In The Politics of Equality, Leslie Lipson points out that modern party organization has “exorcised some of the old devils from the body politic but has invoked others that are new and, as yet, untamed.” Applying to parties John Dewey's statement that

“Individuals can find the security and protection that are prerequisites for freedom only in association with others—and then the organization these associations take on, as a measure of securing their efficiency, limits the freedom of those who have entered into them…. We have now a kind of molluscan organization, soft individuals within and a hard constrictive shell without.…,”

Lipson adds: “How to harden the individuals and to soften the shell, both to the right degree, remains one of the outstanding political problems of our century.”

American parties are extremely soft-shelled mollusks—if, indeed, they have any shell at all. In contrast, the Australian Labor party has as hard a shell as any mollusk in the political zoo.

On May 8, 1949—the fourth anniversary of unconditional surrender—the Parliamentary Council adopted at Bonn the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany. This date was chosen intentionally to remind the German people that this provisional constitution is a way-station on the road out of the chaos which the collapsing Hitler régime left behind it. Any consideration of this Basic Law should start from the fact that the charter is not the creation of a free people, and that it will have to function within limits, both territorial and functional, which severely handicap its chance of becoming a genuine constitution, securely anchored in the basic convictions of the people. Its limits territorially are imposed by the refusal of the Soviet Union to permit the Germans living in their Zone of Occupation to express themselves freely concerning the charter. This raises the presumption, confirmed by other evidence, that these Germans would, by a considerable majority, accept the Basic Law if given a chance to do so. The charter's functional limits are imposed by the Western Allies, who decreed three basic limitations upon the German people's autonomy and independence: (1) the Occupation Statute, (2) the Ruhr Statute, and (3) the Inter-Allied Security Board. Of these, the Occupation Statute is much the most important, and encompasses the other two by its provisions. This is shown by the fact that the Letter of Approval, issued by the Military Governors on May 12, 1949, notes that acceptance of the constitution is premised upon the understanding that all governmental power in Germany, federal, state, and local, is “subject to the provisions of the Occupation Statute.”

By contrast with the numerous membership problems confronting the Republican party in Congress, the Democrats have had relatively little difficulty, whether because of a more harmonious party, a higher sense of party loyalty, a stricter party discipline, a more tolerant attitude toward party rebels, or for whatever reason. The first case on record involved David Davis, that sturdy independent from Illinois, who was probably a member at one time or another of every political party that operated during his lifetime. After his election to the Senate in 1877, he was pointed out as the only Senator who did not attend either party caucus, and it was said that he “passed a rather lonesome hour on the floor of the Senate, in company with the door-keepers and pages, while the other Senators were talking politics to each other in well-guarded rooms.” The Democrats nevertheless considered Davis as one of their own number, or at any rate as one worth cultivating; and when in control of the Senate in 1881, they presented a committee slate with Davis as chairman of the Judiciary Committee.

The ever-increasing volume of litigation in state courts has made it necessary to exclude this year all decisions of courts other than those of last resort. In addition, with respect to subjects such as “police power” and “equal protection,” where classification or analysis of the decisions would require space out of all proportion to their importance, only a listing of the subjects involved in the case is attempted. The cases fall generally into the pattern used last year.

I. GOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATION

1. Special Constitutional Provisions. The effective date of a new constitutional amendment was the subject of two decisions this year. In one, the amendment extending the term of office of county attorneys from two to four years was approved at a general election in which county attorneys were elected. The court held that the officers elected then were elected for the longer term, even though the amendment by its own terms did not become operative until the January following the election. This was so, even though the required local notice of the amendment omitted the effective date, since full state-wide notice was published by the secretary of state. The other case holds that the amendment becomes effective on the date of the canvass of votes rather than on the date of the election. Here, too, there were irregularities in the published notice in that it was not published in all counties on the same days and minor inconsistencies appeared in the printed versions. The court held that the purpose of notice had been substantially served.

In 1940, a total of 1,500,000 students (16 per cent of the 18–21-year-olds) were in attendance in American colleges. This was before the advent of G.I. education, which brought the figure up to 2,350,000 (24 per cent of the 18–21-year-olds).

These vast numbers of students, presenting a challenge to the present generation of college teachers, are of particular portent to the political scientist. The latter, relying largely in the past on his own interpretation of the subject matter based upon standard texts as “the method” for courses in government, is faced with the problem of mass education; as a result, some of the standard teaching techniques are ineffectual. Under these conditions, to what extent can technological changes in mass communication media which have for the most part been ignored at the college level make a contribution?

Audio-visual materials are available and in standard use in medical schools; teaching operative procedures from a televised performance was a regular part of the last medical convention at Atlantic City. Science equipment consisting of laboratories, museums, Balopticans, slide projectors, and motion picture machines are standard for science departments. Even college budget officers, immune to faculty pressure of various types, are sensitive to the demands of science departments for equipment. Such sensitivity, however, does not apply to the social sciences; budget officers still need to be convinced that social science departments have equipment requirements, beyond an allotment to the library for new books.