Mr. Roosevelt's Spring Cleaning President Roosevelt's attempt at an administrative
organisation which will make—or may make—it possible for a President to do the work that a President has to do, will be viewed with sympathy everywhere outside the Capitol, where Congressmen, manifesting the jealousy invariably displayed by the legislative organ towards the executive, are already muttering rather querulously about the innovations proposed. Most of these are too much matters of detail to be of much concern on this side of the Atlantic, but the President's desire to create a pro- fessional civil service is of supreme importance, and, so far as it involves the State Department, of international importance. The United States has, of course, many professional civil servants who have served it well, but reliance has always been placed there much more than in other countries on specialists called in temporarily from .business or academic life. The system has some advan- tages but more disadvantages, and for the proposal to " place the whole of the Governmental administrative service on a career basis, and under a merit system," there is everything to be said. Federal administration in the United States needs strengthening, and Mr. Roosevelt seems to be setting the right way about it. He is careful to insist that he is not out to increase his personal power, but some of his Congressmen will never believe that.
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