tempts to rob the President of the power of appointment, and whenever that official has been the "favorite son" of political machines, or has sought to influence the action of Congress on legislation, they have to an extent succeeded; so far indeed as to lead members of Congress to this day to assert the right of selecting local officials; but whenever the President has been a man of strength, he has refused to recognize this claim. Such action has usually produced antipathy in Congress to the President, and the Senate has sometimes, in irritation, negatived Presidential nominees, but otherwise the legislative department is helpless, and every President who has selected his own officials has added distinctly to his popularity with the people, if not with the politicians. Fortunately the steady extension of the civil-service laws promises shortly to remove this bone of contention.
Though the fathers' fear of a coalition of the small states in the Senate has not been realized, something akin to it has developed by the rapid admission of new states. As a result, by "holding-up" or "dickering" over legislation, the senators of this coalition of small states, though representing an inconsiderable minority of the whole people, have succeeded in placing laws on the statue books that were not for the best interests of the country. This evil is purely temporary, and will pass with the growth of population in the new states.
A second defect in the Senate, due to the fact that it is a delegated body, and therefore not directly responsible to the people, has been its tendency to extravagance, and in this body all class legislation, whether bounties, pensions, protective duties, internal improvements, or railroad grants, finds its warmest advocates, if not its paid attorneys. This has produced a constantly recurring discussion as to whether it would not be best to make it a directly elective body by the people of each state.
The method of choosing the President has proved hopelessly inoperative. The wish of the framers was that the electoral college should select a president for the people, but the people would none of it, and have
