Woodrow Wilson and Administrative Reform

"Woodrow Wilson and Administrative Reform." Kendrick A. Clements examines Woodrow Wilson's contributions to administrative procedure by using material from his lectures on the subject delivered at Johns Hopkins University in the 1890s. Clements argues that Wilson proposed reform as an aid to presidential decision making to equip government to deal with modem problems rather than as an end in itself Despite the theoretical appeal of this interpretation, it is noteworthy that Wilson could not bring himself to embrace it fully; he worried that a powerful and autonomous bureaucracy required to implement progressive reforms and to fight a world war could not be kept subservient to democratic control. While reformers opined that wartime agencies could shift to implementing progressive reforms after the end of the war, Wilson thought differently and chose to terminate them abruptly. As other presidents both before and after, Wilson found himself uncomfortably dependent on an entrenched bureaucracy needed to administer the modem state; reform thus became subservient to necessity.