Nay, they would have taken pride in it.

It is already, as we shall see, a recognized axiom in Congress, and particularly in the Senate, "that it is futile to oppose a President and his administration." 1

But it must not be supposed by the inquirer into the phenomena of the New America, that the increased power of the ruler is an abnormal condition, that it is wholly confined to the rare periods of war. The domination of the President has extended and is extending by reason of causes which operate daily in times of peace.

It has been remarked that the lines along which the legislative, executive, and judicial divisions of the Government were laid down are no longer equal to themselves or parallel to each other. The legislative and judicial are merging towards the executive. I am strongly inclined to think that those who have diagnosed the situation, while enumerating some of the causes, have not been at pains to seek out the chief cause, which I have already hinted at and desire to make plainer later on in this chapter.

But, at the same time, it is as well to capitulate some of the popular and more obvious factors in the executive power. The first of these is the recourse which the President has to the national treasury. Nothing is clearer than that the hand which is able to distribute thousands of offices, involving millions of pounds sterling, is the hand of power. The lavish distribution of places for which President Jackson's

1 As one journalist puts it: "The pathway of national politics is strewn with the corpses of men who have attempted the fatal task of opposing a President of the United States."

administration became notorious was but trivial in comparison with the patronage in the gift of a President to-day.

To the President of the United States is given the opportunity to divert this stream where and whither he will-into the pockets generally of his personal friends, but invariably to the financial benefit of his political supporters. If money is the lever that rules the world, the President can dispense it with a largesse that is startling.

"Picture, for instance, the President standing beside the public vaults, with one arm plunged elbow-deep into the overflowing treasury, while the other is distributing the golden store to a greedy horde of eager men!" For this dazzling image, I hasten to add that I am indebted to Mr. Litchfield West, a personal friend of the late President McKinley, whose admiration for the man did not, he assures us, make him less alive to the fearful terrors of one-man power. Postmasters, collectors of custom, revenue officials, marshals, attorneys, consuls, foreign ministers-all these and more are among the recipients of the President's bounty. That we may not be accused of dealing in loose generalities, if we turn to the records of the various administrative departments at Washington, we may ascertain the actual number of offices which are directly filled by the President, with the amount of the annual salaries attached thereto.

State, Department, 318 consular and diplomatic ap

...

pointments

Treasury Department, 743 customs, revenue, marine,

Post Office Department, 4015 postmasters

Interior Department, 747 pension officials, land office

...

$6,931,000

Department of Justice, judges, attorneys, marshals,

With regard to the latter, it deserves to be noted that the appointment of the federal judiciary is entirely in the hands of the President, but, what is more to the purpose, instances abound of late where the tenor of a forthcoming legal decision has been accurately predicted through a knowledge of the political complexion of the Court.

In 1901 the Senate did not scruple to confirm the appointment of a son of an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court as Attorney-General of Porto Rico, at a time when the Court had under consideration a decision of vital concern to the administration. At the same time the son of another Justice of the Supreme Court found little difficulty in obtaining his promotion in the Army over the heads of many of his fellow-officers. Is it surprising to be told that these favours yield their fruit? We in monarchical countries are accustomed to instances of family patronage: we do not observe any flagrant public disadvantage arising from the practice; but in America the fact that it is unusual creates a conscious condition of its usefulness, and its very novelty disturbs the morale of the public service. Such a condition will naturally tend to adjust itself, until the rule that the son of a minister has greater claims than other men to office, will obtain tacit recognition. Noblesse oblige is a motto not yet understood in America.

To return to the President's patronage. The total sum involved for departments named is between $11,000,000 and $12,000,000 annually, the whole of which goes into the pockets of the persons whom the ruler personally selects, or whose appointment, solicited by senators and representatives, he approves. But how insufficient is this sum when we have as yet omitted entirely the war and navy departments, which offer fewer opportunities for obtaining the precise figures. It will be enough to say that, within the last few years, the President has been authorized to make enormous additions to the list of army and navy officers whose pay will reach into the millions of dollars. On the whole, a moderate estimate-taking into consideration the $12,000,000 above specified and added thereto the military and naval list (for the President is Commanderin-Chief of the Forces), the unclassified appointments and new offices created annually-of the total distribution effected by the President would reach the sum of $20,000,000. I have seen it given as $30,000,000 ; but, in any case, the total distribution during his term of office would not fall short of $80,000,000, or £16,000,000 sterling.

Patronage, it need hardly be urged, on such a scale is an engine of tremendous political power. Whether this engine has been or could be employed to achieve definite results desired by an American President I will leave the student of recent history in the republic to decide for himself. It is alleged that certain definite results have been achieved, certain exhibitions of personal power which an English king or Prime Minister might envy. When, for example, President Cleveland took

office in 1893 he found that Congress had passed a law which provided for the purchase of 4,500,000 ounces of silver each month. The President took it into his head to secure the repeal of this Statute. He did not confine his interests in this repeal to the message which he delivered to Congress at an opening of the extraordinary session of that body which he convened. That, it was observed, was his constitutional limitation ; but on this occasion the President seemed determined to illustrate how much greater is the individual power of the executive than that of the representatives of the nation. He therefore brought to bear upon the legislative branch of the Government an amount of personal pressure unequalled, in time of peace, in the history of the republic.

It was well known to the readers of the newspapers at that juncture how the emissaries of the President thronged the Halls of the Congress, stories were told of "strange and remarkable conversions" which were wrought through "influences which emanated from the White House." Neither the President nor any of his Cabinet have seats in Congress: they could not personally and verbally urge there the repeal. But the Bill passed and went to a hostile Senate, who had resolved not to pass the measure. Here, again, the power of the President proved too strong; and there then arose the maxim, "It is futile to oppose the President."

Since this episode there have occurred others, not less striking, as, for instance, the power exerted by the President in favour of the ratification of the treaty of peace with Spain; while the history of the passage