The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-12-26
THE CABINET IN CONGRESS
From the Boston Transcript.

From the Boston Transcript.
 N RESIDENT TAFT'S recommenda-
 N tion that members of the cabinet
 \ be given seats in either branch of
 Congress, with the right to speak but
 not to vote, which he launched at a din- ner at the Lotos club, New York, several
 weeks ago, he renewed in message to
 Congress yesterday. The difference in the form of presentation may make all the difference between action and in-
 action. An after-dinner speech Is an after-dinner speech. It may preclude the formal presentation of an idea, or it
 may be but a feeler put out to ascertain
 the expediency of further. proceedings. A message to Congress is official and
 never can be disavowed It is the ex- ecutives constitutional way for inviting the attention of the national lawmakers to project that comments itself to his judgment. Today Congress has not before it a speech of which it need not it must give consideration, even if that
 consideration does not go beyond the generalities of debate. The distinction be- tween speech and message is obvious to Congress, and should be obvious to the
 country, which would be greatly bene- ffted by the adoption of President Taft s
 suggestion.
 To clear the public mind of misap-
 prehension 1t is liable to fall into, 1t
 cannot be too emphatically said that the
 President does argue for the tinroduc- ton of ministerial responsibility" To introduce that would require the amend
 ment of the constitution which prohibits
 anyone holding an office under the
 United States being a member of either
 house of Congress. The cabinet mem-
 bers, given simply seats, would not be divorced from their positions as council
 ors of the President. He could dispense with their services whenever he chose
 He could change the personnel of the
 cabinet at his pleasure. His constitu- tional powers would be in nowise abridg- cd by the change. The benefit of the
 innovation would be wholly to Congress,
 and incidentally it would relieve the President of much tiresome routine in-
 volved in the existing no-systeh in the
 relations of the law makers and the heads of the executive departments. The ways. In the first place 1t would save
 great deal of time. An inquiry which
 now follows the departmental circuitous
 course. going from official to official
 noted and "memorandumed ad libi- tum in it's progress, could be answered in five minutes were the appropriate cab
 inet member present. Many such in
 quries emanate from Congress in the course of a session. Some of them are
 important, others are trivial, but the
 process is always time-consuming. Delay affords plenty of opportunities for repre- sentatives or senators to evolve their
 own interpretations and expound them on the floor. Confusion and misunder- standing come easily. Before the quiz zed cabinet officer can reply he may find himself "pilloried in debate' with little prospect that his reply, however satisfactory. will unpillory him. The re- Iations of Congress to the cabinet are
 now chemically strained, and become painfully acute when the administration is of one party and the House or Sen ate Of the other. Ihe opposition is apt to regard, or to pretend that it regards, inc Presidents advisers IS bad men who
 have not been found out. If the cabinet members and the law makers were brought into daily contact in the dis | charge of duties, a common good un- derstanding would in all probability re- suit that would make for mutual recog- hilton of honesty of intention being per- fectly consistent with difference in po- htical views.
 l A second benefit to Congress oolt arise from the superior informs ln pi