Dogmas of Administrative Reform: As Exemplified in the Recent Reorganization in Ohio

An extensive reorganization of administrative offices in Ohio was accomplished by a law enacted in April, 1921, and in effect July 1st, 1921. That reorganization is taken as the central point of this discussion, not because persons outside of Ohio are interested in details of Ohio government, but because the Ohio reorganization is one of the latest of such schemes to be put into effect and because it has been considered to exemplify relatively well the principles which our leading administrative reformers wish to see applied in our state executive departments. There is nothing of more practical importance in this connection than to examine carefully the principles upon which these reorganizations are supposed to be based. The editor of the National Municipal Review pronounces the Ohio reorganization to be “a big advance in popular government;” and Dr. W. F. Dodd, one of our leading experts in state government, says that the Ohio reorganization “is perhaps the most effective yet planned in this country, except for the fact of the constitutional limitation of the governor's term” to two years. This paper will sketch, as briefly as possible, and at certain points roughly judge, the changes made by the Ohio reorganization act of 1921, and then try briefly to indicate my general attitude towards the objects and policies of such a reorganization.