ized upon definite lines to that end. All this is said in a clear exposition of The Duties of the Attorney-General, 6 Opin. 346 (1854).

Attorney-General CUSHING said in part: The organization of the executive departments of the administration implies order, correspondence, and combination of parts, classification of duties-in a word, system; otherwise there is waste and loss of power, or conflict of power, either of which is contrary to the public service, which has a regard of so much work to be done by such persons at a given cost of either time or money. Besides which, in a political relation, want of due arrangement of public functionaries and their functions is want of due responsibility to society and to law. Accordingly, it has been the general purpose of Congress, at all times, both as to the great subdivision of departments and the arrangements of the duties of each, to classify and systematize.44

§ 58. Department.

An administration is a hierarchy. In the typical administration the department is the largest division. How many departments there shall be is a question; in some governments there are more, in some less. It is all as the need is in any case. As the amount of things done by a government increases, the number of its principal departments will increase by division of

44 INTERNAL SUBDIVISIONS.-Fox v. McDonald, 101 Ala. 51; Ex parte Allis, 12 Ark. 101; People v. Turner, 20 Cal. 142; Bunn v. People, 45 Ill. 397; State v. Board of Liquidation, 42 La. Ann. 647; Thomas v. Owens, 4 Md. 189; Lindsey v. Attorney-General, 4 George, 508; Cotton v. Phillips, 56 N. H. 220; People v. Schoonmaker, 13 N. Y. 238; State v. Weston, 4 Neb. 234; State v. Brown, 5 R. I. 1; State v. Hastings, 10 Wis. 525.

the business of one old department between two new departments. Moreover, if wholly new powers are assigned to a government a new department will be required. Organization, as has been remarked before, is a reflection of the activities of a government.

The growth of the departments can be traced with great ease in some such public document as the Report of the Dockery Commission, 53 Cong. 2nd Sess. House Rep. 49 (1893). The first thing to be noted in that report is the original organization of the executive departments. There were four at first: the Department of State for political and foreign affairs; the Department of War for military and naval affairs; the Department of Treasury for collection and disbursement; and the Department of Justice for legal and judicial matters. The next step was the separation of a Department of Navy; the next the creation of a Department of Interior; the next the promotion of the office of PostmasterGeneral; the next the invention of a Department of Agriculture; the last the provision for a Department of Commerce. All this is a growth upon the lines indicated.

This is not quite the whole story. These nine departments do not include every officer of the United States; there are some few unattached officers. This situation becomes of some importance at times. For example, it came to light in the opinion on the Civil Service Commission, 22 Opin. 62 (1898). This was a request for an opinion upon the question whether an act which required all clerks in all executive departments to work not less than seven hours applied to the clerks of the Civil Service Commission. It must be obvious that, in

an exceptional office with exceptional duties pertaining to all the departments, it would be best if it need not be placed within the regular organization.

Attorney-General GRIGGS advised that the case did not apply: No board, commission, bureau, or office which is not expressly or by implication under the control of one of the chief executive departments can be considered as belonging to an executive department. There is nothing in the act constituting the Civil Service Commission which makes it subject to any regulation or control except that of the President himself. It follows therefore that when an act of Congress refers to the executive department it does not embrace and cannot properly be applied to any branch office or bureau which is not under the control of one of the executive departments presided over by a cabinet officer.

The departments, then, are those offices which are headed by the cabinet officers. In the American system of government the high political officers are also the actual working heads of the administrative department. Modern constitutional government has found by experience that whenever a gap exists between the chief officers of the state and the heads of the administrative departments that the administration suffers by this lapse. Because, after all, in the larger matters, questions of administration cannot be separated from questions of politics.45

45 DEPARTMENT.-Attorney-General, 6 Opin. 346; Civil Service Commission, 22 Opin. 62; State v. Hutt, 2 Ark. 282; Love v. Baehr, 47 Cal. 364; In re House Bill, 21 Colo. 32; State v. Keena, 64 Conn. 215; State v. Bloxham, 26 Fla. 407; Julian v. State, 122 Ind. 68; Bryan v. Cattell, 15 Ia. 538; State v. Nield, 4 Kan. App. 626; State v. Mason, 43 La. Ann. 590; Scharf v. Tasker, 73 Md. 378; In re

§ 59. Bureau.

In the typical administration the next largest division is the bureau. How many bureaus there shall be is again a question of how many things that department is assigned to do. The designation of the work to each bureau on the whole goes upon the lines of specialization. In a large way this question of the determination of the organization, as has been pointed out, is a legislative question, not an administrative question.

One case is enough to show that situation-Militia Bureau, 10 Opin. 11 (1861). The question submitted to the Attorney-General was as to the propriety of a proposed order detailing Lieutenant Ellsworth of the first dragoons for special duty as inspector general of militia for the United States, charging him with the transaction, under the direction of the Secretary of War, of all business pertaining to the militia, to be conducted as a separate bureau, of which it was proposed to make Lieutenant Ellsworth the chief. There had been no legislation upon this bureau, which it was proposed to establish by an executive order.

The advice of Attorney-General BATES was: It proposes the establishment of a bureau heretofore unknown in the organization of the War Department. That department is divided into a number of subordinate divisions, as the quarter-masters, the commissariat, the pay-masters, the ordnance, the engineers, and the medical, all of which are created and their respective duties defined by legislative enactment. Some of them are called bureaus and in some the duties are subdivided

State House Commission, 19 R. I. 390; Territory v. Stokes, 2 N. M. 63; State v. Hastings, 10 Wis. 525.

into divisions; but all are established to perform duties especially authorized by law. The same remark is true of the bureaus in the other departments of the government, as will be seen by reference to the acts creating them. In view of these precedents, I cannot avoid the conclusion that the creation of a bureau in the War Department can only be authorized by an act of Congress designating its chief, defining his duties, and providing for the appointment of the necessary clerical force.

The situation will be made clear by a few illustrations taken at random of this subdivision of the department into bureaus. A recent public document entitled Executive Departments at Washington (1893), is the authority. Bureaus are not always so denominated; sometimes the name is office, sometimes commission. But in any administration organized upon any systematic arrangement there must be these increasing subdivisions, each included in the one above it, each including the ones below it. The nomenclature is unimportant.

Thus, in the Treasury Department the next subdivision in order is into: first, mint; second, inspector of vessels; third, statistics; fourth, life saving service; fifth, lighthouse board; sixth, supervising architects; seventh, comptroller; eighth, currency; ninth, commissioner of customs; tenth, auditor; eleventh, treasurer; twelfth, register; thirteenth, internal revenue; fourteenth, navigation; fifteenth, coast survey; sixteenth, engraving. This is a long list. And yet the possibilities for orderly administration must be apparent even upon a cursory examination.

Again in the Department of the Interior the bureaus