citizen who is interested in any proposed legislation to employ a paid agent to collect evidence and facts, to draft his bill and explain it to any committee or to any member thereof or of the legislature fairly and openly; and that lobbyists' services which are intended to reach only the reason of those sought to be influenced are not improper, provided that the lobbyists' agency is disclosed. Contracts for secret lobbying and personal solicitation have generally been held to be illegal, but the evils of lobbying are little affected by making certain lobby contracts illegal and void. Such contracts become subjects of litigation only when the system of lobbying is imperfectly organized. The real menace arises when principal and agent work harmoniously together against the public interests for private ends.1 Former Governor La Follette of Wisconsin is the most conspicuous among a group of reformers who urged more drastic legislation against the lobby.2 Governor LaFollette's suggestion was that hired lobbyists should be forbidden to attempt personally and directly to influence any member of the legislature to vote for or against any measure affecting the interests represented by such lobbyist. He believed that "every legitimate argument which any lobbyist has to offer, and which any legislator ought to hear, can be presented before committees, before the legislators as a body, through the press, from the public platform, and through printed briefs and arguments placed in the hands of all members and accessible to the public." To permit more than that, he urged, gives an undue advantage to the interests that can afford to maintain a permanent lobby throughout the session, to say nothing of the temptation to corruption inseparable from any system which permits personal solicitation of legislators by lobbyists. La Follette's suggestions, however, were not adopted in his own state.3 1 See Marshall vs. Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, 16 Howard, 314, and Trist vs. Child, 21 Wall, 441. But cf. Foltz vs. Cogswell, 86 Cal., 542, where "honest personal solicitation" is held not to be illegal. 2 See his Annual Message to the Legislature of 1905. A special message of the same governor, dealing more fully with the same subject, is reprinted in Reinsch's Readings on American State Government, pp. 81-84. For detailed accounts of the working of the lobby system, see Lynn Haines, The Minnesota Legislature of 1909, and The Minnesota Legislature of 1911, and F. Hichborn, Story of the Session of the California Legislature of 1909, and the same, 1911, and 1913. OUTLOOK FOR LEGISLATIVE REFORM The legislature cannot reform the lobby, unless it first reforms itself. Doubtless the state legislatures are now on the whole somewhat less venal than a generation ago. Observers who have been in the best position to know say so.1 Certainly not a little has been done by the legislatures in recent years tending to correct some of the worst abuses. The adoption of laws or rules forbidding members of the legislature to accept fees for their advocacy of measures before legislative committees has corrected a gross abuse in many states. The adoption of anti-pass laws, designed to prevent the railroads from furnishing legislators with free transportation, has struck a heavy blow at a principal source of the undue influence of the railroad lobby.2 The better regulation of nominations and elections has tended to make more difficult one of the methods employed by lobbyists for influencing the action of legislators. The establishment of public service commissions, with jurisdiction over the rates and services of railroads and public utilities, has mitigated another evil. It has not only relieved the legislatures of the responsibility for the details of regulation. It has also, so far as such corporations are concerned, deprived dishonest legislators of any reasonable pretext for the introduction of "strike" legislation, that is, of bills not intended to be passed but merely to serve as a means of extortion from the corporations. The further development of reliable administrative agencies for the regulation of corporate affairs, where the regulation of technical details is necessary, will do much to diminish the opportunity for corruption in legislative bodies. No scheme for the restoration of legislative prestige is worth much which does not recognize that the greatest accomplice of legislative corruption is legislative inefficiency. Much of the work now attempted by the state legislatures is work for which 1 Perhaps as good an opinion as any on this matter is that of Theodore Roosevelt. See his Autobiography, pp. 76 ff. 2 For an interesting revelation of another side of the evil of free passes, see a letter from an official of the Pennsylvania Railroad to the president of the New York State Constitutional Convention of 1894, a dozen years before the enactment of the anti-pass laws, reprinted in C. A. Beard, Readings in American Government and Politics, pp. 478-481. large representative bodies are not fitted. No inconsiderable portion of the output of legislation, so-called, consists of measures of an administrative or quasi-judicial character. Practically all private and local legislation is of this character. Fully half the time of the legislative committees is devoted to the consideration of such measures. In states like Massachusetts, where there are comparatively few restrictions upon legislative powers and procedure, hundreds of bills are introduced every year on such petty matters as, for example, whether John Smith, having been discharged for cause, shall be reinstated in the Boston Fire Department. In states like New York, where legislative powers and procedure are more strictly limited by the constitution, the situation is scarcely less discreditable. Such constitutional limitations as those providing that only one subject shall be contained in any one bill, and that that subject shall be clearly expressed in the title, tend to diminish the opportunity for legislative corruption. But they do little to increase legislative efficiency. Such constitutional limitations as those providing that legislatures shall not legislate at all on certain subjects make more work for constitutional conventions and state electorates. But they do not help the legislatures to act more wisely upon those matters which are left to legislative discretion. The most promising plan for the further improvement of the character of legislation is the adoption of such further limitations on legislative powers and procedure as, without restricting the scope of legislative action, will permit the more systematic use of administrative and quasi-judicial methods and machinery in the process of legislation. CHAPTER X THE STATE EXECUTIVES THE progress of democracy during the first half of the nineteenth century, as has been shown, had two principal effects upon the development of the state executives. The first was the establishment of executive independence of the legislature. The second was the decentralization and disintegration of the executive. The direct popular election of the principal executive officers made them more independent of the legislatures than they ever could have been under the original system of legislative election. The abolition of executive councils chosen from and by the legislatures further secured the independence of the executive. The direct popular election of the principal executive officers, however, at the same time that it rendered them more independent of the legislatures, also rendered them more independent of one another. The governor, secretary of state, treasurer, attorney-general, and other central officers became supreme, each in his own department. They became severally and equally responsible to the people. In a word, the executive branch of the state governments became what is technically known as a plural executive. The direct popular election of subordinate and local administrative officials produced a similar effect. The sheriff, county clerk, county treasurer, prosecuting attorney, and other similar officials became supreme, each in his own department. They became severally and equally responsible to the people. Thus the state executives were decentralized as well as disintegrated. By the middle of the nineteenth century this process had gone as far as it could in most states. There remained few important administrative offices, either central or local, which were not filled by popular election. THE DISORGANIZATION OF ADMINISTRATION The effect of executive decentralization and disintegration during the first half of the nineteenth century was to make the governor the chief executive in name only. The strictly executive powers originally conferred upon him, as has been shown, were not great. He could command the militia. Beyond that, he could do nothing without calling a meeting of his council. With the advice and consent of his council, he could appoint all officials not elected by the legislature or by the people, and in general could order and direct the affairs of state according to the constitution and laws. His principal duty was to take care that the laws were properly enforced. To this end he could direct his attorney-general to prosecute offenders. In case of need he could also call out the militia. But his main reliance for the enforcement of law was placed in the sheriffs and justices of the peace. By the appointment of vigilant and energetic sheriffs and of prudent and independent justices of the peace he could secure a spirited and efficient administration. Now the developments of the first half of the nineteenth century left him practically no means of enforcing the laws except by calling out the militia. This was too drastic a weapon for ordinary use. The direct election of subordinate and local administrative officials deprived the governor of his control over the executive branch of the government. The attorney-general, and especially the sheriffs and local prosecutors, became the real executives, so far as responsibility for the enforcement of the laws was concerned. The governor had ceased to be much more than a figurehead in the conduct of state administration. The effect of executive independence of the legislature was to increase the importance of the legislative functions of the executive. This was inevitable under the circumstances. The direct election of the governor by the people made him the most conspicuous representative of the whole people. The development of the party system made him the most important party leader holding office in the state government. The development of the veto power made him a member of the law-making organ of the state. The disorganization of the executive branch of state government left him no effective means of controlling |