The questions of administrative efficiency and the best method of obtaining it demand special and detailed consideration.

In this case the conclusions reached will apply as much to the central and municipal as they do to the state administrations; but the whole matter of administrative efficiency can be most conveniently discussed in relation to the proper organization of a state government.

The false ideas and practices which have caused so much American administrative inefficiency originated in the states and thence infected the central government.

On the other hand, the reform of these practices made its first conquests at Washington and thereafter was languidly and indifferently taken over by many of the states.

The state politicians have never adopted it in good faith, because real administrative efficiency would, by virtue of the means necessarily taken to accomplish it, undermine the stability of the political machine.