In the present volume the authors describe and comment upon the use of emergency power in the United States since 1933. It is their contention that the use of emergency power was contemplated and provided for in the Constitution. The law also provides restraints upon its use. As Professor McIlwain has concluded, the proper test of constitutionalism is the existence of adequate processes for keeping government responsible. It is comforting to know that these processes exist within our government. The primary requirement of all Americans, then, is to keep government responsible and within these limitations, for only when this is done can emergency power be justified under the law of the land. The always present danger is that emergency power may be used by an officer or an agency of the government in order to have its own way when constitutional or other legal restrictions might irritate or interfere. This danger can be lessened by the selection of good governmental personnel, but removed to a greater degree by the enforcement of these constitutional and statutory limitations which are made effective at times by resort to judicial review. Readers will be indebted to the authors for this first exhaustive account of the actual use of emergency power by the United States government since 1933. The restraint on the freedom of the individual, the regulation of private enterprise, the control of communications are but some of the topics that receive minute and careful treatment. Some readers will be concerned with the frequency of the resort to emergency power and will view with uneasiness, as does this writer, the possible curtailment of individual rights. Yet the authors would be the first to agree with the statement that, “Freedom and civil liberties, far from being incompatible with security, are vital to our national strength.” Security and rights are here made interdependent. Others will take satisfaction in the flexibility of the United States government that can maintain its democratic character and still have the means of preserving its existence under the tremendous pressure of a world war and periods of economic crises. Irrespective of attitude, the present volume is a telling account of the manner in which the government of the United States has been made adaptable under the Constitution to the problems and exigencies of the modern world. ROBERT S. RANKIN _Washington, D. C._ PREFACE A preface is a kind of last call to dinner, as it were, in which the authors suggest the purpose of their undertaking, chart the course they have chosen to pursue, and acknowledge the help they have received.