Perth Amboy evening news., 1911-05-19
HOW GOVERNOR
MAY TAKE HAND
Wilson Says People Look
to Executive to Lead.

Interests winch Work legislation In
secrecy, according to Woodrow Will
son, who spoke last night for a re-
turn to publicity and the ordeal Of
debate in lawmaking, before the
Commercial Club here.
Bills submitted to the legislatures.
he declared, have so uniformly con-
cealed their real authorship and the
process of their enactment has so
largely been by ambush-all because
selfish interests have so freely usurp-
ed legislation-that the people have
come to distrust their law-making
bodies. From this he went Into a de-
Tense of the policy he pursued in his
own State of New Jersey, in present.
ing, ready formulated, measures for
enactment by the legislature, instead
of waiting for them to spring from
an unknown and distrusted source.
He said:
The political machine. when It con-
trolls legislation, can operate success
fully only in private. The minute
what Is going on is made public it
becomes impossible to carry it out.
Similarly when great commercial or
financial interests have schemes Of
their own to work through legisla-
ton privacy Is indispensable. What
they wish to do could not be done In
the open without such exposure and
criticism as would almost inevitably
defeat 1t.
People Simply Want Open Leader.
These circumstances are not often
consciously and distinctly analysed
by the mass of voters, but undoubt-
eddy the great body Of our citizens is
vaguely conscious of them and they
lie at the basis of a great deal of the
DISTRICT and uneasiness which Is felt
when our legislatures are in session.
The great thing to be desired in this,
as In all other matters of govern
ment, is publicity. There is no more
reason why committee meetings,
where important public matters are
handled, should be private than that
legislative sessions themselves should
be private. If legislation Is, IN fact,
accomplished in committees, commit
instrumentalities.
In the meantime we witness a very
interesting thing-the whole coun-
try, since 1t cannot decipher the
methods of it's legislation, is clamor-
ing for leadership, and a new role,
which to many persons seems little
less than unconstitutional, is thrust
upon III executives. The people are
impatient of a President who will not
formulate policy and insist upon its
adoption. They are impatient of a
governor who will not exercise ener-
getic leadership, who will not make
his appeals directly to public opinion
and insist that the dictates Of public
opinion be carried out in definite
legal reforms of his own suggestion.
A Constitutional Right.
The scruple against the Executive
"dictating' to the legislative branch
is based on ignorance Of an actual Con
stitutional mandate, said the Governor.
He continued:
Almost every State Constitution not
only gives the Governor what the Fed
eral Constitution gives the President
the right to send messages to the
Legislature expressing his views upon
public matters in any way he pleases,
but also, like the Federal Constitution,
gives him the right to recommend
"measures' without naming or re-
stricting the form in which his recon-
%mendation Of measures shall be made.
1t seems perfectly clear that it is the
explicit p~rerogative of practically ev-
cry American executive to recommend
measures, if he pleases, in the form of
bills.
Moreover, he is the only representa-
tive of the whole people Of the State,
as the President is the only representa-
tive of the people Of the county. He
is made a part of the legislative branch
of the government by his power of We
to, and there are no necessary limita-
tions upon his exercise of his influence
except the limitations of sincerity and
honesty.
Impossible to be Despotic.
No doubt the present unusual promi-
nence and influence Of our State and
Federal executives is due to an effort
perhaps unconscious, to give our system
of government hat which it has lack
ed, namely some central force, some
process of suggestion and leadership,
which will offset the confusion and Sc
crecy of our legislative methods. mas
much as it is next to impossible to de-
termine who is running the Legislature
from the inside, there is an instinct
i've desire that there should be some
1OIce uIIeclIHS anu 4eduluS II IIOu the
outside, some force which shall be OBJ
vious and therefore responsible, open
to the view of everybody and subject
only to the restraints of public opinion.
Public opinion must by hook or by
crook get into the business. If it can
not get into it through committee rooms
it may possibly get into it through ex-
%ecutive leadership.
The increasing dependence of the
country upon its executive officers is
thrusting upon them a double function.
They must undertake the business of
agitation-that is to say, the business
of forming and leading opinion; and it
will not be very effectual or servicea-
BILE for them to do that unless they take
the next step and make bold to formu-
late the measures by which opinion is
to be put into effect. Their new pow
ers, if they be new, are not powers of
compulsion; they are only powers of
leadership. They cannot oblige Legisla-
lures to carry out their decisions. Their
strength is nothing except when their
fellow-citizens agree with them and
stand back of them in the great bust
ness of politics.
The defect of the whole method is
that it does not lead to sufficiently
thorough debate. Undoubtedly the
hope of the immediate future is that
by slowly getting rid of machine con
troll and the control of secret interests
of other kinds inside our legislative
chambers, they may thoroughly regain
their self-possession and their self-re-
.Daat anA -, ra1oJ,1.~ +hao. -