AMERICAN GOVERNMENT BY JAMES T. YOUNG PROFESSOR OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION, WHARTON New York THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1918 All rights reserved PROBLEMS OF CHILD WELFARE By GEORGE B. MANGOLD, PH.D. THE NEW AMERICAN GOVERNMENT AND ITS WORK By JAMES T. YOUNG. OUTLINES OF SOCIOLOGY BY F. W. BLACKMAR AND J. L. GILLIN. AMERICAN GOVERNMENT BY JAMES T. YOUNG PROFESSOR OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION, WHARTON COPYRIGHT, 1915, BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. Set up Norwood Bress Berwick & Smith Co., Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. PREFACE THIS book is intended for that large and growing circle of students and readers who want to know not only what the government is, but what it is doing, its plans and results. In order to meet this need certain distinctive features, it is hoped, may be found in the present treatment. First-The work of the government is given fully as much space as its form or structure. Political forms are always of interest but they no longer occupy the centre of the stage. Government usefulness and activity are now coming strongly into the foreground and this fact should be clearly reflected in our modern texts. Accordingly much greater emphasis than usual has been given to this part of the subject so that the student may grasp the important achievements and problems of both nation and state. Second-In carrying out this thought, special attention is devoted to Government Regulation of Business because in all parts of the country this has assumed a prime interest for both the university student and the general reader. Third-Certain phases of Social Legislation have also been brought out in order to give a clearer statement of the government's work. Fourth-Judicial decisions unfolding and interpreting the vital and essential public powers have been assigned an unusually prominent place and have supplanted less important matters. The aim here has been to lend more reality, vividness and clarity to a subject that is already beset by too many generalities. Fifth-In describing the structural side of our system, a stronger emphasis has been placed upon the Executive in order to bring the picture more into harmony with the real facts of public practice. Executive leadership to-day is the outstanding feature of our institutions. Instead of combating this fact or presenting it as an aberration from the true type, the present book accepts it unreservedly as a new and more effective form of working out our public problems and welfare. The Executive both in State and nation is set forth not as a self-seeking usurper but rather as a factor for efficiency, a means of carrying out the popular will. Our government is not a finished product nor a perfect crystal, it is still growing, and ever facing new problems. The Executive has shown itself to be peculiarly fitted to study and investigate these new conditions, to plan and propose modern solutions for them and to carry out the mandate of the people in the face of opposition and inertia. Sixth-Our government is here presented as a means of service. It is no longer a mere necessary evil,-nor is it a Moloch, calling upon men for sacrifice only. One goal the author has persistently kept before him,-to picture the new government as it 371370 |