Waterbury evening Democrat., 1906-07-02
SAID THEIR FAREwELLs.
Cabinet Members Bade Each Other
 Good Bye for the Summer.

Washington, D. C., July 2.-No more cabinet meetings will probably be held until next autumn. The president and his advisers formally bade farewell to one another at Fri days meeting. It is quite likely that during the summer, various members of the cabinet will visit the president at Oyster Bay to take up with him matters of department routine in which he is interested particularly. These conferences really are of im- pOrtance. In an individual way the. president has made practice of con- sidering with members of the cabinet subjects of most serious importance. He has learned by experience that he obtains better resultsin that way than he possibly can get by considering the hundred and one things of gen. eral interest in full cabinet meet ing.
 Itswiu be a sort of shock to sAperi-I can people to learn that cabinet meetings have come to be largely per- functory gatherings. A year or so ago, the president gave directions to the members of his official family that, thereafter, they were not to dis cuss for publication the details of cabinet sessions. He discussed the matter frankly with his friends among the corps of Washington newspaper correspondents, He said frankly that the reports sent out to the newspapers of meetings of the cabinet often were unimportant and inconseQuential. He admitted that this was due principally to the fact that the subjects of genuine i'm portance seldom were taken up and decided at the meetings, he said, but decisions rarely were reached at the meetings,
 Since MT Roosevelt became presi- dent, 1t has become practice for him to consider, with individual members of his cabinet matters which relate to the departments of which the consulted members are the heads. These consultations are not held at meetings of the cabinet, but in the privacy of the presidents office or in his library in the White house. There is abundant reasoHifcr this',pYactiee.s The ,busiAesst.of-rth government has grown so greatly during the past five or six years especially since the Spanish-Ameri- can war-that it has become a prac- tical impossibility for the president and all the members of the cabinet to discuss all matters relating to the several departments of the goy- ernment. Therefore, only import ant general subjects are considered at meetings of the cabinet and even these are only sketched out in free hand way. The real substance of every question is threshed out by the president and the particular cabinet officer under whose department the matter is to be executed. If it be deemed advisable, the decision reach ed by the president and the cabinet officer then is submitted to the full cabinet; but this method is not al- ways pursued.
 At the time the president an- nounced his decision that details of cabinet meetings should not be given out for publication, furore was creat- ed by what was termed the putting on and screwing down of the lid" It was suggested that there were matters which 1t was desired was to cover up' to keep from the people. and that the presidents action was the exercise of czar-like authority. . Ie president told the Washington correspondents. however, that he had nothing to conceal except occasion ally when 1t was thought to be inop- perfume to disclose certain questions which might be under consideration. He assured the newspaper men that they should have all legitimate news and he has kept his word. The news has been published. the only differ ence being that 1t has been made public either directly by the presi- dent, himself. or. by individual men,- bers of the cabinet from their de- partments President Roosevelt, personally is one of the best sources of news in Washington and, to those newspaper men in whom he reposes confidence, he talks freely and frank ly about almost any question of pub lie interest. The net result is. there fore. that the news reaches the people now not as coming directly from the cabinet meetings, but from the sec retaries of the various departments or from President Roosevelt himself. From a public viewpoint, meetings of the cabinet rarely are of serious conseauence