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Other extraordinary powers such as, for instance, to effect wholesalesocial reforms, will be delegated to the administration which will retainmost, if not all, of its present extraordinary wartime controls*The same view is supported by Dr. Charles Merriam, of ChicagoUniversity. Dr. Merriam was vice-chairman of the President's personalplanning body—this same National Resources Planning Board.He insists that our government must be streamlined. By this hemeans that Congress must withdraw as a formal legislative body. Itmust adopt a few very general directives at each session instead ofpassing laws. It must do what Carr says is the very most the BritishParliament can do—express a "vague pronouncement of its intentionand then give wide powers to the executive to carry it intoeffect." It must limit itself to granting to the President large lumpsums leaving it to him to allocate them as he pleases. Drs. LewisMeriam and Laurence F. Schmeckebier indicate that the manner ofattaining this new form of government will be "to have Congressdelegate some of its powers to the President and by having it foregothe exercise of some of the powers it possesses. The argument advancedin support of this change is briefly that the President alonerepresents all the people; the people hold the President responsiblefor the success of the government; and consequently the Presidentshould have power commensurate with that responsibility." 5These views represent the opinions upon which the President'splanning boards operated. They represent the views of most of thatgroup of economists, political scientists, and lawyers who for thelast six years have moved around from one bureau to another astheir guides and philosophers and who generally are looked upon inWashington as the thinking element of the New Deal. It was,indeed, the rather slow and even reluctant discovery by Congressof the persistence and virility of the drive for these ideas which hadmuch to do with the revolt of Congress, the indignant sweep withwhich it destroyed the National Resources Planning Board andlater turned its wrath upon the Board of Economic Warfare in sucha way as to end in its liquidation.*Chicago Journal of Commerce, June 27, 1942.8 Reorganization of the National Government, by Lewis Meriam and Laurence F. Schmeckebier,Brookings Institution, Washington, i939·2}6

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