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What are the qualifications of the more responsible and more or less permanent professional and technical officials on our federal regulatory commissions? In seeking an answer to this question, data were collected concerning 500 federal officials drawn from the Interstate Commerce Commission, the Federal Trade Commission, the Federal Power Commission, the Federal Communications Commission, and the Securities and Exchange Commission. The commissioners themselves were not considered.Where possible, the records of all staff members receiving $5,000 or more a year were examined. This could not be done on every commission, however. The Federal Trade Commission answers were confined to about 80 of the higher administrative and professional employees. In order to get a larger group, a lower salary limit was adopted for the Federal Power Commission.

The first Congress to replace the old lame-duck session convened with a mighty mandate from the electorate to support the President. It was estimated that 350 of the 561 members in Congress owed their seats to their pledge to back the New Deal. Controversial legislation had to be disposed of in this session if the meeting of Congress during the coming election year was to be brief and decorous. The general tone of the session was indicated by Senator Wagner when he said: "I am sure we all agree that one of the fundamental purposes of government is to give security to its people" (p. 9927). The terms in which this purpose should be expressed remained the major problem of the session. No rallying point for opposition appeared in Congress. In the House, the unimaginative Snell offered little more than grumbles, and Senator McNary was not a consistent opponent. The leadership of the majority party was in the hands of staunch Southern Democrats whose first loyalty was to the will of the President.

President Coolidge's appointment of William E. Humphrey to the Federal Trade Commission in 1925 served not only to establish a Republican majority on that body, but also to inaugurate a "new era" in its activities. Humphrey entered upon his duties on February 25, and on March 17 sweeping changes in policy and procedure were announced. No longer was the Commission to be used as a "publicity bureau to spread socialistic propaganda." The opposition from the "vocal and beatific fringe, the pink edges that border both of the old parties," would not deter the new Commission from its determination to "help business to help itself." In his effort to stress the fact that a new course was being pursued, Humphrey emphatically condemned the Commission of his predecessors. "Under the old policy of litigation it became an instrument of oppression and disturbance and injury instead of a help to business. It harassed and annoyed business instead of assisting it. Business soon regarded the Commission with distrust and fear and suspicion—as an enemy. There was no coöperation between the Commission and business. Business wanted the Commission abolished, and the Commission regarded business as generally dishonest."

The Federal Trade Commission has been the object of more scholarly examination and critical discussion than any other administrative commission in the federal government. The statutory authority, the internal organization, and the administrative procedure of the Commission have all been studied. More specialized researches have thrown light on its regulation of competitive practices and its relations with the courts. Our purpose here is to view the Commission in its relations with business and with Congress and the President, in order to achieve some understanding of the political and economic factors that have influenced its activities.Underlying both sets of relationships are the conflicts of economic groups and special interests which attempt to convert their force into political power when they touch the legislator or the President. The attempt here will be to explore some of these rather intangible aspects of the Commission's administrative experience.

This Congress has been conducted in a crucible. The problems that demanded consideration were the most momentous since the war years. These tangible burdens, weighty and perplexing enough when taken separately, served in the aggregate and under the conditions of the time to test in most exacting fashion the very governmental system itself. The adequacy of Congress as a satisfactory political institution was at stake. Was the presidential system as such competent or even capable of meeting its responsibilities? The leadership of Congress during the special session was sustained in large measure by the impetus to action engendered by the economic crisis. But weaknesses in the congressional structure, hidden by the unifying effect of the emergency period, appeared clearly during the second session. What were the elements affecting Congress as a law-making body, and how did the presidential system withstand the strains of this second session?

The meeting of the Seventy-third Congress five days after President Roosevelt's inauguration marked the twenty-fifth time in our history that a special session has been called. Critical times have been faced before and remedial measures found, but the hundred days of this session are unparalleled for the speed and discipline with which Congress was brought to face and finish its task, for the political adroitness and firmness of the presidential leadership, and for the extraordinary importance and far-reaching effects of the legislation enacted. With the substantive merits and contents of the measures passed we are not concerned here, but in this session the legislative process is as worthy of consideration as the legislative product.

In the juristic sphere, the Interstate Commerce Commission is charged with enforcing and interpreting certain statutes, hearing and weighing evidence, and rendering formal judgment when the facts have been ascertained. But the recognized judicial character of this work does not render the Commission immune from efforts to influence its judgments. The struggles of contending economic groups and political influences give rise to actions intolerable in a court of law and to repeated efforts to obtain favorable decisions through the use of propaganda. The Commission performs its duties in surroundings far from neutral, and must cope with pressures too powerful to be exorcised by simple exhortation or condemnation. The problem is one of canalizing influences which cannot be eliminated, to the end that they may increase rather than decrease the efficiency of the administrative process and that the public interest may not be submerged in the undertow of sectional and political cross-currents.

A conflict of interests is implicit in most administrative problems, and the successful adjustment of these forces within a predicated legal framework means that the purpose of the governmental agency has been achieved. This consummation is beset with difficulties. The interplay of economic and political influences must be examined in connection with the statutory and formalistic competence of a given governmental bureau if any understanding of the process of administration is to be obtained. Only if the problem is first narrowed to one field, and then focussed upon a single agency, can the component factors be brought to direct and concrete analysis. An effort will be made here to examine the Interstate Commerce Commission in terms of the group pressures that are exerted upon it in its regulatory capacity. The purpose is to discuss the nature of the relations that arise between a regulatory body and the interests touched by its authority and to call attention to the possibilities and problems inherent in such a contact. In short, What political and economic forces make up the environment of the Interstate Commerce Commission, and how does it adapt itself to this environment?