When Roosevelt was strained with work, he recognized that success is a group endeavor and demonstrated courage by asking for help. However, he didn't shrink his responsibility either, giving the President more responsibility while simultaneously building a team to help him.
Historical Context
"The President needs help . . ." "We are not free if our administration is weak . . . The only way in which the President can be relieved of the physically impossible task of directly dealing with 30 or 40 major agencies is by reorganization—by the regrouping of agencies according to their major purposes under responsible heads who will report to the President, just as is contemplated by the Reorganization Act of 1939."
-Franklin D. Roosevelt Message to Congress on the Reorganization Act April 25, 1939 |
"There is room for vast increase in our national productivity . . . There is need for improvement of our governmental machinery to meet new conditions and to make us ready for the problems ahead."
-Brownlow Committee report on how to reorganize the executive branch, January 10, 1947
Reorganization Bill of 1939
"This Plan creates [the Executive Branch of Government] . . . and reduces the number of agencies which report directly to the President and also gives the President assistance in dealing with the entire Executive Branch by modern means of administrative management including [a group of six assistants to help the President]."
-Franklin D. Roosevelt, Message to Congress on the Reorganization Act, April 25, 1939 |
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"President Roosevelt greatly increased the responsibilities of his office. Fortunately for his successors, he also enhanced the capacity of the presidency to meet these new responsibilities."
-William Leuchtenburg, Esteemed FDR historian
Legacy
"The Reorganization Bill of 1939 has been called 'one of the most striking acts in American history.'"
-Steven G. Calabresi and Christopher S. Yoo, excerpted from The Unitary Executive: Presidential Power from Washington to Bush
"Roosevelt's extraordinary leadership . . . for this statute ratified a process in which public expectations and institutional arrangements established the president as the principal agent of popular rule. It set off a new dynamic whereby executive administration, coupled with the greater personal responsibility of the president . . . displaced collective responsibility in important ways."
-Sidney M. Milkis and Jerome M. Mileur