| OCR Text |
Show -3- II This is not the place to contend for the federal against the unitary state.13 Suffice it to say that on the eve of the Great War one of the most significant political thinkers of the Continent turned to federalism as a cure for the disruptive tendencies of the Austria-Hungarian monarchy. 14 Federalism is again pressed as the solution for the legacies of the Great War in the Danubian and Balkan states. 15 The persistence of federalism in this country in substantially its present form, namely, as a Union of States is, we submit, an assured fact. All fruitful political and legal discussion centering about the actual workings of government in the immediate future must accept its continuance as a presupposition. This assumption, at any rate, underlies this paper-the continuance of the States approximately with their present legal autonomy, and not, like the departments of France, mere administrative divisions of the central government. We must face, therefore, two sets of legal authorities - the individual States and the United States - with their respective fields of action not de- finitively delimited by law and j'-et constantly interacting in" fact, particu- larly in crucial legislative aresls. The challenge of the situation is to make legal accommodations of these practical impingements. Inasmuch as there are these two categories of law-making agencies, State and Nation, the solu- tion of the problem has usually been conceived in terms of exclusive duality- Evils calling for legislative redress, recognized subjects of administrative control, governmental promotion of social ends, have throughout our history divided men into two hostile camps* those seeking relief through State action and those appealing for national intervention. As a result legal inventive- ness has been curbed and its resources largely confined to an untiue antithesis. If the State Governments were abolished as things too rotten to reform, tho government of all America through the central organ at Washington would be wholly impossible," See also Thompson, Federal Centralization (1923) p.vi "Social, economic and psychological factors, as well as legal must be con- sidered in attempting to find a workable division of functions in the federal government and the states." Senator RootTs famous speech before the Penn- sylvania Society on Dec. 12, 1906, Root, Addresses on Government and Citi- zenship, 362; LaSki, Sovereignty and Centralization (1916) 9 New Republic, 176, and reply by CJroly, The Failure of the States, ibid. 170; Croly, Promise of American Life (1909) passim." ¦^The literature on federalism, as the key to the adjustment of forces that parade under the fighting slogans of centralization and decentralization, is voluminous. By way of suggestive references we note* Bryce, American Commonwealth (1913) chs. 29 & 30; 2 Bryce, Modern Democracies (1921) 1*35-6$ Laski, .Foundations of Sovereignty (1921) 30; Leacock, Limitations of Federal Government (1908) 5 Proc« Am. Pol. Sci* Assoc. 37; Dicey, Law of the Consti- tution (8th ed. 1915) lxxv, 517, 529; Thompson, Federal Centralization (1923) ch.19, • ^See Redlich, "Austria-Hungary and Serbia" (July 2k> 19li+) 79 Bcon. Ft. I9 179- See also the extremely illuminating study of Popovici, Die Veroinigten Staaten von Gross-Oesterreich. (We are indebted for this valuable refer£nc*e to Dr. D. Mitrany, the historian of South-Eastern Europe). ^Compare Mitrany, The Unmaking of Jugo-Slavia (Jan. 28, 1925) I4I New |
