THE PRESIDENT'S ROLE
Ekirch, Arthur A. Jr.
The President's Role The American Presidency, by Clinton Rossiter. Harcourt, Brace and Company. 175 pp. $2.95. Reviewed by Arthur A. Ekirch, Jr. IN HIS Notes on Democracy, H. L. Mencken some...
...it comes from evading or augmenting them...
...Harry Truman's influence he sums up "in the simple judgment that he was a highly successful Andrew Johnson," while Dwight Eisenhower is praised as a moderate conservative who has maintained the standards of efficiency set by his predecessor...
...He also points out that, if it is undesirable generally to augment further the Presidential authority, it may become necessary to level down his responsibilities, and to curb somehow the popular disposition to place full blame for all national ills upon our Presidents...
...Americans accordingly do not have to worry about the possibility of a Presidential coup d' etat, but this does not mean that they should show no concern over what are the proper limits of the Presidency...
...In addition to his official responsibilities the President also operates as the head of his party and as the interpreter and moulder of the popular will...
...Clinton Rossiter, professor of government at Cornell University, presumably does not agree with Mencken's interpretation, but he concludes nevertheless that "the outstanding feature of American constitutional development has been the growth of 'the power and prestige of the Presidency...
...On the other hand, historical forces have also contributed to an enormous expansion of the powers of the Presidency...
...Important in this regard have been the growth of the positive administrative state, the ever-increasing crises in foreign and domestic affairs, the rise of democracy, and the decline of Congress...
...Rossiter 1 hammers home the point that the Presidency is an essentially democratic office, and he is probably correct in believing that no American President can become a personal dictator...
...Rossiter sees in the increasing institutionalization of the Presidency a danger that the President may be buried under his own machinery, becoming a prisoner in his own home and office...
...From Washington to Eisenhower, American Presidents have played a many-sided role, performing the ceremonial functions of a crowned head as well as the working duties of an executive, legislator, diplomat, and commander-in-chief...
...In conclusion the author, who believes the strong President is here to stay, pleads guilty to a sense of satisfaction, although not necessarily of complacency, with the American Presidency as it stands today...
...The federal system, free enterprise, and the people themselves have all operated as historic checks upon American Presidents, keeping them within bounds without paralyzing their authority...
...There is no sense of power in merely executing the laws...
...His book, admirably clear and readable, is not only a useful eleotion-year primer on the Presidency, but a thoughtful and scholarly analysis as well...
...Although the powers of the Presidency are therefore huge, "they are not, strictly speaking, powers at all— unless exercised through constitutional forms and within constitutional limits...
...No man," he wrote, "would want to be President of the United States in strict accordance with the Constitution...
...Yet, after election day the President was criticized not for making the promises, but for his failure to keep them...
...But the growth in the struc- ture and prerogatives of the Presi- dency may still lead to what is basically a totalitarian type of state, although the President's powers may be exercised ostensibly in the name of the people, and by the Executive Office rather than by one man...
...Franklin Roosevelt's influence on the Presidency, he believes, was tremendous—second only to Washington who made the office and to Jackson who remade it...
...Against this background of powers and restraints, the author traces the evolution of the Presidency and attempts to evaluate the level of competence of the individual holders of that high office...
...To all of these tasks there has been added recently "a new function, which is still taking shape, that of Manager of Prosperity...
...IN HIS Notes on Democracy, H. L. Mencken some years ago pointed out that nine-tenths of American Presidents had reached office by making promises that were basically immoral...
Vol. 20 • August 1956 • No. 8
