the demand is made, pass the necessary legislation to undo the mischief which the Supreme Court has done. IN an excellent article in the Michigan Law Rcviav for December, Professor John A. Fairlie begins a discussion of "The Adminis trative Powers of the President," two points of which are of particular interest. Of "patronage" and its remedy, he says: It must be recognized that the custom of allowing the members of Congress to select local officers gives them a control over the Administration not contemplated by the Constitution, and far from satisfactory in practice; while the President's exclusive power over the formal nominations tends to induce the members of Congress to support legislative measures favored by the adminis tration, in return for patronage favors. There is probably no specific agreement to trade votes for appointments; but the influence of existing customs certainly violates the spirit of the constitutional separation of powers. To correct this misuse of the Presiden tial appointing power is not an easy matter, which can be fully accomplished by promul gating a legal rule, either in the form of a statute or of an executive regulation. The positions affected are of a distinctly different character from those in the subordinate classi fied service now filled by means of competi tive written examinations; and call for quali fications of business capacity which cannot be thoroughly tested by that method. A sys tem of higher grade examinations based on a professional university course in law, eco nomics and public administration, such as is followed in Germany, could undoubtedly be devised, and could be so adapted to Amer ican educational methods as to avoid any possible danger of the bureaucratic spirit. But even such a system could be perverted to partisan purposes so long as present no tions as to the political nature of Presidential appointments prevail. The fundamental change that must be made is the recognition and appreciation, both by the people at large and by the politicians, of the non-political character of the administrative offices.
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Two suggestions may be made which, if adopted, would aid in emphasizing this nonpolitical character of such offices and in re ducing the scope of political patronage. If the four-year tenure law were replaced by the older system of appointment for indefi nite terms, the patronage at the free disposal of any administration would be reduced to a fraction of what it now is. And if the appoint ment of local officers could be transferred from the President and Senate (both essen tially political organs) to the heads of the de partments, who are more directly responsible for the efficient conduct of their respective departments, administrative qualifications would receive larger consideration than is now given them. Such a decentralization of the appointing power would not take from the President any control which he person ally exercises; but would be simply a recog nition that the number of appointments is far larger than the President can select in per son, and would transfer the responsible power of appointment to an administrative officer, who would be less dependent on the advice of members of Congress. Not only would this action tend to better the character of the -administrative service; but the reduc tion of Congressional patronage would tend to eliminate a serious corrupting influence from the Congressional elections. It may be added that still further decen tralization in appointments may become ad visable in the future as a counterbalance to 'the growing centralization in legislation and the scope of the Federal administrative ser vice. Certainly if the constitution should be amended to give Congress larger powers, there should at the same time be amend ments providing for some decentralization of the Federal administration. This might be accomplished by giving the State Governors the power of appointment to local Federal offices, a method that would secure the ad vantage of local knowledge and at the same time continue the method of appointments by an executive official. . . . Two interesting legal questions have arisen concerning executive regulations. First, are they not legislative acts, and there
