Reviews : Hinsdale, Mary L. A History of the President's Cabinet. Pp. ix, 355. Ann
| Author | Wm I. Hull |
| DOI | 10.1177/000271621204300122 |
| Published date | 01 September 1912 |
| Date | 01 September 1912 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
338
law&dquo;
asserted
is
seen
by
the
adoption
of
the
Porter
Proposition
and
the
progress
made
in
the
growth
of
arbitration
and
in
the
activities
of
arbitral
tribunals.
But
the
keystone
of
the
nearly
completed
arch
of
justice
is
still
wanting;
this,
Dr.
Hill
believes,
is
a
mutual
guarantee
on
the
part
of
sovereign
states
that
they
will
not
resort
to
force
against
one
another,
so
long
as
the
resources
of
justice
contained
in
the
Hague
Conventions
have
not
been
exhausted.
The
establishment
of
the
Court
of
Arbitral
Justice
and
the
prerequisite
codification
of
international
law
would
seem
to
others
the
sine
quct
non
of
permanent
peace;
while
President
Taft
is
seeking
it
through
the
development
of
an
international
grand
jury
which
shall
bring
disputants,
nolens
volens,
into
court.
The
final
impression
left
by
this
stimulating
treatise
is
that
its
optimism
as
to
future
international
relations
is
well
founded
upon
the
recent
enormous
extension
of
international
trade
and
the
development
of
law
in
the
modern
state,
both
of
which
have
greatly
facilitated
the
mutual
understanding,
and
promoted
the
mutual
obligations,
of
the
nations.
Swarthmore
College.
WM.
I.
HULL.
Hinsdale,
Mary
L.
A
History
of
the
President’s
Cabinet.
Pp.
ix,
355.
Ann
Arbor:
University
of
Michigan,
1911.
After
a
brief
introduction
on
The
Origin
of
the
Cabinet,
the
major
portion
of
this
volume
consists
of
successive
accounts
of
the
cabinets
of
each
President,
in
historical
order
from
Washington
to
Taft.
Though
in
each
administration
most
space
is
ordinarily
devoted
to
details
surrounding
appointments
and
changes
of
departmental
heads,
more
significant
discussion
is
introduced
where
opportunity
is
discovered
for
remarking
some
distinctive
change
or
tendency
with
respect
to
the
general
position
of
the
cabinet
in
government,
its
relation
to
the
President,
to
Congress,
or
to
party
politics.
These
sketches
cover
an
average
of
six
or
eight
pages
each,
unimportant
cabinets,
such
as
those
of
Van
Buren
and
Benjamin
Harrison,
being
disposed
of
in
two
or
three
pages,
while
from
fifteen
to
twenty
pages
are
given
to
the
more
eventful
cabinet
histories
of
such
administrations
as
those
of
Jackson
and
Lincoln.
Following
this
detailed
history,
three
brief
sections
embody
the
author’s
conclusions
on
The
Principles
of
Cabinet
Making,
The
Cabinet
and
Congress,
and
The
Cabinet
and
the
President.
This
recapitulation
appears
most
effec-
tively
under
the
second
topic,
where
the
various
formal
and
informal
methods
of
approach
that
have
grown
up
between
Congress
and
the
Cabinet
are
sketched
clearly
and
interestingly.
The
author
seems
to
have
been
careful
in
all
particulars,
covering
the
per-
tinent
facts
accurately,
and
manifesting
close
acquaintance
with
original
and
secondary
sources.
The
work
for
the
most
part
holds
closely
to
the
facts,
and
is
dominated
by
no
main
hypotheses.
Not
much
of
synthetic
imagination
is
employed
in
the
treatment.
There
is
very
little
of
relation
to
general
prin-
ciples
of
government
or
to
historical
antecedents
of
our
cabinet.
Only
subor-
dinate
reference
is
made
to
the
political
needs
that
have
made
the
cabinet
a
natural,
if
not
inevitable,
product
of
custom.
The
author
seems
to
be
concerned
with
the
practices
affecting
the
cabinet
rather
than
with
principles
and
ten-
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