til such event occurs, the law is enforceable in the regular way, through the courts, and the governor has nothing to do with its enforcement except where that duty shall be especially enjoined upon him, either by the constitution or by some statute." It scarcely seems necessary, however, that the duty should be specially enjoined upon him, but merely that the power should be specifically granted to him. The attorneygeneral of Illinois has also intimated that the constitution and statutes do not contemplate any interference on the part of the governor if local officers should merely refuse or neglect to enforce the law, but only where civil commotion renders them unable to enforce it. This, however, seems to be too narrow an interpretation of the governor's power, and would frequently prevent the governor from using practically the only means at his disposal to cope with a condition of widespread lawlessness due to the fact that the local authorities, charged with the enforcement of the laws, are in sympathy with the lawless element. It seems evident that, for the regular and permanent enforcement of state law, some state machinery of enforcement is needed in addition to the power of the governor to call out the militia. On account of the notorious violation of the Sunday closing law in Kentucky, that state has found it necessary to strengthen the method provided for the enforcement of the law. By an act of 1916, it is provided that if local officers, such as the sheriff, mayor and chief of police, fail to enforce the Sunday closing law, they may be prosecuted by indictment or penal action and, upon conviction, shall suffer forfeiture of office. In case the local prosecuting attorney shall fail to institute proceedings against such derelict local officials, the governor may direct the attorney-general to do so in the same manner and with the same authority as the local prosecuting attorney would have to prosecute such action. In order to minimize the influence of local sentiment "Opinions of the Attorney-General of Illinois, 1905-6, p. 371. adverse to the enforcement of the Sunday closing law, it is provided that the state or prosecution shall be entitled, equally with the defense, to a change of venue. This Kentucky statute is an apparently honest attempt on the part of the state to fulfill its obligation to enforce its laws. The provision of some kind of state administrative machinery of enforcement, however, would probably be a more effective measure. Local sentiment does not readily tolerate complete state centralization of law enforcement in the localities. In the cities, the feeling in favor of the maintenance of the principle of home rule is stronger than in the rural districts, and, moreover, the cities are better policed by their local constabularies than are the rural districts. The principle of home rule requires that the city police should be appointed, officered, and governed by local authorities. To the extent that the functions of the city police consist in the enforcement of local ordinances, the principle of home rule should be preserved. But city police are also charged with the enforcement of state laws. The latter functions should be transferred to state controlled agents if experience shows that the locally controlled police cannot be depended upon to perform them, or else the city police should be placed under state supervision. The state might do well to set up a standard of efficiency for municipal police forces and exact a penalty from those cities whose forces fall below the standard, while granting aid to those whose forces meet or surpass such standard. For a short time during the Civil War, the police of Chicago were under state control." From time to time since then, bills have been introduced in the Illinois General Assembly to establish a state board of police commissioners to control or supervise city police forces, but have failed of passage. A number of other states have experimented successfully with state constabularies and with metropolitan police boards. 'Kentucky Session Laws, 1916, chap. 14. 'Illinois Public Laws, 1861, p. 151. We may sum up this discussion as follows: It seems evident that, with regard to some laws now on the statute books, the legislature should do one of three things: first, repeal the laws; or, secondly, allow the municipalities, in a regular and legal manner, the option as to whether or not such laws shall be enforced within their boundaries; or, thirdly, retain the laws upon the statute books but provide adequate machinery for their enforcement. The question as to which of these three plans shall be adopted is one with which we are not here concerned. If, however, the last plan should be adopted and the state should definitely assume the responsibility of enforcing its own laws, the most effective means to this end would seem to consist in the establishment of central administrative agencies for the supervision of local law-enforcing officers or even for the direct enforcement of state law. ADMINISTRATION ALDERMAN L. E. ROBINSON, OF MONMOUTH The evolution of the committee chairman in American government has been from the beginning an open recognition of the principle of concentration in the interest of effective administration. Resort to the committee system was the necessity of the Continental Congress in its union of legislative and administrative functions. Under the constitution, with a congress of two houses, recourse to the committee and its chairman has been so thorough as practically to give them autocratic possession of the business of legislation. Indeed, the committee system has had in it all along the tacit acknowledgment that legislative and executive functions cannot be properly or easily divorced. The intent of the founders to limit so sharply the point of contact between the law-making and law-enforcing spheres of government sprang from their fear of reciprocal disadvantage rather than from their apprehension of its efficiency. Democracy was so deeply their prime concern that they hoped to forestall the very result of cooperation between these two spheres which the years are tending to bring about. The American President gathers more and more the functions of an English prime minister, while the committee chairman more and more works with him to influence his policy and control those proposals that become law. In nation, state, and municipality, the committee with its increasingly powerful chairman has become the norm of legislative organization and political control. The necessity for dispatching work created the committee; the necessity for administering the work done by the committee created the executive chairman. Experience showed that many details of committee responsibility could be discharged with greater expedition by the chairman, acting alone. Being the spokesman of the committee on the floor of the deliberative body, large or small, he has gradually come to absorb the administrative share of its obligations. The scope of his prerogative has made him, in many matters of practical administration, the co-ordinate of the legal executive. It is no longer unusual to find a chairman and the executive sharing the actual management of public affairs in one or more directions. This has been a natural development in municipalities. A city council, with a single chamber, presided over by the mayor, has inevitably made the sanctions of the legislative and executive functions reciprocal. Doubtless there is everywhere a preponderance of responsibility exercised by the mayor relatively to that shared by the leading chairmen. This is sometimes true in matters of legislation, even. The extent of power wielded on either side falls where the larger share of knowledge, industry, and personality resides. Either side suffers in potency by its lack of force of character. There is little chance of determining the personality of chairmen under the aldermanic scheme. The matter rests ultimately, of course, with the electorate; but the electorate is more or less handicapped by the contingencies of ward politics and party government. This influence will creep in at times in the exercise of legislation, in the administrative functions of the chairman, and in the executive activity or non-activity of the mayor. The influence of politics, however, apparently grows less perceptible with the gradual passing of prejudice against the assumption of civic duty on the part of the best equipped men of the community. But the strongest resistance to "politics", when we use the word in quotation marks, is found in the chairman who has in his vocational life been accustomed to bear burdens for others, as is often the case in business management or professional experience. A chairman with such a spirit of service, finding as he usually does that his busy colleagues on the committee are willing to escape the inconvenience of a formal and possibly prolonged consultation, comes more and more to make the telephone answer the requirements of a personal conference. The mayor, often recognized as ex-officio member of the committee, is called |