Book Reviews : Legislative Review of the Budget in California. By D. JAY DOUBLEDAY. (Berkeley: Institute of Governmental Studies, University of California, 1967. Pp. xi, 214. $5.00.)

• Author: Charles G. Bell
• DOI: 10.1177/106591296802100315
• Published date: 01 September 1968
• Date: 01 September 1968
• Subject Matter: Articles

516
The book’s three principal sections deal with: (1) Wilson’s career as a student
at Princeton, the University of Virginia Law School, and Johns Hopkins; (2) Wil-
son’s classroom career as instructor, lecturer and professor at Bryn Mawr, Johns
Hopkins, and Princeton; and (3) Wilson’s tenure as president of Princeton Uni-
versity immediately preceding his entry into active political life.
The political scientist will find of particular interest the critical treatment of
Wilson’s most famous work, Congressional Government, the published version of
his Johns Hopkins dissertation. The author analyzes this classic chapter by chapter,
with emphasis on Wilson’s conviction that cabinet government was preferable to
government dominated by congressional committees.
Bragdon’s view of the book may be summarized in this except: &dquo;Congressional
Government is still pertinent because its essential contention is sound: the Ameri-
can government demands strong executive leadership. Furthermore, leadership in
Congress still tends, as in Wilson’s time, to be disorganized, diffuse, and irresponsi-
ble.... For all its shortcomings, it [the book] lives on because it is still, as when
it was written, an eloquent tract for the times....&dquo;
Students of political thought will find the author’s account of Wilson’s unreal-
ized project of special interest. This was to write a master work on &dquo;The Philoso-
phy of Politics,&dquo; and it was set aside when Wilson entered active politics.
For the student of politics, the most fascinating part of the book is perhaps
that which deals with the two major controversies of Wilson’s career as president
of Princeton. The first of these was the controversy over the &dquo;eating clubs&dquo; at
Princeton, the other that with Dean West over the location of the Graduate
College. Other Wilson biographers, such as Walworth, have previously noted the
parallel between Wilson’s behavior in these academic controversies and in the
political...