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A great opportunity, coupled with a strong moral obligation to accept it, confronts political science: to give major attention to the separation of powers between the President and the Congress in the Constitution of the United States. The critical scrutiny of a growing number of public persons reminds us that this separation was attacked by the redoubtable Charles H. McIlwain as posing a danger to constitutional government itself.Mcllwain on the Separation of Powers"Among all the modern fallacies that have obscured the true teachings of constitutional history, few are worse than the extreme doctrine of the separation of powers and the indiscriminate use of the phrase 'checks and balances.'" When representative assemblies took over from kings, "they assumed a power and a responsibility that had always been concentrated and undivided." McIlwain rejected the separation of powers in favor of the limitation of powers. "The true safeguards of liberty against arbitrary government are the ancient legal limitation and the modern political responsibility" or "full political responsibility … to the whole people." The latter is "utterly incompatible with any extended system of checks and balances."McIlwain could find no "good precedents" in history for "this dissipation of government" which has "worked disaster ever since it was adopted." He feared that if the dissipation of government developed much further it would precipitate a reaction that might sweep away "every protection of any sort, legal as well as political, to leave the individual naked and unprotected against the ever-present danger of arbitrary government."

The spring 1984 issue of APSA's NEWS for Teachers of Political Science contains Herman Belz's provocative piece on "Constitutionalism and Bureaucracy in the 1980's." His definitions of both terms are unsatisfactory. His concept of constitutionalism is anemic. It fails to recognize that governments must have some characteristics of Leviathan: they must be large and formidable. To constitutionalize such governments is proportionately difficult. In the United States the difficulty is greatly aggravated by the bureaucracies which the separation of powers fosters that tend to fragment government into quasi-independent power blocks. Nor are these bureaucracies mere aggregations of civil servants. They typically include political administrators, veteran legislators, and experienced group leaders. Let me turn first to Professor Belz's argument.

A study is made of the evolution of American agricultural price policy. After WWII, governmental agencies designed to deal with food surpluses seemed incapable of adjusting to perpetual shortages. The maintenance of high price supports led to the creation of vast stockpiles of feed grains, wheat, & cotton, many of which were disposed of through export & dumping. With the decline in the number of farmers in the 1960s, agriculture lost much of its traditional foothold in Congress to new interests: consumers, environmentalists, & organized labor. The Executive branch also began to preempt agricultural policy through imposition of embargoes. The 1960s also saw the end of expensive price supports & the instituton of a market-oriented approach designed to reimburse the farmer for the differences between market prices & support prices. However, the maintenance of market-oriented policy is threatened by fragmentation among local & special interests. A current trend seems to favor a commodity approach with differentiations within commodities. This fragmentary trend can be countered by consolidation among congressional hierarchies & by the development of centralized leadership within the agricultural bureaucracy. M. Cain.

Sweeping reapportionment of state legislatures according to the principle of "one man, one vote" now seems assured. Some very clear judicial notes have been coming out of the political thicket. At least six of the justices have found that long-forbidden territory wholly congenial. To the political animals — the lions, unicorns, bears, foxes, elephants, and donkeys — we must now add Br'er Rabbit "born and bred in a briar patch." And yet, despite the volumes of discussion, some issues in reapportionment have been inadequately discussed and invite an attempt to clear the air.

The primacy of foreign policy centers attention upon Congressional politics with its wonted stress upon local and particular issues. Farm political influence is considerable in Congress where domestic farm policies, often with unfortu nate effects upon foreign policy, are strongly rooted. Farm politicians in and out of Congress must help improve the legis lative process in order to give the emergent national concern in a sound and effective foreign policy its merited support. While some adaptation of present procedures is possible, the needs of the times require a courageous examination of more sweeping proposals for change.