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in extraconstitutional activity by the executive. The Presidentcreates these bureaus, endows them with the most arbitrary powersand the most generous supplies of money. If Congress does not likethe bureau or wishes to destroy it, then Congress must pass a lawforbidding its continuance or stripping it of its powers. WhenCongress does that, the President can veto the law and Congress,to pass it over the veto, must have a two-thirds vote. This executivetechnique of usurping powers he does not possess, until stopped byCongress, is putting into the hands of the President the power togovern without congressional collaboration.Little by little these bureaus are exercising power over a multitudeof subjects that were once the province of the states. Theymay be exercising unconstitutional powers, but states and individualsand cities are often powerless to resist their ordinances becausethe executive has in his hands the distribution of such immensesums that the local authorities cannot afford to challenge the power.This vice takes its origin, however, in the great drift of states,towns, trade and labor and welfare bodies, and every kind ofpressure group toward taking their problems to "Washington anddemanding solution at its hands. As long as this continues, Congressmust abandon most of its work to bureaus. And bureaus will alwaysbe under the domination of the executive. The whole tendencyplays into the hands of the champions of highly centralized executivepower. From this there is no escape but to begin to reverse thetendency—to begin to send all those non-federal powers back tothe states and the cities where they belong.5. LIQUIDATING STATE POWERSPerhaps nothing in this whole movement seems so unlikely tocome to pass as the liquidation of the powers of the state. But it willnot do to overlook the power and sweep of the forces against whichtrue free government is tending in this world—even in America. Thecorrosive power of the Great Depression has wrought greatly uponthe whole structure of our society—far more than is generally supposed.We have yet to feel the full shock of the war crisis and thefar more terrible blow from the postwar crisis which is yet to come.242