ABSTRACT
Professor Carl Brent Swisher in his recent book, The Growth of Constitutional Power in the United States, makes the point too often forgotten that the primary purpose of written constitutions, including our own, is to grant adequate power to govern. Checks on the power to govern, important as they are felt to be, follow—they do not precede. In a very similar way, consideration of administrative organization begins with the arrangements essential to authority and responsibility. Delegation, decentralization, and all of the techniques making for a diffusion of influence and for zealous and reciprocal collaboration enormously enrich administration—but they are secondary. True and effective decentralization can only follow effective centralization.
