Ethics in Service

by William H. Taft

CHAPTER III

THE EXECUTIVE POWER

I have been introduced at a great many places by the exuberant chairman of a committee who referred to the fact that he was about to introduce a gentleman who exercised the greatest power in the world. While the power of the President may be very great as compared with the power of rulers of other countries, I can testify that when you are exercising it, you don't think of its extent so much as you do of its limitations. I think a study of the relative power of the King of England, the President of France, the Emperor of Germany, the King of Italy, the Emperor of Austria and the Emperor of Russia might involve a very interesting investigation. I am not sufficiently familiar with the power of those executive heads to speak on the subject, though I do know something of the power of the King of England. In England and all of her colonies they have a so-called responsible government. The English King is said to reign and not to rule, while the actual ruler is the Premier, who combines executive and legislative power by virtue of his position as head of the controlling party in Parliament. When the legislative majority fails him, he goes out of office. It is a government responsible both for legislation and for executive work.

With us, as you know, the President is a permanent officer for four years. It is quite possible that he may be elected as President at the same time that a Congress hostile to him is put into power. Such was the case when Mr. Hayes was elected, and indeed when Mr. Cleveland was first elected there was a majority against him in the Senate. It happens more frequently, however, that at the end of two years a majority of the opposing party is elected to a Congress at the mid-term election. Our method has been criticised as rigid and unresponsive to change in popular opinion, but I venture to think that it has some advantages over the English one. It may be good for a country to have an occasional rest from legislation, to let it digest what reformers have already gotten on its statute book, and the period when the President differs from Congress offers such an opportunity for test and rest. We have rests in music, which are necessary to a proper composition, and I do not see why we should not have rests in politics.

I think, however, that we might advantageously give greater power to the President in the matter of legislation. One of the difficulties about a Congress—I say it with deference to that body—is that it does not know enough about the executive facts which ought to control legislation in the course of an efficient government. The introduction of cabinet officers on the floor of the House and the floor of the Senate to urge legislation on the one hand, and to point out the defects of proposed legislation, on the other hand, would furnish the necessary element. This would, of course, make it requisite that cabinet officers should be able to look after themselves on their feet. They would have to know their Department and be ready to answer such questions as are put to cabinet officers on the floor of Parliament.

President Wilson has inaugurated the policy of delivering his message to Congress personally. I think that is a good innovation. A Democrat could have made it, not a Republican. Washington had to go to Congress, so had Adams, but when Jefferson came in he said, "No, that is monarchical, and I will just write a letter to Congress," and so he did. Washington went once to the Senate and attempted to have the Senate concur with him in a treaty with the Indians. He took with him General Knox, who had frequently dealt with Indians. John Quincy Adams, in his diary, describes what happened as he learned it from a member of the Senate at that time. He says that in the conference, Washington found that every member of the Senate thought he knew more about the Indian treaty than General Knox. Whereupon, he, the father of our country, who has been represented as a model in every way, proved that he was no such "sissy" as some of his historians would like to make him out. His character was one which develops into grand proportions when you study it, but he was no mere steel engraving of copy-book perfection. When he got through with that particular session, he turned to Knox as he went out, and said he would be damned if he would come to the Senate again. Now I do not approve of profanity generally, but somehow or other I rather like that story because it lets in a little light on Washington and shows he was a man with good red blood.

The first power of the President that I wish to consider is the veto power. The English King has it, but never exercises it, i.e., he has not exercised it for two hundred years. If he attempted to exercise it under the present British Constitution, he would shake the throne and should he try it a second time he might not have a throne under him. The President, however, has the veto power under a provision of the Constitution. When he decides to differ with both Houses, certain members of demagogic tendency rise to say that the President is exercising a royal prerogative power, or that he is going back to the time of Imperial Rome. This might frighten an inexperienced man, but in reality it is mere bluster. As a matter of fact, the President represents the people in a much wider sense than any particular Congressional orator, for he was elected by all the people, while the Congressman was chosen by only one district. The Constitution says that if he disapproves of an act, he shall send it back with his objections and it enjoins upon him the duty of examining every act and every bill that comes to him, to see whether it ought to pass. He vetoes, therefore, in his representative capacity, with legislative and suspensive, but not absolute, power. A vetoed act is returned to the House, and if its supporters can succeed in getting a two-thirds majority in each House, the bill can still pass over his veto. This rarely happens, however, for the President can usually give reasons good enough to command the vote of at least the one-third of one House that is necessary to sustain his veto.

The second great control exercised by the President is that of Commander-in-Chief. This includes, first of all, his command over the army, which is complete. He can send the army where he chooses and he can call out the state militia to repel invasion, to suppress insurrection and to execute the laws, if the army or militia be necessary. Of that he alone is the judge. Early in our history certain state judges thought that the commander of the militia in each state should pass on the question as to whether an emergency had arisen which would justify the President in calling out the militia, but that was one hundred years ago.

To illustrate our practice now in regard to the execution of laws with the aid of the army, there is one very striking instance which occurred within my memory. Debs organized the American Railway Union in order to take the American people by the throat and say to them: "You shall not have any milk for your babies, you shall not have any food, you shall not have anything. I am going to stop every railroad in the country until you come with me and make Pullman pay his men what I think they ought to have, and what they think they ought to have." That was a secondary boycott, which Mr. Cleveland said ought to be suppressed. Since it involved the stoppage of mails and interstate commerce, the United States courts issued injunctions to prevent the malcontents from continuing their work of obstruction. When Debs's Union defied the court injunction, the President sent General Miles out to Chicago with a military force to suppress that obstruction to the United States laws.