Since the beginning of the federal government, Presidents have called upon executive branch officials to provide them with advice regarding matters of policy and administration. The Constitution recognized such relationships when it authorized the President, in Article II, Section 2, to "require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any Subject relating to the Duties of their respective Offices." There were, as well, reasons to expect that such advice, whether offered orally or in writing, would be held in confidence. The advice was for the President's consideration and his decision making. The matters involved were sensitive, perhaps bearing upon the foreign, military, economic, or law enforcement policy of the nation. Also, the provision, discussion, and use of such advice by the executive branch could affect its relationships with the other coequal constitutional branches. President George Washington and his Cabinet had these considerations in mind, as Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson's notes on their deliberations reflect, when they decided upon a response to a 1792 congressional request for information. We had all considered, and were of one mind, first, that the House was an inquest, and therefore might institute inquiries. Second that it might call for papers generally. Third, that the Executive ought to communicate such papers as the public good would permit, and ought to refuse those, the disclosure of which would injure the public; consequently were to exercise a discretion. Fourth, that neither the committee nor House had a right to call on the Head of a Department, who and whose papers were under the President alone; but that the committee should instruct their chairman to move the House to address the President.... The Cabinet, composed of the principal officers in each of the executive departments, failed, for several reasons, to develop as an important source of presidential advice. The department heads constituting the Cabinet were often chosen to satisfy interests that contributed significantly to the President's election. Considerations of partisanship, ideology, geography, public image and stature, and aptitude, among others, figured prominently in their selection. Sometimes the President was not personally well acquainted with these individuals and had only minimal confidence and trust in them. In a few cases, a political rival was included in the Cabinet. It is also very likely that some activist Presidents were ill suited to the group deliberation of the Cabinet. Similarly, many Cabinet members might have felt unqualified, or were unwilling, to offer counsel to the President on matters outside of their immediate portfolios; their advice was perhaps limited to, and protective of, departmental interests. Finally, personal hostilities between or among department heads could result in such tumult within the Cabinet that little useful advice could be gained. Consequently, Presidents generally looked to other quarters for advisers. One development in this regard was the creation of circles of advisers composed of both public officials and private citizens. President Andrew Jackson, whose election and White House tenure occurred in an era marked by violent political controversy and party instability, utilized an informal group of advisers which came to be known as the Kitchen Cabinet. The members represented "rising social groups as yet denied the prestige to which they felt their power and energies entitled them"—newspapermen, the President's private secretary, campaign organizers and officials from prior administrations, and longtime personal friends. When John Tyler succeeded to the presidency upon the death of William Henry Harrison, he revived Jackson's practice. Deserted by Whigs and Democrats alike, Tyler resorted to a select circle of advisers composed of personal and political friends from his native Virginia—a college president, a state supreme court judge, four members of the state's delegation in the House of Representatives, and a Senator. Following this practice, several succeeding Presidents had informal groups of advisers that were given colorful names by the press. For example, for Grover Cleveland, it was a Fishing Cabinet; for Theodore Roosevelt, a Tennis Cabinet; for Warren G. Harding, a Poker Cabinet; and for Herbert Hoover, a Medicine Ball Cabinet. Jackson's inclusion of his personal secretary in his Kitchen Cabinet reflects another line of development regarding presidential advisers. Beginning with Washington, Presidents sought to meet the demands of their office with the assistance of a single personal secretary, usually a relative, compensated from their own private resources. In 1833, Congress authorized the President to appoint, with the advice and consent of the Senate, a secretary "whose duty it shall be, under the direction of the President, to sign in his name and for him, all patents for lands sold or granted under the authority of the United States." Jackson named Andrew Jackson Donelson, his wife's nephew and current personal secretary, to this position, relieving himself of continued personal compensation of the young man. Ultimately, Congress appropriated funds to the Chief Executive in 1857 for an official household—a personal secretary, a steward to supervise the Executive Mansion, and a messenger. Many years later, in 1929, Congress was persuaded to authorize an increase in the President's top personnel, adding two more secretaries and an administrative assistant. Appointed to these senior staff positions were presidential lieutenants, if not presidential intimates and advisers. When Franklin D. Roosevelt came to the presidency in 1933, he brought with him, from his New York gubernatorial experience, a new kind of advisory circle, composed of intellectuals, or at least a core group of Columbia University professors who were joined by other ideas people to form the "Brains Trust." Because there were an insufficient number of staff positions at the White House to accommodate them, these advisers were placed elsewhere in the executive branch, but, for the most part, directly served the President. This staffing situation, coordination problems, and the development of a new administrative management concept prompted Roosevelt to create, by announcement, a study panel—the President's Committee on Administrative Management, under the leadership of Louis Brownlow, a prominent public administration practitioner—in 1936 to examine and make recommendations regarding these matters. Reporting some 10 months later, the Brownlow committee addressed presidential staffing in dramatic and detailed terms. The President needs help. His immediate staff assistance is entirely inadequate. He should be given a small number of executive assistants who would be his direct aides in dealing with the managerial agencies and administrative departments of the government. These assistants, probably not exceeding six in number, would be in addition to the present secretaries, who deal with the public, with the Congress, and with the press and radio. These aides would have no power to make decisions or issue instructions in their own right. They would not be interposed between the President and the heads of his departments. They would not be assistant presidents in any sense. Their function would be, when any matter was presented to the President for action affecting any part of the administrative work of the Government, to assist him in obtaining quickly and without delay all pertinent information possessed by any of the executive departments so as to guide him in making his responsible decisions; and then when decisions have been made, to assist him in seeing to it that every administrative department and agency affected is promptly informed. Their effectiveness in assisting the President will, we think, be directly proportional to their ability to discharge their functions with restraint. They would remain in the background, issue no orders, make no decisions, emit no public statements. Men for these positions should be carefully chosen by the President from within and without the Government. They should be men in whom the President has personal confidence and whose character and attitude is [sic] such that they would not attempt to exercise power on their own account. They should be possessed of high competence, great physical vigor, and a passion for anonymity. They should be installed in the White House itself, directly accessible to the President. In the selection of these aides, the President should be free to call on departments from time to time for the assignment of persons who, after a tour of duty as his aides, might be restored to their old positions. In addition to the proposed addition of six assistants to the President's staff, the committee's report also recommended vesting responsibility in the President for the continuous reorganization of the executive branch. Released to Congress on January 12, 1937, the report soon became lost in high politics. Three weeks after submitting the Brownlow committee's report to Congress, Roosevelt announced he wanted to enlarge the membership of the Supreme Court. His "court packing" plan not only fed congressional fears of a presidential power grab, but also so preoccupied Congress that the Brownlow committee's recommendations were ignored. Although efforts at gaining legislative approval of the Brownlow committee's recommendations lay in ruin in the spring of 1938, the President had not deserted the cause. By July, Roosevelt was meeting with Brownlow and the other committee members. The panel would not be officially reassembled, but he wanted each man's help with a reorganization authority proposal. The resulting measure empowered the President to propose reorganization plans, subject to a veto by a majority vote of disapproval in both houses of Congress, and to also appoint six administrative assistants. After three days of discussion and debate, the House adopted the bill on March 8, 1939. Twelve days later, the Senate began considering the proposal. Following two days of sparring over amendments, the Senate adopted the bill. A quick conference cleared the measure for Roosevelt's signature on April 3. Earlier, the President had asked the Brownlow committee members to assist with the preparation of his initial reorganization plans. Following consultations with Budget Bureau Director Harold D. Smith, the Brownlow group presented two reorganization proposals to Roosevelt on April 23. Plan 1, submitted to Congress on April 25, transferred certain agencies to the Executive Office of the President, but offered no explanation of that entity. In Plan 2, a presidential emergency council was abolished and most of its functions were transferred to the Executive Office. While both plans were acceptable to legislators, their effective dates were troublesome in terms of accommodating fiscal calendar necessities. By joint resolution, Congress provided that both plans would be effective on July 1, 1939.