As he is head of the government, charged with making appointments, and clothed with the executive power, the President has a certain responsibility for the conduct of all departments, commissions and independent bureaus. While I was willing to advise with any of these officers and give them any assistance in my power, I always felt they should make their own decisions and rarely volunteered any advice. Many applications are made requesting the President to seek to influence these bodies, and such applications were usually transmitted to them for their information without comment. Wherever they exercise judicial functions, I always felt that some impropriety might attach to any suggestions from me. The parties before them are entitled to a fair trial on the merits of their case and to have judgment rendered by those to whom both sides have presented their evidence. If some one on the outside undertook to interfere, even if grave injustice was not done, the integrity of a commission which comes from a knowledge that it can be relied on to exercise its own independent judgment would be very much impaired. I never hesitated to ask commissions to speed up their work and get their business done, but if they were not doing it correctly my remedy would be to supplant them with those who I thought would do better. At one time the Shipping Board adopted a resolution declaring their independence of the President and claiming they were responsible solely to the Congress. As I always considered they had a rather impossible task, I doubted whether any one could be very successful in its performance. If they wished to try to relieve me of its responsibility, I had no personal objection and would probably be saved from considerable criticism. But they found they could not carry on their work without the support of the President, so that some of them resigned and the remainder reestablished their contact with the White House, which was always open to them.