Excerpt: …The situation in regard to the present income tax illustrates the necessity for regulations. You will recognize that regulations adopted by the President and his subordinates are sometimes necessary to straighten out law. If you desire to study a maze or look into a labyrinth, I commend you to the present income tax law. Then often Congress relies upon the discretion of the President to accomplish such tremendous things as in the Panama Canal. It directed the President to build the Canal. It remained for him to appoint all the persons engaged in the work, and he became responsible for every one of them. Another notable instance of the reliance of Congress upon the President occurred in the Spanish War, when it appropriated $50,000,000 to be allotted at his discretion. Yet it seems to me that a curtailment of the small duties now imposed on the President might well be made. The number of his appointments, for instance, might well be lessened. The President ought, of course, to appoint his Cabinet, the Supreme Court, ambassadors, ministers, generals Pg 52 and admirals, but beyond that I think appointments ought to be made without bothering the President about them. We have introduced a Civil Service reform system with a Civil Service Commission, and I trust that the matter of taking these subordinate officers out of politics will be pressed generally as a much-needed reform. Is the position occupied by a postmaster of sufficient importance to justify the President in bothering with his appointment when he has such a problem as the Mexican situation on his hands? We are coming to the time when there are great complicated duties to perform under the government. We have departed from the Jefferson view, and we now think that the government can do a great many things helpfully, provided it has experts to do them. Is it not entitled to the best men to do these things? Yet how are experts obtainable unless they are selected to permanent positions by those…
