As soon as business becomes at all complex—and nothing can be more complex than the business of a Nation of a hundred million people—it can only be performed by delegating to experts the duty of dealing with all that can properly be delegated. It is only by such delegation that it is possible to secure the proper consideration of the exceedingly important business which cannot properly be delegated. The voters, as a whole, for instance, must necessarily declare directly upon all really vital issues, and they should do this when the issue is a man just as much as when the issue is one of legislation. Indeed, in my judgment, there are certain matters, as to which the voters do not at present have the chance of thus acting directly, where it is important that the chance be given them. But they can only exercise such choice with wisdom and benefit where it is vitally necessary to exercise it, on condition of not being confused by the requirement of exercising it in the great multitude of cases where there is no such necessity, and where they can with advantage delegate the duty to the man they deem most fit to do the business. What is true of the voters is equally true of legislators and administrators the moment that their tasks become sufficiently complex. The village constable in a small community can do all his work directly. But the President of the United States can do his work at all only by delegating the enormous mass of it to his appointees, and by confining his own share of the purely administrative work largely to supervision and direction of these employees. When a President appoints a commission to investigate such a vital matter as, for instance, country life, or the conservation of natural resources, he does not abdicate his own authority; he merely faces the fact that by no possibility can he himself do this important piece of work as well as the experts whom he appoints to devote their whole time to that purpose. Now, Congress can with wisdom act in such matters of prime legislative importance as the tariff and river and harbor improvement, in the same way that the President acts in such matters of prime administrative importance as country life and conservation. It no more represents abdication of power on the part of Congress to appoint a first-class Tariff Commission than it represents abdication of power on the part of the President to appoint a first-class Country Life or Conservation Commission, or than it represents abdication of power on the part of voters to elect as Governor a man to whom they give all possible power to do his work well. In each case the body delegating the authority, so far from abdicating the power, has secured its wise use by intrusting it to a man or men especially equipped thus to use it well, and this man, or these men, can in turn be held to the most rigid accountability if it is not well used, in the exclusive service of the people as a whole. Rural Life