phases of these matters to expert "administrative agencies":

With this noteworthy change in point of view, there have been constant manifestations of a deepening conviction of the impotency of Legislatures with respect to some of the most important departments of lawmaking. Complaints must be heard, expert investigations conducted, complex situations deliberately and impartially analysed, and legislative rules intelligently adapted to a myriad of instances falling within a general class. It was not difficult to frame legislation establishing a general standard, but to translate an accepted principle into regulations wisely adapted to particular cases required an experienced body sitting continuously and removed so far as possible from the blandishments and intrigues of politics. This administrative type is not essentially new in itself, but the extension of its use in State and Nation constitutes a new departure. The doctrine that the Legislature cannot delegate its power has not been pushed so far as to make needed adaptation of legislation impossible, and reconciliation has been found in the establishment by the Legislature itself of appropriate standards governing the action of its agency. The ideal which has been presented in justification of these new agencies, and that which alone holds promise of benefit rather than of hurt to the community, is the ideal of special knowledge, flexibility, disinterestedness and sound judgment in applying broad legislative principles that are essential to the protection of the

community, and of every useful activity affected, to the intricate situations created by expanding enterprise. But mere bureaucracy— narrow, partisan or inexpert-is grossly injurious; it not only fails of the immediate purpose of the law and is opposed to traditions which, happily, are still honoured, but its failure creates a feeling of discouragement bordering on pessimism which forms the most serious obstacle to real improvements in the adjustment of governmental methods to new exigencies.

The standards which he felt should control the action of these commissions and the workable relation of the courts thereto, were likewise pointed out by Justice Hughes in the same address. Declaring that "the tendency to assign to the courts administrative duties which do not belong to them" is "opposed to a proper conception of the function of the Courts," he continued:

Legislation of the first sort undoubtedly arises from distrust of powerful administrative agencies; it shows a desire to escape their authority and to have the judgment of judicial tribunals, with whose standards the public is familiar, in the final decision of difficult administrative problems. It seems to me to be the wrong way to reach the right result. The only reason for the creation of the new administrative instrumentalities-which appear to present government in a new phase-is the complexity

of the facts with which government undertakes to deal and the necessity, if they are wisely dealt with, for the continuous and expert attention of a body exclusively concerned with the particular subject. To put upon the courts the burden of considering the details of administrative problems would be to overwhelm them; but for the courts to revise and rescind administrative action without a competent and close study of all the pertinent facts would be not only to destroy the effectiveness of the administrative agencies, but also seriously to impair the confidence reposed in judicial tribunals. It cannot be too strongly insisted that if we are to have these important administrative instrumentalities properly perform their duty, they should stand on their own footing, and that the public should realise that their safeguard is not in injecting the courts into the work of administration, to the confusion of both, but in maintaining an enlightened policy and in insisting upon proper standards of official conduct. The courts cannot be substituted for administrative agencies; nor, as I believe, is it to the ultimate advantage of the community to divide between them the responsibility for purely administrative action.

This is not to say that the courts do not have a very important function in connection with the work of administrative commissions. These bodies exercise prescribed powers, and the limits of these powers, as well as constitutional restrictions, must be defined and maintained by judicial tribunals. There is thus interposed one of the most important safeguards of the com

munity against all efforts on the part of administrative agents to draw to themselves powers not conferred, and on the other hand, the appropriate demand, intelligently enforced, for the proper execution of the law, does not in any way sacrifice administrative efficiency. Rather it tends to conserve such efficiency by avoiding the reactions which inevitably follow abuses of authority. There is also apparent at times the tendency, in a desire for the play of administrative discretion, to preserve opportunities for arbitrary action without responsibility. The requirement of a fair hearing, of action upon evidence, of a disclosure of the basis of action that all parties interested may have suitable opportunity to challenge it, in no way trammels the just administrator who is loyal to the standards of democracy, but are very important safeguards against the development of bureaucratic despotism under democratic forms.

CHAPTER XV

THE MAN WHO BROKE HIS WRITTEN

CONTRACT

WITHOUT REPAYING HIS EMPLOYER WHAT HE

HAD BORROWED

IN Bailey against Alabama,1 decided by the Supreme Court in January of 1911, Justice Hughes was called upon to declare whether vital principles of freedom, which under ordinary industrial conditions would be recognised as fundamental in the relationship of employer and employé, might be put aside by a State perplexed by the conditions which have arisen as to farm labour in many of the plantation districts of the South.

The State of Alabama had tried to make a little more effective the legislation it already had, along lines and for purposes by no means unusual, in either North or South. The question was whether this amendment went too far. The difficulty sought to be remedied was that employés of an irresponsible and more or less wandering type often go around and make written contracts with plantation owners, whereby they hire out for a year; they do this with no intention of remaining at work and with inten1219 U. S. Reports, page 219.