barriers and to carry on "overflow" business in the private library. On one occasion a newspaper correspondent, waiting in the anteroom for "a word or two" with the President, was stealthily beckoned into the hall by the astute and quiet guardian who for many years has sat or stood at the door of the Cabinet Room.

"Go into the library," whispered the captain.

Once there, the correspondent learned that his visit was ill-timed; that the senators and representatives of Congress demanded a monopoly of the President's time until noon, which is the hour for the beginning of their daily session; and that once before this scribe had brought complaint upon the President's weary head because he was received while one or two of the legis lators waited. This day a foreign minister and a European geographer of fame and he constituted the flecks of spray which were thrown into the private apartments of the house from the weltering human tide that tossed in the halls and anteroom, and eddied and back-watered in the Cabinet Room.

The crowd of business visitors is one thing; that of curious travelers is quite another. These come and will continue to come singly and in companies, all moved by the desire to see with their own eyes and to grasp with their own hands. They flock into the East Room, and they treat it as if it were the waiting-room at a railway-station. Bride and groom, old couples taking their first vacation after years of hard and prosperous toil, the excursionist in groups, the youth with ambitions, the woman with a mission in shoals, the honest American citizen paying his respects, sometimes awkwardly, but nearly always with a visible sense of the right to be there, visit the home which was built by the country for their President. Aware as they are, however, of their right to visit this famous room and to sit in its chairs, there is usually the hush and whisper of regard as for a shrine, as there is trepidation in the manner in which the visitors receive the greetings of the President. Only once have I seen a casual family completely and easily at home in the East Room, and this feeling of perfect intimacy was manifested by the sallow wife and mother of a sallow husband and sallow children, all bearing evidence, in complexion and lassitude, of lives spent

in the midst of one of our most unwholesome swamps. They were listlessly lolling through the apartment when suddenly the guardian woman, diving into a capacious bag and bringing forth a bottle of medicine, seized first upon her husband and then upon the children, one after another, pouring into each a throatful of the cure-all.

The President is an object of curiosity, but he is also the most distinguished man in the country. Crowds, it is true, flock at railway-stations to see other men, and there is a catholic and democratic indiscrimination in the popular eagerness to behold with the eye of sense those who are in the newspapers. The attraction may be a prizefighter, or a soldier, or a prince, or a jester. or an anarchist; but the President is something different. He is an idea. He is the eidolon of the government. The people go to see him not only from curiosity, not only "to be able to say that I've seen him," as the phrase goes: there is also an element of patriotism in their feeling for him; they want to pay him respect. An absence of the critical spirit or mood, usually so characteristic of the American attitude toward individuals, is noticeable among the groups of people who are waiting in the White House in anticipation of seeing the President. There is unmitigated, unqualified pleasure from the anticipation. There is absolute joy from the touch of his right hand, the common property of the nation. There is nearly always awkwardness in their greeting of him. Proud as they have been in the thought of coming into actual personal contact with the head of the government, and proud as they will afterward be of the honor of their visit, many of the President's callers shake his hand in visible trepidation, and are eager to pass on, dreading apparently lest he speak in such a way as to require a response. Even the pert, who are determined to address him, are clearly embarrassed, and rarely say precisely what they intended. To the mass of American citizens who are represented in these visiting bodies

neighborhood excursionists, temperance, Masonic, commercial travelers, and other flocks of citizenship-the office of President is impressive-still the most impressive of American institutions. The American may entirely disapprove of his President and his policy; may even believe the lies that are told concerning his personal hab

its; may on the street, at his office or in his shop, or even at home, deride him, and express contempt for his political opinions; may go so far as to look upon him as an enemy of the country, for the American partizan is extravagant and even hysterical: but when he is in the presence of the President he seems tongue-tied, as if he were before what they call in monarchies "our August Ruler." Thus we catch a glimpse of the true sentiment of the private American citizen for the impersonal President.

It is quite different with the politician who has come into daily contact with the embodied President. Occasionally a legislator will address the President's intellect, and will endeavor to convince him of the soundness of his cause. Oftener the attempt will be to show the President that his own personal fortunes will be furthered by assenting to the legislator's plans and by lending to them whatever of influence in Congress he may possess. At other times, and on different occasions, party leaders, in Congress and out, will skirt along the edge of disrespect, and there will be a vibration of anger in the threatening remark: "If you don't give us B for collector, you'll hurt the organization." This means, in reality, that if the President does not do what he is desired to do, the organization will hurt him.

The curious and worshipful visitors grasp the President's hand, and there is perhaps too much freedom of approach to any one who wills to come; but this freedom has not bred undue familiarity, for the American man or woman, with or without manners, is innately polite. The grade of familiarity with the President which offends the sensibilities of those to whom physical pawing is repulsive and vulgar is the vice of the politician who goes to the White House to beg or demand offices. To him the President is the agent of the party and of the Senate for the distribution of whatever of spoils the present civil-service law has left afloat. The room in which he is received is the shop, in which he may or may not wear his hat as the mood seizes him. The man whom he addresses is in possession of certain offices-ministerships, judgeships, consulships, marshalships, collectorships, and clerkships-which are to be distributed among politicians. He is after his share, and he conducts his part of the conversation on the drummer theory that

the other dealer in the transaction must be impressed with the belief that it will be to his advantage to comply with the demands made upon him.

The private citizen who procures an opportunity to "pay his respects" is likely to rise from his chair when the President enters the reception-room, and to remain standing until the President retires. I have, indeed, seen a Boston editor remain seated while the President stood over him and talked to him; but that was nervousness, not ill manners. Most senators and representatives remain seated while the President is in the room, because their respect. for the office is worn out-worn out in the constant friction of political trading. They are aggressively on an even footing with the head of the executive service, with the fountain of patronage. Some of them resent the interview in public which Mr. Roosevelt compels most of the time. They have been accustomed to private talks in the Cabinet Room. Now and then a senator will make the effort to substitute the ostentatious whisper for withdrawal, and is mightily offended if the President answers in loud tones, to the edification and information of a roomful of other, perhaps of some hostile, company. Naturally an important person is not pleased by a conversation something like this:

I. P. (whispering).

President (very loud): "No, sir; I shall not do it."

I. P. (whispering, a pink flush stealing into his cheeks).

President (still very loud): Because your friend is not worthy."

I. P. (flushing angrily, but still whispering).

President: "No, sir; I shall not reconsider. Your friend has a bad record, and though, as you say, he may have been persecuted, I have n't time to inquire, and there are enough unsuspected men in this country to fill all the offices."

I. P. (very red, jamming on his hat, striding briskly toward the door, and now speaking as loud as the President): "Well, good morning, sir."

This is not a pleasant interview, except for the important person's enemies; nor is the effect of the President's graciousness agreeable to those who love seemliness, when gratitude finds expression in a whisper in the Presidential ear, the beneficiary

The character of the business of the White House-the business which politicians bring to it-is paltry. A President once, speaking of a man high in office,so high that the temptation to dignity and worthiness must often have nearly moved him, thus described his daily rounds:

"When he is ready for business in the morning, he gathers his troop and marches them from one department to another; then when he has gathered in all that the cabinet officers are able and willing to bestow upon him and his crowd, he says: 'Now let's go and see what we can get out of old the blank old person

being the President himself.

Naturally, the lower in the scale of importance that business falls, the more numerous become the persons who are capable of engaging in it. There are hardly a dozen men in the country who can seriously consider the purchase of a thousand miles of railway, with the other property and business of a great corporation; but there are tens, nay, hundreds, of thousands of persons who might reasonably be approached with a proposition to buy out a local express route. Not half a dozen statesmen habitually visit the President to consult with him on important and difficult problems, and these are likely to go by appointment and to have that privacy which is denied to the hundreds who go of their own volition, for their own gain, intent upon securing postmasterships for faithful or hoped-for supporters.

There are exceptions, of course, to the rule that retail dealers must offer their goods on the highway, in the face of the public-on one occasion a senator was received in private in order that he might try to convince the President that the latter's reëlection was largely dependent on his granting to a "friend" of the senator's (the "organization") the restaurant privilege at an immigrant station; the rule holds, however, emphasized by the infrequent exception, and the crowd that once surged over the White House stairway and its halls and reception-room, and which is now at home in the new "executive offices," is a retail crowd, engaged in those paltry concerns comprehended of recent years in the expressive term "peanut politics." It is this crowd and its affairs that encroached

White House; that necessitated additions to the clerical force; that filled the sometime private secretary's room with clicking typewriters, ringing telephone bells, and nerverasping telegraph instruments; and that eventually convinced congressmen by ocular demonstration of the necessity for moving the shop out of the house. Major Pruden, who died not long ago, and who had been a clerk in the "executive office" for many years, used to describe the difference between the amount of business done in these modern times and that which occupied him and his fellow-clerks in the days when General Grant was President. It was perfectly convenient in those earlier days, perfectly consistent with the full discharge of their duties, for the few clerks at the White House to play croquet on the southern lawn during office hours. Some one was left on duty in the secretary's room; perhaps it was the secretary himself, and his voice was occasionally heard calling out of the window to the group on the lawn:

"Hello! There's a letter come; one of you come up here!"

And now, far on in the evening, half a dozen clerks yawn and wonder when they are to get home and to bed, for many answers are yet to be written, or telegrams may possibly arrive before the President himself retires. Meanwhile the head of the nation is toiling at the tasks from which he has been kept most of the day by his visitors, and by his correspondence, also chiefly concerned with small politics. Frequently he writes far into the night, and not seldom for ends which he believes would promote the general welfare, if they could be realized, but which, as he knows, he is not likely to accomplish, for the simple reason that within the bounds of law he is not powerful; indeed, against a majority in Congress he is absolutely powerless. He has influence, indeed, but, as George Washington wrote to Henry Lee, “influence is no government."

There is, of course, a reason why the office-seeking public throngs the White House; why the larger part of the consultations with the President have the distribution of patronage for their subject; why one hears comparatively little of the more important business of government. The President is the head of his party in so far

as public offices are parceled out for the purpose of maintaining the party organization; that is, for the purpose of paying those who do the necessary party tasks and who, like other servants, cannot be expected to work without hire. It is true that even here, even in the selection of the men who, theoretically at least, are his own subordinates, the President's word is not final. He must yield at last to a senator unless he can persuade him. Still, the President is a factor to be reckoned with, a force to be kept in good humor, one with whom it is safest to get along easily. When, however, it comes to affairs of state, to large questions of policy, to subjects of legislation, he cannot gain his own object against a hostile Congress or Senate, of his own party or the other, cannot move an inch by his own right, by the frank exercise of any constitutional power, can only employ his influence, something which is not possessed by every President; or bargain with his patronage; or fight so strenuously as to arouse popular clamor on his side, which means to demonstrate to the senators and representatives that the sovereign of them all is with him and against them.

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Before he became President, Mr. Roosevelt wrote an article on "The Presidency." He had not then even been nominated for the Vice-Presidency. As the editor of the paper in which the article appeared said in an accompanying note: It will be clear to all readers that the writer of the article could not have foreseen the place he was destined to occupy before its publication." It must be clear also to all who have studied the history of American administrations, and to all observers of contemporaneous politics, that possibly now, after an actual experience as President for more than a year, Mr. Roosevelt might like to modify his opinion as to the extent of the power which is possessed by the President.

Mr. Roosevelt said: "In the whole world there is no other ruler, certainly no other ruler under free institutions, whose power compares with his." It is not my intention to reply to Mr. Roosevelt's article. In a certain general way he is theoretically right, and his interpretations of actual conditions are such as were to be expected from one who had not yet come into hard and hurtful contact with the opinion-of the Senate, for example, as to its proper

place in the federal system. Mr. Roosevelt, for instance, to quote another proposition from his article, says that those who think that the Senate has usurped the President's functions "labor under a misapprehension." "The Senate," he goes on to say, "has no right to dictate to the President who shall be appointed, but it has an entire right to say who shall not be appointed, for under the Constitution this last has been made its duty." Now it has become the habit of the Senate to dictate appointments, as I endeavored to show in an article entitled "The Overshadowing Senate" (published in the February CENTURY). In that article I gave instances in which Presidents have been denied their right of selection, and since Mr. Roosevelt succeeded to the office he has himself discovered the necessity of consulting senators in advance as to whom he might select for office, and as to what he might agree to in a treaty. Indeed, it is his rule, as I stated in that article, to give to senators of his own party the right of selection in their respective States, provided always that they name persons whom he will accept as of good character and as of sufficient capacity.

The popular impression, here and in Europe, is that the President is very powerful. This conception is largely due to the fact that the extent of his power is commonly measured by what a few of our Presidents have been able to accomplish at exceptional times, especially when the nation has been at war, and when the system of checks and balances has absolutely broken down, all restraints upon the President being removed, and when Congress has abandoned its powers and duties. At such times as these the very exercise of ultraconstitutional and illegal powers by the President has but illustrated his powerlessness under the provisions of the law establishing his office, defining its functions, and limiting his jurisdiction. The truth is that the framers of the Constitution intended that the President's power should not be great, that Congress should be the superior power; and the Constitution is framed in accordance with this theory.

It is, however, a striking illustration of prevailing misconceptions as to the character and the significance of our institutions that, in the popular imagination, the President is actually clothed with despotic powers. It is difficult for the ordinary citi

zen to understand why the President cannot accomplish any desire or effect any purpose which he may feel or upon which he may determine. Only a year ago, for instance, Mr. Roosevelt received a telegraphic despatch asking why he did not pass" a certain bill that was then pending before the Senate. This display of profound and lamentable ignorance is not singular; indeed, the failure to comprehend the limitations upon the power of our chief executive is rather general. It does not often show itself, it is true, in a request that the President enact a law, for the very phraseology in which it is necessary to formulate such a proposition would warn most intelligent persons that the task involved is legislative and not executive; but there are very few American women who do not believe that it is easy and proper for a President to set aside a law, while in many instances his refusal to do so has been considered by the petitioners as rude and unfriendly. Men, indeed, do not often directly ask the President to ignore a law, but hardly a day passes which is free from a request to find a short way around the law.

We are usually spoken of in Europe as an exceptionally law-abiding people, but we would be unjust to ourselves if we accepted the intended commendation as wholly true. Laws are often irksome to us. We sometimes chafe under their restraint. We occasionally move them out of our way. We have favored classes above the law, perhaps more completely established than are similar classes in any other country in the government of which there is any leaven of democracy. What our European friends really mean is that, on the whole, we are an orderly people, and when the law is enforced against our desires, we submit without resorting to violence, and almost invariably, in the end, we justify the courageous executive who has compelled us to yield; but very few of us are averse to attempting to induce the executive not to enforce laws against our interests, and when a President, as Mr. Lincoln did, assumes powers essential to the accomplishment of his own and the nation's purpose, many otherwise good citizens rejoice in the law-breaking.

Not only was it the intention of the framers that the President should not be a powerful executive, but the so-called sys

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tem of checks and balances soon became a system of gagging and binding, the President being the victim. The intention of the Constitution-makers as to what should be the extent and limitations of the executive's power is made clear by the text of the Constitution itself. His first power, in the order of enumeration, is that of "commander-in-chief of the army and navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several States, when called into the actual service of the United States." It was not intended, however, that the President should have an entirely free hand. The size of his army and navy is, of course, dictated by Congress, the holder of the pursestrings. In this we but follow the traditions of England. The Constitution went further than this, however, in placing the titular commander-in-chief under the control of the legislative branch of the govern

ment.

Not only does Congress determine the size of the army and navy, and the amount of money that shall be expended on them, but it is also charged with the task of making "rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces." Although the actual composition of the articles of war and of the rules for government and regulation are tasks left to the War and Navy departments, this is merely a delegation of its power by Congress. Moreover, the articles of war are statutory. In dealing with the commander-in-chief and his forces, Congress has assumed virtually all of his most important functions. It, of course, determines when the forces shall be employed in war. It prescribes also how his troops shall be apportioned among the arms of the service; how many of his war-ships shall be battle-ships, how many cruisers, how many gunboats. At times it has left to him and his experts no discretion as to weight of armor, as to the coal capacity of his ships, or as to their speed.

Congress has even debated and determined the relative value of sail- to steampower, and it decided for several of the ships, against the testimony of the experts, that sail-power should accompany steampower. Congress has also insisted upon. determining the tactical formation of the army, and it clung to that which was modern in our Civil War for years after the open formation was urged both by