The Executive Branch in New State Constitutions

are more revealing than their formal acceptance of the role of administration in modern government. The institutional crisis caused by the extension of governmental functions has produced, like the ripples from a stone, a series of concentric changes whose effects are not yet expended. For more than a century after 1776 the driving elements of popular distrust, legislative jealousy, and laissez faire dogma combined in the erosion of executive power. When structures that were designed to govern little were called upon to govern much, the gap between the services expected and the capacity for performance provoked a reexamination of fundamental concepts. Not merely the machinery of the state but also basic public beliefs had to be recast if a government that was too weak to tyrannize could be converted into one that was strong enough to serve. Paradoxically the reconversion was ushered in by the renaissance of the governor as a political leader in the legislative field rather than as a chief executive in the branch that was titularly his. The age of T.R. and Fighting Bob LaFollette, of Pinchot and Johnson, of Hughes and Wilson, witnessed the governor in the role of a people's tribune, inveighing against special interests, assailing economic oligarchy, and challenging boss control. But power acquired among the voters could be converted into power exercised within the legislature, and power over people and legislature alike could be used to make the governor master in his own domain. The very success of the governor's political efforts, together with the impact of war upon the executive branch, made it inevitable that the ensuing decade should be devoted to tasks of administrative reorganization. Such indeed was the contribution of men like Lowden of

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