I. The General Character of Parties

Swedish experience highlights the simple logic of political science that popular electoral democracy calls for a clear line of undivided responsibility reaching from the policy-initiating executive branch of government through a thoroughly representative and deliberative legislature to the great body of voters. Contrariwise, Swedish experience seems to refute certain notions about the “parliamentary-majority” basis for judging of “strong government” in a democracy as these expressions often have been interpreted from the experience of Britain, France, and the United States. From both the positive and negative points of view, Swedish institutions merit examination, especially since they have successfully endured severe tests. The Swedish political system came through the prewar depression years with an enviable record, and, despite enormous international pressures and the accompanying domestic anxieties, it is surviving the war years with a consistent policy of its own, without sacrificing free and regular elections. Sweden provides, therefore, an excellent laboratory for testing principles of democracy, of representation, and of party government.

Fully as interesting as the provisions of the proposed new constitution that will be submitted to the voters of Georgia at a special election on August 7, 1945, is the method by which the document was framed. The constitution of the state now in force, adopted in 1877 soon after the state was freed from carpet-bag rule, is a long and complicated document, filled with detailed limitations on the government, particularly in the field of finance. As a result of the inclusion of numerous provisions statutory in nature, the document has been amended three hundred and one times in a period of sixty-eight years. Recognizing the need for a new constitution, the Institute of Public Affairs of the University of Georgia drew up A Proposed Constitution for Georgia in 1931. This document proposed a thorough revision of the structure of the government, including such radical changes as the substitution of 30 districts for the existing 161 counties as the basis of representation in the General Assembly. The widespread publicity given the document served to stimulate interest in constitutional revision, and most of the press of the state, notably the Atlanta Journal, has in recent years actively supported the movement.

In March, 1943, the General Assembly passed a resolution, sponsored by Governor Ellis Arnall, providing for a commission of twenty-three members to revise the constitution. The commission was to be composed of the governor, the president of the senate, the speaker of the house of representatives, three members of the senate appointed by the president, five members of the house appointed by the speaker, a justice of the supreme court designated by the court, a judge of the court of appeals designated by the court, the attorney general, the state auditor, two judges of the superior courts, three practicing attorneys-at-law, and three laymen to be appointed by the governor. The resolution provided that the report of this commission should be submitted to the General Assembly either in the form of proposed amendments to the constitution or as a proposed new constitution, to be acted upon by the General Assembly and submitted to the people for ratification or rejection.

In recent discussions of the German problem there seems to be a growing superficiality and confusion that is greatly to be deplored. Sensational articles, and even books, on the subject are having a deep influence on American and British opinion. We badly need more informed discussions of basic parts of the German problem if we are to avoid serious mistakes in the postwar world. Although definitive answers cannot always be given in the political field, it is nevertheless incumbent upon everyone who has studied, both in the ivory tower and in the field, to offer as much light and leading within the spheres of his competence as time and strength will permit.

At this time, I think it is important to call attention to an aspect of the German problem which must not be overlooked after the war either by the occupying powers or by the German people. Since it is primarily a long-run problem, and not merely a problem of occupation, the German people will have to solve it in the final analysis. Furthermore, since I do not belong to the school of gloomy haters who envisage an indefinite oppression and control of the German people, I prefer to base a program of governmental and political regeneration for Germany on the assumption that the tragic and bitter experience of the Germans under Hitler will lead to a revival of those features of civilized, democratic society which are so essential to the proper functioning of both national and international government.

On January 24, 1943, the last day of the conference at Casablanca, the President of the United States, in a press conference, referred to the sessions as the “Unconditional Surrender” Conference. The official statement on the Crimea Conference of February 11, 1945, reiterated the formula of unconditional surrender as the only one acceptable to the Allies by pointing to “the unconditional surrender terms which we shall impose together on Nazi Germany after German armed resistance has been finally crushed.” This statement gave rise to the objection that the very concept of “unconditional” obviously excludes terms of any kind. The most recent comment on the subject, in President Roosevelt's address to Congress on March 1, 1945, was apparently not intended to give a definition of “unconditional surrender,” but rather an enumeration of the policies to be followed in dealing with Germany, once “the German people, as well as the German soldier,” have given up and surrendered. Thus an official interpretation of the formula is still lacking. The following analysis attempts to clarify the meaning of unconditional surrender, and its factual and juristic-political implications.

The mere announcement of a well-thought-out foreign policy is not sufficient unless adequate machinery is available to make it effective. We have always thought of ourselves as buenos amigos to the republics south of the Rio Grande, but we have not always been able to make them believe it. Conceding that one of the reasons has been certain sins of commission, certainly another has been the sin of omission. The agencies for carrying out our foreign policies both in Washington and in the field were not geared to the load put upon them.

Even before the promulgation of the Monroe Doctrine in 1823, the United States was keenly interested in the young sister republics to the south. However, for almost a century, the Department of State treated the world as a geographical unit in the conduct of foreign relations. It was not until 1870, when Secretary of State Hamilton Fish set up two geographical bureaus, that the second bureau was given jurisdiction over the Latin American region as well as certain other areas.

The Division of Latin American Affairs, established in 1909, is the second oldest of the geographical divisions, and its jurisdiction was limited to the twenty American Republics. When the Division was overwhelmed with work pertaining to Mexico during the latter's revolutionary period, a Division of Mexican Affairs was established in 1915, and it remained in existence until 1937, when the new Division of the American Republics was established and given jurisdiction over relations with all twenty American Republics. This arrangement lasted until the reorganization of January, 1944, when the Office of American Republic Affairs was established and subdivided at first into six, and later five, divisions upon a regional basis. Another division, named the Division of American Republic Analysis and Liaison, was added by Departmental Order No. 1271, dated May 3, 1944.

For more than half a century, the states of the Western hemisphere have coöperated for the promotion of their mutual interests by means of a loose form of organization which is unique in the categories of political science. Step by step, the organization has proclaimed its principles and strengthened the machinery of its conferences and its consultative meetings of Foreign Ministers; step by step it has enlarged its functions and developed new agencies for their administration. But at no time have the American states sought to draw up a formal charter defining the status of their collective membership as constituting a corporate international person. Rather they have preferred to coöperate along practical lines and to develop their organization progressively as the circumstances of the time appeared to demand. In consequence, while the inter-American system exists as a fact, while it functions as an association or “union” of twentyone American states, its precise juridical character as a regional organization has never been defined. Whether the establishment of the new international organization contemplated by the Dumbarton Oaks Proposals will call for such a definition, in order to establish more accurately the relations between the two systems, is a question for speculation, now that the Conference at Mexico City is in progress.

Latin America's part and problems in the international order that is now emerging have not taken final shape at the present writing (March, 1945), and may not do so for some time after the United Nations Conference scheduled to open at San Francisco on April 25. Nevertheless, most of the main outlines seem to have been sketched in by recent developments, notably by the Dumbarton Oaks Proposals of October, 1944, and two subsequent conferences: the Great-Power conference held at Yalta in February of this year, and the Inter-American Conference on Problems of War and Peace (commonly called the Chapultepec Conference) held at Mexico City in February and March.

I

The Dumbarton Oaks Proposals, although neither complete nor definitive, did give an official and rather detailed picture of the kind of general international organization the Great Powers were planning to establish. From the point of view of this paper, the two principal features of the plan were (1) that it established a pattern of Great Power ascendancy in the general organization, particularly with reference to its central organ, the Security Council, and (2) that it encouraged the development of regional arrangements and agencies, such as the inter-American system, within the framework of the general organization (Proposals, Chap. VIII, Sec. C). The former feature was reinforced by the Yalta Conference, the latter by the Chapultepec Conference, which was devoted primarily to the task of strengthening the inter-American system and adapting it to the projected general organization outlined by the Dumbarton Oaks Proposals.

“Do not give to a people institutions for which it is unripe in the simple faith that the tool will give skill to the workman's hand. Respect Facts. Man is in each country not what we may wish him to be, but what Nature and History have made him.” Bryce, Modern Democracies, I, 206.

With minor exceptions, the panorama of constitutional growth in the Western Hemisphere reveals two main streams. The United States Constitution, the British North America Act of 1867 (which is the Canadian fundamental law), and the organic laws of the various New World British possessions of today all stem, obviously, from English constitutional and institutional ancestry. The constitutions of the twenty Latin American states, on the other hand, all reflect in varying degree the experience and institutions of their three mother countries. These modern constitutions are, it is true, influenced by alien examples at one point or another, but the core is undubitably Latin. More narrowly, the inspiration is Hispanic; and still more narrowly, Spanish.

It is not easy to explain in detail the degree of similarity between French political institutions and those of the Iberian peninsula in the centuries between the emergence of the several national states and the political revolutions in Latin America. At least, the French belonged to a not unrelated family. A much closer relationship is easily discernible among the political institutions of the three main Iberian entities that ultimately became the national states of Spain and Portugal, viz., Castile, Aragon, and Portugal. It is often forgotten that for many generations no political or constitutional “Spain” existed, that Aragon and Castile were as distinct from each other in most ways as either of them was from Portugal, that an easily possible union of the ruling houses of Castile and Portugal—supplanting the marriage of Isabella and Ferdinand—might have changed the whole subsequent course of history.

“Democratic caesarism,” whether by military caudillo or doctor en filosofía, has discouraged administrative efficiency and contributed to political disorganization in Latin America. Concentration of executive authority without responsibility has given free rein to the worst administrative practices of poor presidents without demanding the best from competent chief executives; and, with minority groups in congress dominated by a rubber-stamp majority—the entire legislature gasping in the shade of strong executive government—active groups have turned to revolution as an outlet for political and administrative expression. Poor organization of power and authority constitutes one of the most important problems of government in the Latin American countries, and a dovetailing of a series of approaches probably is necessary for a complete solution—better preparation of leaders, elimination of caudillismo, reform of codes and laws to conform with the spirit of the democratic constitutions, reorganization of parties along doctrinal lines rather than those of personalismo, and development of public opinion and participation in politics by the masses through education and increasing the standard of living.

The régime of Getulio Vargas has in the past fourteen years wrought a major transformation in the national government of Brazil. A vast centralization has taken place whereby the states' rights direction of the post-Empire period—1889–1930—was reversed and both the states and the municipalities were brought under control. New ministries and other national organs were created. A merit system was established and a public service organized. The national administration has been integrated both structurally and by means of central management agencies.

These sweeping changes have come rapidly, mostly in the past five years. There is added interest for people in the United States of America because the precedents have been taken from the theory and practice of this country. It will not be possible to present in this brief paper more than a summary of the Brazilian administrative reforms.