282 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 
introduced during an ordinary session are special, local or personal in 
whole or in part, while far the larger part of the committee work and 
public debate appears to be devoted to special or local interests! Nat- 
urally little time and thought are left for general laws, touching alike 
the entire citizenry; and naturally the custom of special legislation 
under party control opens easy way for such machine organization that 
a half-dozen shrewd manipulators may assume leadership in either 
house and completely dominate legislation. So far has this tendency 
run that it is to-day a grave question—the gravest in our history— 
whether our current laws are framed in the interests of our ninety mil- 
lions or in the interests of special privilege reducible in the last analysis 
to a scant dozen “captains of industry’: and hence whether after all 
representative government is inherently and permanently stable. ‘The 
“ propensity ” of the congress “ to legislate too much” has indeed been 
checked from time to time in the manner forecast by Morris; for while 
some administrations acquiesce, others hold out for a stricter conform- 
ity with the constitution. George Washington sought to carry out the 
intent of the instrument framed under his chairmanship, and was so 
savagely assailed for “usurpation” that he declared death preferable 
to public service; Abraham Lincoln carried forward the administrative 
affairs of his terms through sheer force of personality, aided indirectly 
by the military activity of the time; no less competent authority than 
the present president of the United States once signalized Grover Cleve- 
land’s insistence that the presidency carries power coequal with those 
of the congress as the notable feature of his administrations; and Theo- 
dore Roosevelt’s policy was consistently parallel and still more vigorous, 
even to his final and most trenchant presidential message pointing out 
the unconstitutionality of an item in the sundry civil act passed as his 
term closed. Meantime some heads of executive departments shrank 
from assuming administrative responsibilities; yet under growing 
necessity they have gradually become our chief administrative officers. 
Verily the price of indefiniteness as to the administrative function 
in our fundamental law has been large! Not only have confusion and 
friction arisen, with enormous attendant expense, but the relatively 
simple duties of administration are ill-performed. The advocates of 
waterway improvement were among the first to notice that nearly all 
our waterway enactments to date are special, and tend to magnify rather 
than merge sectional and political interests; and that the flood of spe- 
cial bills and local items has so far diverted effort from general legisla- 
tion that even unto this day the country lacks fundamental laws relating 
to waters, and is weakly perpetuating monarchial common-law doctrines 
not only unsuited to current conditions but such as the constitution was 
designed to annul or forestall! The waterway workers are no longer 
slow to condemn methods which have permitted—if indeed they have 
