leadership has hitherto 
 found its manifestation largely in boss-rule. The power of 
 the boss has been due to the fact that he has performed two 
 functions which must of necessity be assumed by some one. 
 These are the dictation of legislation, and the appointment of 
 ^nominally elective officers. In other words, he has controlled 
 both legislation and administration. Since the bodies empow¬ 
 ered by law to perform these functions are not fitted to do so, 
 the functions must of necessity be either usurped by some organ¬ 
 ization outside the governmental system, such as the political 
 machine, or else transferred to some other body within the 
 government better qualified for their proper discharge. Hith¬ 
 erto the former alternative has been very largely followed, but 
 more recently, as has been shown, perceptible progress has been 
 made towards transferring the control of legislation from the 
 unofficial boss to the governor. Even, however, should the 
 boss be completely ousted from the control of legislation, he • 
 can still take refuge behind the breastworks of the long ballot. 
 Hence, in order that the power of the governor may be fully 
 commensurate with his responsibility, it will be necessary that 
 the number of elective state officers be reduced and greater 
 
228 
 
 THE AMERICAN POLITICAL SCIENCE REVIEW 
 
 power of appointment and removal vested in the governor. 
 In bringing about this much-needed reform, the newly acquired 
 influence of the governor over legislation is likely to be a potent 
 factor. The greater co-ordination which the governor in his 
 new role effects between himself and the legislature tends to 
 establish those governmental and political conditions which 
 will be conducive to the adoption of the short ballot. As soon 
 as the people become fully aware of the far-reaching evils arising 
 from the present disintegrated administrative system in the 
 states, they will be assisted in finding a remedy by the possi¬ 
 bility of greater control over the state business which the new 
 position of the governor places in their hands. 
 
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