the concise statement of the principles and purpose of the government. The title may give one the impression that the work is a short account merely of the Federal Government. It is more. There is also a discussion of the principles of the state governments and their subdivisions.

In the introductory remarks the author discusses the relative value of principles and detailed facts in the teaching of government. No solution of the problem is proposed except that a part of the justifiIcation of the book is based on the belief that the forest is more important than the trees. However, the writer admits that there is no agreement among men on this question either from the standpoint of a course in government or of a text-book on the subject.

Chapters one and two treat of political theory in a general way. In these is given an account of sovereignty and the fundamentals of government. The following four relate to the parts of the American government; namely, the American state, the United States, the cities and the citizen. The next five treat of the law, its interpretation and enforcement, under the headings-the supreme law, the legislative, the executive, the judiciary, and the administrative. Chapters eleven and twelve have to do with the control of government through political parties and public opinion. There follows a chapter on international relations. The book concludes with a summary of the principles of American government. The appendix consists of a bibliographical essay, the Constitution of the United States and a list of cases cited.

The proposition that the people enact laws through representatives for the purpose of establishing justice summarizes the three fundamental principles emphasized in the work; which are justice, representative government, and government by laws rather than by men. It is easier to state that the representatives do not truly represent the people in making the laws and that the representatives do not strive to establish justice, than it is to find a fallacy in the ideal upon which the political theory of the United States government rests. University of New Mexico. CHAS. F. COAN.

PORTER, KIRK H. County and Township Government in the United States. (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1922. Pp. xiii, 362.) Since the publication of Professor Fairlie's pioneer work dealing with local government, the interest in and material about this important field of American government have been steadily increasing. Within recent years a sufficient number of studies have been made of the workings of the American system of local government to indicate that it is no longer the "dark continent of American politics." This, the latest addition to this field of political science, is written by Professor Porter of the State University of Iowa.

After a short chapter dealing with the meaning of the term "local

government," the author devotes two chapters to a brief sketch of the origin of the American system. Then follow three chapters dealing with the Present Day Types of Local Government Organization, The Legal Status of the County and the Township, and the Functions of the County and Township.

The greater part of the book (Chapters VII to XIV) is given to a rather thorough discussion of the duties of the various county officers. This portion of the work is undoubtedly its most valuable section.

Chapter XV deals in a rather sketchy but suggestive manner with the important problem of the Reform of County Government. The last two chapters treat of the government of the minor divisions of the county: townships, county districts, and small municipalities. Professor Porter believes that the government of small municipalities is primarily a problem of municipal government. Hence his very brief treatment of the subject.

While Professor Porter makes no original contribution of any considerable importance to the knowledge of this subject, he has prepared a readable and worthwhile text. However, it is to be regretted that he did not furnish a more complete bibliography, and more adequate references to his authorities, particularly in the part of the book dealing with the functions of the various county officers. His historical sketch seems to attach undue importance to the new England type( when one considers that only six states have ever had this system in its pure form); and no attention is paid to the development of local institutions between the colonial period and the present time.

University of Texas.

B. F. WRIGHT, JR.

BOOK NOTES

A sincere faith in the ideal for which he is contending, together with a gift for phrasing his thoughts in attractive form would be sufficient to make Mr. Hoover's American Individualism (Doubleday, Page and Company, 1922) worthy of attention even if he were not a personage of very considerable prominence. However, it must be admitted that the little book seems to belong to the Utopias of political and social thought rather than to this world of facts in which we have to live. Despite the amount of compromise that Mr. Hoover introduces into his theory of individualism (for it is indeed a far cry from Mill's Liberty or Spencer's Social Statics), he seems to the present reviewer to fail to show how his ideas can be fitted to the existing order. For example, the period of the frontier is undoubtedly gone, and with its passage the conditions that stimulated the development of economic, political, and social individualism in this country have, in large part, disappeared. What is to take their place? Mr.

Hoover has no satisfactory answer. He seems content to say that "There will always be frontiers to conquer or to hold as long as men think, plan, and dare." But it may well be questioned whether such glowing phrases as this will help to solve the problem. His conclusion is of much the same caliber. "Progress will march if we hold an abiding faith in the intelligence, the initiative, the character, the courage, and the Divine touch in the individual." Progress has never been made so easily.

In his Understanding Italy, (Century, 1923) Clayton Sedgwick Cooper attempts to defend what is generally admitted to be a new Italy. A summary of the economic, social, and agricultural situation is made; the colonial policy of Italy is painted more idealistically than most students of modern imperialism will admit, but most interesting from the governmental standpoint, is his treatment of the Fascisti movement. Perhaps for the first time the rules of the Fascisti militia are published in English in full form. The title of the book is appropriate since the outlook of the writer is that of a conservative, nationalistic Fascisti militiaman, not the cold critic of violence, or the observer of parliamentary government in the peninsula, Fascismo is the spirit of a new, youthful and patriotic Italy built on the enthusiasm and labor of Mazzini, Garibaldi, and Cavour, and presided over by sane Savoyan monarchs. Parliamentary government, in many respects, "is an exotic plant in Italy," says Cooper, and for that reason the dictatorship of Mussolini is to be understood in terms of the Roman tradition rather than in conformity with governmental principles in England or the rest of the continent. Fascisti violence, the suppression of the opposition, too, are to be measured by the volatile attitude of the Italian rather than by constitutional stability in other governments. The new, young Italy is right, he says: Strong government is worth the price of violence and the parliamentary opposition, which is not heart and soul for the new movement, must be silenced.

Clarence Darrow's Crime: Its Cause and Treatment (Crowell, 1922) is a book designed to influence public opinion by appeal to the general reader. Its author is a lawyer of forty years' experience, including participation in several criminal trials. He brings to bear upon his discussion of crime a valuable practical knowledge, and also an acquaintance with the views of the best criminologists.

The general thesis of the book is that crime is the combined product of heredity and environment for which the individual is not responsible and that people who commit crime are in the same category with those who contract diseases. He therefore believes that the criminal should be treated on the same principle as the sick, i. e., segregated, and restored to normal life by sympathy and scientific treatment; that

criminal people should no more be punished than sick people. The remedy for crime, he thinks, is to be found only in the general improvement of social conditions by which the struggle for existence may be made easier.

The book is interesting, vigorous in style, broad in its scope, and highly enlightening.