Ethics in Service

by William H. Taft

Another great power of the President is his control of our foreign relations. In domestic matters, the Federal government shares every field, executive, judicial and legislative, with the states, but in foreign affairs, the whole governmental control is with the President, the Senate and Congress. The states have nothing to do with it. The President initiates a treaty and the Senate confirms it. The Senate, however, cannot initiate a treaty, the President alone can do that. Congress' powers to declare war and regulate our foreign commerce are its chief powers in respect to our foreign relations. So that, except in ratifying treaties, in regulating commerce and in declaring war, the President guides our whole foreign policy.

Through the State Department he conducts all negotiation and correspondence with other governments and according to the Constitution he receives ambassadors and foreign ministers. Now you might possibly think that that meant only that he must have a flunky at the White House to take their cards—but it means a good deal more. He appoints ambassadors and ministers to other countries and instructs them. He receives the diplomatic representatives from other countries and does business with them. He construes treaties and asserts the rights of our government and our citizens under them. He considers and decides the rights of other governments and their subjects in a way which practically binds our government and people. And in order to receive ambassadors and ministers, he must determine whether they have been properly accredited, so that they have the proper authority to act for the country they claim to represent.

When there is a dispute as to what person is the chief executive of a foreign country and therefore entitled to send an ambassador or minister, the President must decide it. In other words, he alone can exercise the power of recognition. How important a power this is, we may know from our recent experiences with Mexico, for President Wilson, by withholding recognition from General Huerta, was able to render his longer tenure as chief executive impossible.

In our foreign relations it is often the President's duty to formulate the national claim of sovereignty over territory whose ownership is in dispute. This is a political question and his decision or claim in regard to it is taken as final by the Supreme Court.

In the Fur-Seal Controversy, Mr. Blaine took the position that our jurisdiction reached out over the Bering Sea. The question was contested in the Supreme Court by the British and the Canadian governments. The Supreme Court said: "We cannot determine this. It is a political question and must, therefore, be decided by the President through his Secretary of State." We then submitted the issue to an international tribunal, and the decision was against us.

Another great power of the President is the power of pardons and reprieves. This is not to be determined by rules of law nor indeed by absolute rules of any kind and must, therefore, be wielded skilfully lest it destroy the prestige and supremacy of law. Sometimes one is deceived. I was. Two men were brought before me, both of whom were represented as dying. When a convict is near his end, it has been the custom to send him home to die. So, after having all the surgeons in the War Department examine them to see that the statements made to me about them were correct, I exercised the pardoning power in their favor. Well, one of them kept his contract and died, but the other seems to be one of the healthiest men in the community today.

The President is also the titular head of a party and ought to have a large influence in legislation. He is made responsible to the country for his party's majority in Congress, and does thereby have some voice in legislation. Some Presidents have more control than others, but all Presidents find as the patronage is distributed, and as the term goes on, that the influence and power that they have over legislation rapidly diminishes. In fact, when there are no more offices to distribute and somebody else comes into view as the next President, the authority of the incumbent becomes strictly limited to his constitutional functions. All of this tends to show that a President who seeks legislative changes and reforms should begin early.

The people think that the Presidency gives a man an opportunity to make a lot of personal appointments. I can recall some of these personal appointments, but I tell you they are very few. There are certain political obligations involving the recognition of party leaders which he has to take into consideration with reference to some appointments. But when it comes to purely personal appointments, one can count them on the fingers of one hand. It is well that it is so. A President with his proper sense of duty finds many men in office whom he ought to let continue and the question of friendship for others can play no part in displacing them.

The social influence of the President in Washington is not much. I think perhaps it might be useful if it were a little more, for the question of precedence, which makes everybody outside of Washington laugh, sometimes becomes a very serious matter. As the French ambassador once said, when there are three hundred people, they cannot all go through the door at one time. Somebody has to go first, therefore it is most important to fix who that somebody shall be. But nobody in Washington has the authority to say. If only the army and navy were concerned, the matter would be easy enough, because they are controlled by the President and he can issue orders that they must respect, but with civil officers he has no such authority. Congress could, of course, provide rules of social and official precedence, either by legislation or executive order, as is done in all European countries. But here such a proposal would be laughed out of Congressional halls, though it would be a wise measure to prevent confusion, unnecessary friction and heartburning.

The very men who make most fun of such matters and profess to despise their consideration are in actual practice the most unreasonable as to their own places at functions. The House of Representatives is supposed to be the embodiment of democracy and contempt for social distinctions, yet of all the people in the world who have made a fuss over the matter of precedence, speakers of the House of Representatives have been the most insistent on their proper place at official dinners. The speaker says: "I represent the body of the people who come from the soil and the people who make this country. Therefore, I decline to sit after the presiding officer of the Senate." An ambassador says: "I am the personal representative of my sovereign. If he were here in Washington, he would sit next to the President." The Cabinet officer says: "The President is the head. I am connected with him as Secretary of War, the Cabinet is a small body and the Senate is a large body. Therefore, we are bigger men than the Senate and we ought to have precedence." In fact, the head of a scientific bureau came in to see me one day and said, "I think you ought to put me after the Supreme Court." He even filed a brief with me on the subject, to the effect that "I run an independent department. The judges represent the judicial branch, and the President the executive branch, and the heads of the two Houses, the legislative branch, while I represent the scientific branch." Indeed, the matter of procedure is not such a joke as it seems outside. It is not so important as to who comes first as that their order of precedence should be once determined.