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Chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs and the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. The President, sitting with these five officials, together with the Secretaries of State, Treasury, War, Navy, Commerce and the Attorney-General, would form a Cabinet capable of reaching decisions on foreign affairs likely to secure cooperation from all departments of the government and yet not too large to do business.34

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Closer relations might also be established by the President with Congress and especially with the Senate through personal delivery of messages and explanations of his policy, but always at his initiative.35 The present practice, whereby Congress does not direct" the Secretary of State to submit papers and information as it does other cabinet officers but requests the real head of the department, the President of the United States, "to submit matters if, in his judgment, not incompatible with the public interest," must be maintained.36

Finally, close informal relations between the President and congressional committees on foreign affairs should exist, here again at the President's initiative. President Madison was right, as Senator Lodge pointed out in 1906, in refusing to receive a Senate committee sent on command of that body to interview him with reference to an appointment of a minister to Sweden. But the Pres

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34 The writer owes this suggestion to Professor John A. Fairlie. 35" Rule XXXVI of the Standing Rules of the Senate still provides the manner in which the President is to meet the Senate in executive session. Henry Cabot Lodge, in referring to the recognition in this rule of the right of the President to meet with the Senate in consideration of treaties, said in the United States Senate, January 24, 1906: 'Yet I think we should be disposed to resent it if a request of that sort was made to us by the President.' Cong. Rec., 59th Cong., 1st sess., 1470" (Crandall, op. cit., p. 68, note 5). But see remarks of Senator Bacon, supra, sec. 176. President Wilson revived the custom in abeyance since the time of John Adams of appearing in person before Congress for the delivery of formal messages.

36 Supra, sec. 234.

37 “In the administration of Mr. Madison the Senate deputed a committee to see him in regard to the appointment of a minister to Sweden, and he replied that he could recognize no committee of the Senate, that his relations were exclusively with the Senate." Senator Lodge of Massachusetts, Jan. 23, 1906, Cong. Rec., 40: 1420, quoted Corwin, op. cit., pp. 174–175.

ident should often invite such committees to discuss with him.38 Thus, without limiting the President's power in foreign relations, or in any way impairing his capacity to take speedy action when necessary, we might develop conventions which would show him. how he ought to exercise his discretion-conventions sanctioned in last analysis by the possibility of Senate or congressional veto of his measures, defeat of his party in the next election, or even impeachment.

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Though this essay has dealt with constitutional law and constitutional conventions, it must be emphasized that the system is not the most important part of government. Any system will work with big men.39 It is the merit of the British system that it throws big men to the top. The United States must develop political traditions and methods that will do the same. The people and parties must insist on men of experience and tried capacity as candidates. For the conduct of foreign relations, the personnel of the Presidency, the Secretaryship of State and the Senate are especially important. The Senate might well have more members with executive and administrative experience as did the Senate of ancient Rome. Why not retain the services of ex-Presidents and Secretaries by electing them to the Senate? Conversely, Secretaries of State might well be chosen from men of legislative, especially senatorial, experience.42

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38 Supra, sec. 176. A recent illustration is President Wilson's offer to discuss the treaty of Versailles with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, an offer which resulted in several conferences in the White House during the summer of 1919. See 66th Cong., 1st sess., Sen. Doc. 106, p. 499 et seq.

39" Constitute government how you please, infinitely the greater part of it must depend upon the exercise of powers which are left at large to the prudence and uprightness of ministers of state. Even all the use and potency of the laws depends upon them. Without them your Commonwealth is no better than a scheme upon paper; and not a living, active, effective organization." Edmund Burke.

40 Reinsch, World Politics, pp. 340-346.

41 There have been some notable examples of this in recent years, such as Senators Root and Knox.

42" From Monroe's Secretaryship of State in 1811, down to the resignation of Mr. Blaine, that position was held constantly by men who had been United States Senators, with the exception of brief interregna, covering altogether less than one and a half years, and with the exception of William M. Evarts, who became a Senator later in his career. Since the resignation of

Finally, the President on whom falls final responsibility for leading the separated and often antagonistic agencies of government to the goal of a successful foreign policy should not be a dark horse. Why not develop traditions of advancement, as from a governorship to the Senate, then to the Vice-Presidency, or to the Cabinet, and finally to the Presidency. It was done in the first forty years of our national history.43 It would lead bigger men to the Senate and Cabinet. It would insure capacity and popular confidence in the President.

Mr. Blaine an entirely new system has come into use, Senators Sherman (and Knox) being the only Secretaries of State who had also been members of the Senate. Under these circumstances, it is not surprising that there should have been more friction between the President and the Senate on foreign matters than existed during the earlier years of our nation's life." (Reinsch, Am. Legislatures, p. 95, quoted in Willoughby, op. cit., p. 460.)

43 For table showing the experience of American Presidents, see Am. Pol. Sci. Rev., 15: 25. Wilson (Congressional Government, pp. 251-256) refers to the tendency of the governorship rather than membership in the Senate or House to be in the line of promotion to the presidency.

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THE "TURTLE-OREODON LAYER" OR "RED LAYER," A CONTRIBUTION TO THE STRATIGRAPHY OF THE WHITE RIVER OLIGOCENE (RESULTS OF THE PRINCETON UNIVERSITY 1920 EXPEDITION TO SOUTH DAKOTA).

(PLATE VII.)

INVESTIGATION AIDED BY A GRANT FROM THE MARSH FUND OF THE
NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES.

BY WILLIAM J. SINCLAIR.
(Read April 22, 1921.)

Perhaps the most abundantly fossiliferous horizon in the White River Oligocene badlands of South Dakota is a nodular clay band at the base of the Brule formation (Oreodon beds), which, from the abundant remains of turtles and oreodons, the rusty color of the fossils in general, and the pinkish-gray tone of the matrix, has long been known to collectors as the "turtle-oreodon layer" or "red layer." It is remarkably persistent throughout a region miles in extent and, although known and collected from for the past seventy years, is still a never-failing source of splendidly preserved material. In thickness it varies considerably, values ranging from 29.5 to 39 feet having been obtained within a few miles of each other in Pennington County in the Big Badlands, where the "red layer" is most typically developed, and of 43 feet at Cedar Pass near Interior in Jackson County. There is considerable facial difference between these two areas, necessitating their separate description.

In the Big Badlands, throughout the basins of Indian Creek, Spring Creek, Bear Creek, Jones Creek and Cain Creek, in Pennington County, the base of the "turtle-oreodon layer" lies immediately above a white more or less completely silicified limestone in discontinuous lenses, forming, wherever present, excellent horizon markFrom analogy with a similar material found in the middle

ers.

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