PRESIDENT E. R. COCKRELL, Fort Worth, Texas SECRETARY AND TREASURER F. M. STEWART, Austin, Texas WALTER PRICHARD, Baton Rouge, Louisiana THE SOUTHWESTERN POLITICAL AND SOCIAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY is supplied to all members of the Southwestern Political and Social Science Association. The subscription price of the QUARTERLY is two dollars a year. Applications for membership, orders for the QUARTERLY and remittances should be addressed to F. M. Stewart, Secretary-Treasurer of the Association, University Station, Austin, Texas. Correspondence with reference to contributions to the QUARTERLY should be addressed to F. M. Stewart, Editor in Charge, University Station, Austin, Texas. THE SOUTHWESTERN POLITICAL AND SOCIAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY Vol. IV SEPTEMBER, 1923 No. 2 The editors disclaim responsibility for views expressed by contributors to THE QUARTERLY WHO SHOULD ORGANIZE STATE ADMINISTRA TION?1 F. F. BLACHLY University of Oklahoma In the United States during the past hundred years there has been a growing tendency for the various state constitutional conventions to assume greater and greater control over state administration. These conventions have secured such control in two ways; namely: by providing for a large number of administrative officers, boards and commissions; and by laying down in some detail their duties and responsibilities. The earlier state constitutions generally provided, it is true, for three or four administrative officers; but, except in the case of the governor, little was specified regarding their duties. For example, the 1819 constitution of Alabama provided for three administrative cfficers; the 1819 constitution of Connecticut, for five; the 1792 Delaware constitution for three; the Georgia constitution of 1789 for three; the 1792 Kentucky constitution for three; the New Jersey constitution of 1776, for four; the North Carolina constitution of the same year, for four; the 1802 constitution of Ohio, for four, the Louisiana constitution of 1812, for five. In none of these earlier constitutions did the constituent authority attempt any very se 1Paper read at the Fourth Annual Meeting of The Southwestern Political Science Association, Dallas, Texas, April 3, 1923. rious control over administration, except for laying down the powers of the governor. Organization by the Constitutional Convention If one will examine constitutions which have been made within the last three or four decades, one will observe the striking fact that not only is provision made for eight or ten officers, but in many instances for boards and commissions as well; and, further, that the powers and duties of these officers and boards are laid down in considerable detail. The New York constitution of 1894, for instance, provided for governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of state, comptroller, treasurer, attorney general, state engineer and surveyor, superintendent of public works, superintendent of state prisons, commissioners of the canal fund. The Alabama constitution of 1901 provides that, "The Executive department shall consist of a Governor, Lieutenant-Governor, Attorney General, State Auditor, Secretary of State, State Treasurer, Superintendent of Education, Commissioner of Agriculture and Industries, and a Sheriff for each county." The Kentucky constitution of 1890 provides for ten officers. The 1921 constitution of Louisiana provides for eight so-called exceutive officers besides eight more admiinstrative officers, boards and commissions. This constitution does, however, permit the legislature "to consodidate any of the offices of the executive department except that of Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Treasurer and Secretary of State." The constitution contains a good many pages devoted to the powers and duties of these various executive and administrative authorities. The constitution of Oklahoma perhaps crowns the list, with thirteen so-called executive officers besides a corporation commission, the commissioners of the land of.. fice, the board of agriculture, the board of equalization, the department of highways, the department of labor, a board 2Alabama Constitution, Art. V., Sec. 112.. Constitution of Louisiana, 1921, Arts. V and VI. of arbitration and conciliation, and a state board of education. The corporation commission furnishes the best example of such a board. Not only is it organized by the constitution, but some ten pages, or about a tenth of the entire instrument, are devoted to outlining its powers, jurisdiction and duties, its procedure, and methods of appeal. The reasons for this control over administration by the constitutional convention are not hard to find. In the first place, the people of the United States have placed great faith in written constitutions. We have been taught to believe that anything embodied in a constitution and sanctioned by the sovereign people must be right, in fact, almost sacred. An administrative system established by this method would, of course, share the peculiar excellence attached to a written constitution. This generally accepted theory made it natural for the writers of the late constitutions to attempt to embrace every department of governmental activity within the sacred documents, in order that all the activities of the state might be perfect. Undoubtedly, also, the theory of popular sovereignty has had a considerable effect in thus establishing administration. This theory holds that so long as the people must approve or reject the administrative organization planned by the constitutional convention, they are really the sovereigns. If the administrative organization were laid down by the legislature or by the executive itself, the legislature or the executive would act in a sovereign capacity; but if the people choose a special agency to propose, but not to enact, such fundamental law, and the enactment is made by popular vote, the people retain the sovereignty in their own hands. In this case the governmental bodies are mere agents for carrying out the will of the people. Thus the administration becomes peculiarly the servant of the people, and liberty and democracy are preserved. A growing distrust of the legislature by the people has certainly contributed to the present result. The people have come to believe that the legislature would be in |