The Wilmington Morning Star

One-Man Government

Under the American system of government, the national cabinet composed of department heads is the President's advisory board. Mr. Roosevelt has made of the cabinet an agency for carrying out his views, with little consultation and less advice.

It is reported that regular cabinet sessions which have been a potent factor in the administrations of other presidents have been practically discontinued under Mr. Roosevelt, with the result that the men holding portfolios of government are in effect clerks of the President, to do his bidding without a voice in his decisions.

Walter Lippmann touches upon this in his article appearing in yesterday's Star dealing with Mr. Roosevelt's rebuke of Vice President Wallace and Secretary Jones and their removal from bureaucratic posts which they held in addition to their departmental positions. His conclusion in that we will incur "enormous and unwarranted risks until Mr. Roosevelt faces the truth, which is the beginning of political wisdom, that it is consultations of a cabinet, only in the practice of consultation and deliberation, that common sense is most likely to be brought to bear on great issues.

This brings us back to the argument so often advanced by persons not friendly toward the President. that no man is capable of administering the affairs of a nation as great as the United States single-handed, and particularly in the critical period of a global war. The errors of President Roosevelt's administration are almost wholly traceable to Mr. Roosevelt's mistake of making all decisions himself