Meanwhile the actual practice of Congress is to complicate still further the business methods of the departments and to swell the cost of government by manipulating appropriations in aid of patronage. How the thing goes on was thus explained in the course of House debate on an appropriation bill :

"Mr. GILLETT. In framing our bill we frequently have Members of Congress come to us and speak in favor of this and that clerk and ask for a promotion, and it is one of the most unpleasant features of this legislative bill, to avoid giving offense and at the same time not to create the impression which we all can see would be fatal in the departments, that the promotion of a clerk depends not on his efficiency, but having a friend in the House of Representatives.

I remember, in a conference not a great many years ago, when the Senate asked an increase of salary for a clerk in a certain division, we responded that we had already given the chief of that division everything that he had asked, whereupon a Senator said, 'I have a letter upon this subject,' and he innocently and carelessly read to us a letter which we found was addressed to another Senator from the head of this division, in which he said:

'If you wish to accomplish the object you have in view and raise the salary of such a person, the way to do it is by the following language.'

It was obviously a mere attempt to accomplish the promotion of a personal friend. Such things have happened in the past, and such things are happening now, but in many departments the system of promotion by efficiency has been adopted, which to a certain extent remedies this, but the trouble is you cannot entirely remedy it until you have a system by which the compensation of the clerks and the promotion of the clerks depends upon the kind and character of work they do. That would change the whole atmosphere, and that could be accomplished by adopting the re

such suggestions as they thought were wise and appropriate to a Congress which placidly ignored the whole subject." Congressional Record, February 21, 1910, Vol. 45, No. 50, p. 2202.

port of the Keep Commission, to which the gentleman a little while ago referred."

Instances of the tendencies that have been noted might be multiplied. I have presented some characteristic specimens of congressional action, and there are many more to be found in the course of any congressional session if one has the patience to wade through the Record. There is abundant evidence to show that while Congress may favor economy in the abstract, it does not favor economy in practice, and that existing conditions of congressional action tend, either directly or indirectly, to swell the cost of government. Moreover, the present tendency is to break down what remains of executive authority in the management of the public business. The aim of Congress appears to be to supersede the President in the control and direction of the executive departments. For instance, if you examine the Miscellaneous Appropriations Act of May 30, 1908, you will notice that it issues instructions to the Secretary of War and the Secretary of the Treasury, directing them to do various things involving an expenditure of $33,368,500. It is put up to the President to say whether or not he will approve the bill, but when he does, the terms of the enactment seem to forbid him any right to interfere with the performance of the work. The legislative department, having lost its own proper constitutional function, is apparently on its way to destroy the proper function of the President. The situation presents issues involving the very existence of constitutional government.

1 Congressional Record, March 21, 1910, Vol. 45, No. 75, p. 3533.

VIII

POSSIBILITIES OF IMPROVEMENT

AFTER such an exhibition of governmental characteristics and tendencies as I have had to make in the previous lectures of this course, you may be apt to think that matters are going from bad to worse. It is quite probable that matters will be worse before they are better, but it would be a mistake to think that there are no signs of improvement. There are such signs, and it will be the purpose of this lecture to point them out.

Improvement may come either by congressional action or by executive action. After the criticism I have been compelled to make upon congressional methods, it is a pleasure to be able to say that great improvements have already been effected through congressional action. Bad as things are, they would be a great deal worse save for reforms which from time to time have been instituted by Congress. The public mind is now so sensitive on the subject that it is experiencing the usual illusion of regarding increased perception of evil as evidence of the growth of evil. It is true that present conditions tend to profuse expenditure, but it is also true that means of effective control are beginning to take shape. On taking a large view of things we can see that the federal government has been moving towards constitutional methods, slowly,

heavily, and by clumsy lurches, rather than by steady progress, but, nevertheless, great progress has been made.

At the time the federal Constitution was adopted, budget control was nowhere established in an exact and definite form, although at that very time Pitt was introducing the system of unified control on which the present English system of budget control rests. Indeed, the Consolidated Fund, which is the basis of that system, was formed in 1786, the year before the meeting of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. The ancient system was that the Crown carried on the government with the aid of grants and supplies furnished from time to time by the Commons, the Crown having full power of disposition over the revenue thus obtained. The influence of this tradition is seen in Jefferson's action as Secretary of State at the outset of Washington's administration. He visited the Senate chamber to advise the Senate to make a lump appropriation for the diplomatic service to be apportioned according to the discretion of the President.1

The language of the Constitution of the United States on this point reflects the vagueness of the English system prior to the reforms introduced by Pitt. All it has to say is that "no money shall be drawn from the treasury, but in consequence of appropriations made by law; and a regular statement and account of the receipts and expenditures of all public money shall be published from time to time." 2 This

1 Maclay's Journal, p. 272.

2 Art. 1, Sec. 9. The instruction of example and experience not open to the statesmen of 1787 is visible in the action taken

provision was not held to compel annual reports until the year 1800. Important advances toward budget control were made by the acts of July 12, 1870, and June 20, 1874. These measures, due chiefly to the advocacy of Mr. Dawes and Mr. Garfield while members of the House, required all unused appropriations to be covered into the Treasury. Enormous sums had been accumulated by the departments as unexpended balances. The amounts returned to the Treasury under these acts aggregated $174,000,000. In a single bureau there was an unexpended balance of $36,000,000, the accumulation of a quarter of a century.1 What could more pointedly display the futility of congressional control over appropriations by committees acting upon private representations made by bureau chiefs! Treasury disbursements are still, however, far from being subject to systematic control through annual appropriations as in England. There is a class of continuing appropriations, expenditures from which are not confined to fiscal years. From a return made by the Secretary of the Treasury in 1908, it appears that disbursements aggregating $118,865,898 were made in 1907 by virtue of a continuing authority in the management of various special funds.2

by the framers of the Confederate Constitution, March 11, 1861. In it Art. 1, Sec. 9, contained the following clause :

"Congress is forbidden to appropriate money from the treasury except by a vote of two thirds of both houses, unless it be asked by the head of a department and submitted by the President, or be asked for the payment of its own expenses, or of claims against the Confederacy declared by a judicial tribunal to be just."

1 These facts are given in an instructive address by Mr. Theodore E. Burton of Ohio, delivered in the House on March 15, 1904, on the general subject of budget control.

2 House Document No. 871, 60th Congress, 1st Session.