administration of each great function of modern society in the hands of a guild or trade, may find something approximating their idea in the chaos that forms the government of the average American state.

This condition of affairs is the outcome of more than a hundred years of almost unrestricted development in administration. It was not until the rising costs of state governments at the opening of the twentieth century directed the attention of the taxpayers to the waste and confusion evident at the capital that protests were heard against the time-honored methods. About that time new ideas on scientific management were advanced. After a season of discussion and agitation came tentative experiments in administrative reform. Then the development of state governments entered upon a new phase.

Reorganization of State Administration1

As early as 1891 the governor of Massachusetts analyzed the state administrative system in a message to the legislature, pointed out with great cogency the defects in it, and recommended a consolidation in the interests of economy and efficiency. About the same time other governors spoke on the theme. But these criticisms failed to bear fruit. Then followed a period in which the subject was discussed mainly in treatises on government and administration, such as the writings of Frank J. Goodnow and Herbert Croly. In 1909 the idea took practical form when a committee of Oregon citizens, known as the People's Power League, proposed and advocated state constitutional amendments reorganizing departments and centralizing responsibility in the hands of the governor. Comprehensive plans along similar lines were made by expert commissions in Iowa in 1913 and in Minnesota in 1914. In 1915 the New York Bureau of Municipal Research prepared for the constitutional convention of that year a complete survey of the state government and suggested a scheme of reorganization and consolidation.2 The con

1 This statement is based on an admirable summary by A. E. Buck, National Municipal Review for November, 1919, revised September, 1922. The great report by "The Efficiency and Economy Committee" of Illinois, under date of 1915, is a mine of information and wise comment on state administration. Of special importance also is the scientific study of the subject by J. M. Mathews, Principles of American State Administration, the first treatise of the kind to break away from the purely legalistic method of handling the question.

2 Municipal Research, Nos. 61, 62, and 63.

stitution which was prepared went far in the direction of centralization, but it was rejected by the voters.

Two years later, Illinois adopted a general program of reorganization based upon a careful survey of the institutions and agencies of the state by a staff organized under the direction of Professor John A. Fairlie. The reform was effected by an act of the legislature and therefore did not touch the elective officers of the state who stood on the same footing as the governor. The new law, however, abolished more than one hundred statutory offices, boards, departments, and agencies, and consolidated. their functions under nine departments as follows:

1. Finance, charged among other things with the responsibility of preparing the budget for the governor's scrutiny.

2. Agriculture, including all agricultural and related activities as well as food inspection.

3. Labor, including an industrial commission in charge of arbitration and conciliation matters.

4. Mines and Minerals.

5. Public Works and Buildings.

6. Public Welfare, having jurisdiction over all charitable, penal, and reformatory institutions.

7. Public Health, including control over laboratories.

8. Trade and Commerce, embracing the regulation of utilities. 9. Registration and Education.

Each department is headed by a single director appointed by the governor with the approval of the senate. In all cases in which departments are called upon to exercise quasi-legislative or quasi-judicial functions boards are provided. These include an industrial commission, a mining board, a tax commission, a miners' examining board, a public utilities commission, a normal school board, and a food standards commission. Each board is a part of the department to which it belongs and is under the system of financial control to which other officers are subjected. In several cases advisory boards were instituted to serve as counselors to department heads and the governor. They do not have, however, any power over actual administration. The responsibility rests squarely on the department chiefs.

After Illinois had broken the path, other states followed in rapid succession: in 1919, Massachusetts, Idaho, and Nebraska; in 1921, Washington, Ohio, and California; in 1922, Maryland;

TENNESSEE

Organization of State Administration under the Administrative Reorganization Act of 1923

National Institute of Public Administration

in 1923, Tennessee, Vermont, and Pennsylvania. Few of these states, however, have adopted a system as complete and symmetrical as that of Illinois, and some of them have made gestures rather than thoroughgoing reconstruction. In no case has a complete program of consolidation been made by constitutional changes and placed entirely beyond the reach of the legislature.1 Still, the subject is a theme of lively discussion on the part of governors, legislatures, and interested citizens. Now, that our states have assumed such extensive administrative functions, the quest for the best and most efficient way of discharging them will go on with increasing influence on law and policy.

But as indicated above in the second chapter, efficient administration is not to be attained merely by a new arrangement of offices and boards. It involves a sound budget system, scientific purchasing of material goods, and a wise employment policy. Inevitably it has still larger implications. It calls for responsibility on the part of the governor and that requires a radical increase in his administrative powers. If his authority over appointments and removals, the budget, the purchase of supplies, and the employment of public servants is to be immensely enlarged, then machinery must be devised for scrutinizing his work and holding him to account for the exercise of the powers vested in him. Then we are led into the question of the correct relations between the executive and the legislature, for it is the business of the legislature to provide funds for administration. Theoretically at least it ought to inquire what is done with the money appropriated and how it is done. So in the search for efficient administration we cannot stop short of a consideration of the whole process of government in a democracy.

The State Civil Service

Very early in our history, state offices, like the offices at Washington, fell under the sway of the spoils system. It became the common practice for any party, on defeating its rival, to oust

1 F. F. Blachly, "Who Should Organize State Administration?" Southwestern Political Science Quarterly, Vol. IV, pp. 95 ff; F. M. Stewart, Officers, Boards, and Commissions of Texas (University of Texas Publications); H. J. Peterson, The Selection of Public Officials in Iowa (State Historical Society Publications); Municipal Research, No. 61 (1915); J. L Donaldson, State Administration in Maryland (Johns Hopkins Studies, 1916); L. D. Upson, "Unscrambling Michigan's Government,” National Municipal Review, Vol. X, pp. 361 f.; C. G. Haines, The Movement for the Reorganization of State Administration (1918); Eugene Fair, Public Administration in Missouri.

from power even all the employees whose duties were purely clerical. An official investigation in New York into the methods prevailing during the early eighties led to the conclusion that political considerations controlled almost exclusively all appointments; that the partisan service of the appointee, either past or expectant, was the reason for his appointment; that the public welfare was only a nominal factor in selecting employees; that the most meritorious persons were deterred from entering public service; that the character of the service was lowered by the patronage system; that the public officers having the power to make appointments were burdened and embarrassed by the pressure upon them for spoils; and that officers imperiled their positions by showing any independence.

New York led the way in civil service reform by passing, in 1883, a civil service law providing for a commission authorized to coöperate with the governor in preparing rules, classifying the state civil service, and conducting the examinations for the positions to be filled by competition. Other states were slow to follow the example of New York, even in a tentative way. In 1924 the civil service reformers were able to report only ten commonwealths with state civil service commissions, namely, California, Colorado, Illinois, Kansas, Maryland (single-headed department), Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, and Wisconsin. The greatest gains were made in cities where the functions of government are more technical in character, and the dangers of reliance upon mere political appointees more obvious. State political organizations cling with great tenacity to the spoils of office as rewards for political services. Even technical work of the highest order such as highway engineering, or the management of state institutions, in an overwhelming majority of the states, is subject to party exigencies. Politicians do not hesitate to put in jeopardy the lives and comfort of the unfortunate wards of the state by entrusting the control of asylums and other institutions to men whose sole claim to consideration is "party regularity."

In the few states having the merit system, the civil service laws follow, in general, the national law. They provide for the division of public offices into two groups: the classified and the unclassified. The unclassified service includes all offices filled by election or by the legislature or by the governor and senate, and