His several councilors would be executive officials, responsible for particular departments of the public service; but they would exercise their authority through permanent departmental chiefs—­just as the Secretary of War delegates much of his authority to a chief of staff, or an English minister to a permanent under-secretary.  The system could offer no guarantee that the subordinate departmental chiefs would be absolutely permanent; but at all events they would not be changed at fixed periods or for irrelevant reasons.  They would be just as permanent or as transient as the good of the service demanded.  In so far, that is, as the system was carried out in good faith they would be experts, absolutely the masters of the technical business of the offices and of the abilities and services of their subordinates.  The weak point in such administrative organization is undoubtedly the relation between the members of the governor’s council and their chiefs of staff; but there must be a weak link in any organization which seeks to convert the changing views of public policy, dependent upon an election, into responsible, efficient, and detailed administrative acts.  If the system were not accepted in good faith, if in the long run it were not carried out by officials, who were disinterestedly and intelligently working in the public interest, it would be bound to fail; but so would any method of political organization.  This particular plan simply embodies the principle that the way to get good public service out of men is to give them a sufficient chance.

Under the proposed system the only powers possessed by the state executive, not now bestowed upon the President of the United States, would consist in an express and an effective control over legislation.  It would be his duty to introduce legislation whenever it was in his opinion desirable; and in case his bills were amended to death or rejected, it would be his right to appeal to the people.  He would, in addition, appoint all state officials except the legislative council, and perhaps the judges of the highest court.  On the other hand, he would be limited by the recall and he could not get any important legislative measure on the statute books except after severe technical criticism, and express popular consent.  He could accomplish nothing without the support of public opinion; yet he could be held absolutely responsible for the good government of the state.  A demagogue elected to a position of such power and responsibility might do a great deal of harm; but if a democratic political body cannot distinguish between the leadership of able and disinterested men and self-seeking charlatans, the loss and perhaps the suffering, resulting from their indiscriminate blindness, would constitute a desirable means of political education,—­particularly when the demagogue, as in the case under consideration, could not really damage the foundations of the state.  And the charlatan or the incompetent could be sent