enough to do with the commerce in which they are engaged to make a law about pay a law about commerce? When Congress said that interstate carriers should be liable for injuries caused by their negligence even though the man injured was partly to blame himself, did it mean that the states should not make the carrier liable where no one was to blame?97 Accord ing to certain cherished notions such questions are answered by finding the meaning of language contained in the Constitution or in statutes. But Mr. Justice McKenna, in his dissenting opinion in Caminetti v. United States has described the process of judicial interpretation after a fashion in closer accord with reality: "Undoubtedly, in the investigation of the meaning of a statute we resort first to its words, and, when clear, they are decisive. The principle has attractive and seemingly disposing simplicity, but that it is not easy of application, or, at least, encounters other principles, many cases demonstrate. The words of a statute may be uncertain in their signification or in their application. If the words be ambiguous, the problem they present is to be resolved by their definition; the subject-matter and the lexicons become our guides. But here, even, we are not exempt from putting ourselves in the place of the legislators. If the words be clear in meaning, but the objects to which they are addressed be uncertain, the problem then is to determine the uncertainty. And for this a realization of conditions that provoked the statute must inform our judgment."'99 Mr. Justice Holmes has reinforced the point in his dissenting opinion in Southern Pacific Co. v. Jensen.100 "I recognize," he says, "that judges do and must legislate." And then by way of qualification he adds: "But they can do so only interstitially; they are confined from molar to molecular motions."101 96 Supra, note 13. 97 Supra, p. 41. * 242 U. S. 496. 100 Supra, note 84. 101 244 U. S. 221. An efficiency expert might be inclined to think our way of running the federal system rather cumbrous. We cannot find out what a state can do until the Supreme Court tells us several years after the state has done it. Private individuals have to bear the expense of getting answers to questions that are questions of general public interest. Those who do not think it worth while to spend their time and money in resorting to the Supreme Court may obey the law of the state although the law is one which the court thinks encroaches on the power of the national government. Many state laws which are called invalid in the Supreme Court reports are nevertheless the rules of conduct actually followed by the individuals who do not raise and prosecute their objections. On the other hand the substantial unanimity with which most questions are answered by the court suggests that litigants and counsel who appeal to the highest judicial tribunal may at times be animated by other motives than serious doubts on questions of constitutionality. Few of the questions which they raise are sufficiently difficult so that the judges of the Supreme Court disagree about the answer. The efficiency expert who ventures to criticize should be willing also to give advice about ways of amelioration. He would doubtless find that any suggestion that the national legislature be vested with full power over all commerce, intrastate as well as interstate, would meet with insuperable objections in the emotions of those who would exalt the independence of their favorite state, and in the judgment of those who believe that the states know best about local needs and should remain the chief ministers to those needs. Those who have watched Congress strain at the task of running a war may not think it best to add permanently to the field of its labors. Very likely it would be difficult to get sufficient support for any amendment to our federal Constitution which was desired primarily for reasons of efficiency of administration. Yet it would seem that the creation of some national agency which would have power to veto or approve of state laws at the time of their enactment would be a step in advance of our existing arrangement. It would undoubtedly be imprudent to subject state laws to the approval of Congress. Some body like the Supreme Court seems better adapted to the task of deciding how far the states can go. The court gives little if any grounds for criticism directed against its decisions of these questions. But the same individuals sitting as a council of censors could do the same work to greater public advantage if they could pass upon state laws at the time of their enactment. Individuals would then know with what if any law they must comply. Suitors would then know whether to proceed under federal rules or under those of the state. They would not have to pay the cost of finding out the answer to the questions which concern many others besides themselves. Such a council of censors could at once suggest to Congress the federal regulation which was advisable when any state law had been disapproved. Some plan might be devised which would give us the advantages of a unitary system of government without compelling us to forego the genuine benefits which accrue from a federal system. The various possible plans are eminently worth thinking about. The review of the commerce decisions of the last three years makes it clear that few cases involve important questions of doctrine or of general policy. The great majority require merely the application of well-established principles to new particulars. It is submitted that the mechanism by which such problems are put before the judges who sit at Washington is susceptible of improvement. The practical situation to be dealt with is infinitely bigger and more complicated than in 1787. If in some way we could lighten the burdens of the Supreme Court, and at the same time secure as wise decisions at a more opportune season, we might demonstrate that constructive genius for devising governmental system exists in the twentieth century as well as in the eighteenth. (To be concluded) THE INSTITUTE FOR GOVERNMENT RESEARCH W. F. WILLOUGHBY Director of the Institute The Institute for Government Research is an institution incorporated under the laws of the District of Columbia and wholly supported by voluntary private donations. It received its charter on March 13, 1916, and began active operations on October 1 of the same year. Its purpose as set forth in its charter is: "To conduct scientific investigations into the theory and practice of governmental administration, including inquiries into the form of organization and the manner of operation of federal, state and local governmental bodies and offices in the United States of America; the powers, duties, limitations and qualifications of officers; the methods of administration employed; the character and cost of results obtained and the conditions affecting the efficiency and welfare of governmental officers and employees; to carry on such inquiries, directly or with the coöperation of governments, learned societies, institutions of learning or other agencies and individuals and to make public the results of its investigations; to maintain a library for the use of the society or its members and officers and those affiliated with its work; and to prosecute such other inquiries and perform such other services as may tend to the development and application of the principles of efficiency in governmental administration." There are certain features of this statement of the purposes of the Institute to which it is desired to direct attention. The first of these is that the Institute is declared to be an institution for scientific research. Its establishment represents the conviction on the part of its founders that the work of administration is, if not a science, a subject to the study of which the scientific method should be rigidly applied. It recognizes that, though the problems of administration are of great complexity and vary with the conditions under which each operation of government is carried on, there are certain fundamental principles and practices which must obtain in all governmental undertakings, if efficiency and economy in operation are to be secured. Thus, for example, if we apply to the problem of administration the scientific method of analysis, it will be found that it is resolvable into five fairly distinguishable parts: problems of organization, problems of personnel, problems of materiel, problems of business practice and procedure, and problems of finance. Each of these, in turn, is resolvable into more special phases. For example, problems of personnel have to do with the recruitment of personnel, how employees shall be classified, the basis on which their compensation shall be fixed, the manner of determining their efficiency through the establishment of efficiency records or otherwise, and the system of promotions based thereon, what shall be the working conditions of employees in respect to such matters as permanency of tenure, hours of labor, leave privileges, etc., and finally, the provision that shall be made in the way of retirement allowances or pensions for those incapacitated while in the performance of their duties or as the result of age. In like manner, problems of finance include such questions as the system of handling and disbursing funds, of accounting and reporting, of audit and, most important of all, of determining and making provision for the revenue and expenditure needs of the several services and of the government as a whole, or, to use the expression now commonly used, of the budgetary system that shall be employed. One of the major activities of the Institute will thus be that of subjecting this whole subject of public administration to scientific analysis, and of seeking to determine and make known the principles and practices that should be followed in respect to each of these general and specific activities in order to secure efficiency and economy in operation. In the performance of this activity the Institute has already made substantial progress. It has inaugurated a series of volumes, which is now in course of publication, under the general title of "Principles of Administration." The first volume of this series, entitled Principles Governing the |