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Executive Order 7034 ⚖️⚠️ Zone 3: Lowest Ebb Constitutional Friction / Overreach (-0.19) 📜 Art. II §2: Commander-in-Chief / War Prerogative Tension

Executive Order 7034—Establishing the Division of Applications and Information, the Advisory Committee on Allotments, the Works Progress Administration, and for Other Purposes

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Monday, May 6, 1935
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5 min read (1,076 words)

Executive Brief • At a Glance

⏱️ 5 min read (1,076 words) • ● In Effect
🎯 Primary Mandate

I. I hereby establish within the Government certain agencies, and prescribe their respective functions and duties, as follows: (A) The Division of Applications and Information of the National Emergency Council, to be under the general supervision of the Executive Director of the National Emergency Council.

⚖️ Constitutional Footing
⚖️⚠️ Zone 3: Lowest Ebb
Incompatible with Expressed Will of Congress or High Friction
📜 Art. II §2: Commander-in-Chief / War Prerogative Tension
🏛️ Scope & Affected Sectors
Armed Forces & Military Establishments Merchants, Importers & Commercial Enterprises Executive Departments & Federal Civil Servants Private Citizens & Property Owners

Plain-English Translation & Framers' Constitutional Analysis

Early Statesman synthesis distilling legal jargon into practical meaning, statutory anchors, and structural constitutional impacts.

Signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on May 6, 1935, this order concerns Establishing the Division of Applications and Information, the Advisory Committee on Allotments, the Works Progress Administration, and for Other Purposes. I. I hereby establish within the Government certain agencies, and prescribe their respective functions and duties, as follows: (A) The Division of Applications and Information of the National Emergency Council, to be under the general supervision of the Executive Director of the National Emergency Council.

Constitutional Assessment: Scrutinized through Article II, Section 2, this action exercises the President's constitutional role as Commander in Chief. Early Framers recognized broad executive discretion in commanding military forces during conflict, provided it remains bounded by congressional declarations and respects civilian domestic courts.

Key Directives & Operative Actions

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I. I hereby establish within the Government certain agencies, and prescribe their respective functions and duties, as follows: (A) The Division of Applications and Information of the National Emergency Council, to be under the general supervision of the Executive Director of the National Emergency Council.

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Such Division shall receive all applications for projects, cause the applications to be examined and reviewed, obtaining when necessary aid and assistance of governmental departments or agencies, and transmit such applications to the Advisory Committee on Allotments hereinafter established.

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The Division shall furnish information to the public on allotments made and on the progress of all projects as they are initiated and carried forward.

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To this end, the Works Progress Administration shall have the following powers and duties: 1.

Constitutional & Societal Entities Impacted

🏛️ Armed Forces & Military Establishments 🏛️ Merchants, Importers & Commercial Enterprises 🏛️ Executive Departments & Federal Civil Servants 🏛️ Private Citizens & Property Owners 🏛️ Public Health & Medical Institutions
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The Framers' Constitutional Council

1787 Prism

Evaluating this order against the constitutional debates of 1787 and the limits of Article II executive power.

⚖️⚠️ Zone 3 (Lowest Ebb)
§

"When the President takes measures incompatible with the expressed or implied will of Congress, his power is at its lowest ebb."

— Justice Robert H. Jackson, Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer (1952) Incompatible with Expressed Will of Congress or High Friction
JM

James Madison

Separation of Powers & Legislative Primacy

"The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands... may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny." — Federalist No. 47 (1788)

Madison would express grave alarm over this order. By asserting independent authority in tension with legislative limits or the Bill of Rights, the Executive risks collapsing the separation of powers into unilateral rule. Under the Madisonian model, no emergency justifies the Executive substituting its decree for a deliberative Act of Congress.

Madisonian Stance: Strict Dissent (Overreach)
AH

Alexander Hamilton

The Energetic Executive & Unified Command

"The direction of war implies the direction of the common strength; and the power of directing and employing the common strength must be under the direction of the single hand of the Executive." — Federalist No. 74 (1788)

Hamilton would forcefully champion executive discretion here. For foreign entanglements, commerce defense, and national security, deliberative assemblies are too slow and faction-ridden. A unified, energetic Executive exercising swift command is precisely what the Philadelphia Convention intended for national preservation.

Hamiltonian Stance: Strong Prerogative Support
GM

George Mason

Bill of Rights, Due Process & 10th Amendment

"The purse and the sword ought never to be in the same hands... nor the liberties of the citizen placed at the pleasure of a single magistrate." — Virginia Ratifying Convention (1788)

George Mason and the Anti-Federalists would sound a fierce warning. They feared that Article II would inevitably evolve into an elective monarchy. When an executive order impacts private rights, property, or civil liberties without individualized judicial process, Mason would see their darkest predictions verified.

Anti-Federalist Stance: Vehement Objection
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Five Measurable "Constitutional Friction" Dimensions

An objective audit measuring potential separation-of-powers tension against the United States Constitution and established Supreme Court doctrine.

⚠️ Elevated Constitutional Friction
70 / 100 friction index
Dimension 1 • Art. I, §1 & §8

Legislative Encroachment & Purse

Moderate Friction

Administers commerce or fiscal programs requiring ongoing statutory delegation and legislative oversight.

Benchmark: Power of the purse, taxes/tariffs, and rule of law reserved to Congress.
Dimension 2 • Art. II, §1 & §3

Executive Scope & Faithfulness

High Friction

Invokes broad unilateral or emergency executive authorities that test the constitutional boundary of the Take Care Clause.

Benchmark: Faithfully execute laws enacted by Congress vs. unilateral decree.
Dimension 3 • 10th Amendment

Federalism & State Sovereignty

High Friction

Creates friction with the Tenth Amendment by conditioning state grants, mandating local compliance, or preempting state police powers.

Benchmark: Police powers and un-delegated responsibilities reserved to the States.
Dimension 4 • 5th & 14th Amendments

Due Process & Individual Rights

Moderate Friction

Applies regulatory or compliance standards to private contractors or commercial entities.

Benchmark: Protection of private property, contracts, liberty, and procedural justice.
Dimension 5 • Separation of Powers

Youngstown Jacksonian Tier

High Friction

The order asserts independent Article II prerogative against statutory constraints, reallocates funds without explicit appropriation, or stretches executive power into realms constitutionally reserved to the legislature or judiciary.

Benchmark: Incompatible with Expressed Will of Congress or High Friction
⚖️ Audit Synthesis

This directive engages significant constitutional friction across statutory authorization, legislative prerogatives, or individual liberties.

Weighted composite: Art. I (25%), Art. II (25%), Federalism (15%), Due Process (15%), Youngstown (20%).
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How to read these dimensions: Executive power expands whenever an administration acts without explicit statutory authorization from Congress (Article I), touches upon police powers historically reserved to the states (Tenth Amendment), or limits private rights and property without judicial process. A low friction score indicates strict concordance with enacted law; a high friction score highlights orders testing the limits of presidential discretion.
Total Words
1,076
6,933 characters
Estimated Read Time
5 min
@ 200 words / min
Flesch-Kincaid
21.7
Post-Graduate Legal
Language Tone Score
-0.19
Constitutional Friction / Overreach
How is this scored?
Text size:

Official Archival Text

View Source Document

By virtue of and pursuant to the authority vested in me under the "Emergency Relief Appropriation Act of 1935", approved April 8, 1935 (Public Resolution No. 11, 74th Congress), and of all other authority vested in me, it is hereby ordered as follows: I. I hereby establish within the Government certain agencies, and prescribe their respective functions and duties, as follows: (A) The Division of Applications and Information of the National Emergency Council, to be under the general supervision of the Executive Director of the National Emergency Council. Such Division shall receive all applications for projects, cause the applications to be examined and reviewed, obtaining when necessary aid and assistance of governmental departments or agencies, and transmit such applications to the Advisory Committee on Allotments hereinafter established. The Division shall furnish information to the public on allotments made and on the progress of all projects as they are initiated and carried forward. (B) The Advisory Committee on Allotments, which shall be composed of: The Secretary of the Interior, Chairman The Secretary of /Agriculture The Secretary of Labor The Executive Director of the National Emergency Council The Administrator of the Works Progress Administration The Director of Procurement The Director of the Bureau of the Budget The Chief of Engineers, U.S. Army The Commissioner of Reclamation The Director of Soil Erosion The Chief of the Forest Service The Director of Emergency Conservation Work The Chief of the Bureau of Public Roads The Administrator of the Resettlement Administration The Administrator of the Rural Electrification Administration The Federal Emergency Relief Administrator The Director, Housing Division The Vice-Chairman, National Resources Board and a representative of (a) the Business Advisory Council (b) organized labor (c) farm organizations (d) the American Bankers' Association, and (e) the United States Conference of Mayors Such Committee shall make recommendations to the President with respect to the allotments of funds for such projects covered by the applications submitted by the Division of Applications and Information as will constitute a coordinated and balanced program of work under the said Act. (C) A Works Progress Administration, which shall be responsible to the President for the honest, efficient, speedy, and coordinated execution of the work relief program as a whole, and for the execution of that program in such manner as to move from the relief rolls to work on such projects or in private employment the maximum number of persons in the shortest time possible. To this end, the Works Progress Administration shall have the following powers and duties: 1. To establish and operate a division of progress investigation, and to coordinate the pertinent work of existing investigative agencies of the Government, so as to insure the honest execution of the work relief program. 2. To formulate, and, with the approval of the President, to require uniform periodic reports of progress on all projects; and, where any avoidable delay appears, forthwith to recommend to the President appropriate measures for eliminating such delay, and, similarly, to recommend the termination of projects where it develops that they are not affording the amount of employment warranting their continuance. 3. With the approval of the President, to prescribe rules and regulations: a. To assure that as many of the persons employed on all work projects as is feasible shall be persons receiving relief; and b. To govern the selection of such persons for such employment. 4. To formulate and administer a system of uniform periodic reports of the employment on such projects of persons receiving relief. 5. To investigate wages and working conditions and to make and submit to the President such findings as will aid the President in prescribing working conditions and rates of pay on projects. In addition to the foregoing powers and duties, the Works Progress Administration shall: 1. Provide for the coordination of such data compiling projects as form a part of the work relief program and of such portions of other research activities as may be necessary or useful in carrying out such program. 2. Coordinate all requests for opinions and decisions addressed to the Executive departments or independent establishments of the Government on questions affecting the administration of the Act or of orders issued thereunder. 3. Recommend and cany on small useful projects designed to assure a maximum of employment in all localities. The Federal Emergency Relief Administrator shall serve also as Administrator of the Works Progress Administration. II. I hereby direct: (A) The Secretary of the Treasury, (1) through the disbursing and accounting facilities under the Commissioner of Accounts and Deposits of the Treasury Department, to make provision for all disbursements from the funds appropriated by the "Emergency Relief Appropriation Act of 1935", subject only to such exceptions as the Secretary may authorize, and to maintain a system of accounts necessary to enable the President (a) to exercise Executive control over such funds, (&) to provide current financial and accounting information for governmental agencies concerned, and (c) to make a complete report to the Congress concerning expenditures made and obligations incurred, by classes and amounts; and (2) through the Director of Procurement, to purchase, or to provide a system for the purchase of all materials, supplies and equipment to be procured with the said funds. (B) The Director of the Bureau of the Budget to pass upon all requests for allotment of funds for administrative expenses. III. All permanent and emergency agencies of the Government will afford full cooperation to the agencies herein established or designated and make available such personnel and facilities as may aid in carrying out the provisions of the said Act. IV. The agencies established or designated hereunder are hereby authorized to prescribe such administrative procedures, and to submit for the approval of the President such rules and regulations as may be necessary, to carry out their respective duties and powers under the provisions of this Order. V. Within such amounts as may hereafter be allotted by the President, the agencies herein established or designated are authorized to employ the services and means mentioned in subdivision (a) of section 3 of said Emergency Relief Appropriation Act of 1935, to the extent therein provided, and, within the limitation prescribed by such section and at the direction of the President, to exercise the authority with respect to personnel conferred by subdivision (b) thereof: Provided, That so far as practicable the persons employed under the authority of this section shall be selected from those receiving relief. FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT The White House, May 6, 1935.

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Referenced By Later Executive Orders (6)

Subsequent presidents who cited, amended, continued, or revoked this directive in later orders.

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Scholarly & Legal Citations

Exec. Order No. 7034 (May 6, 1935), https://executiveordersarchive.org/orders/app-executive-order-7034-establishing-the-division-applications-and-information-the-advisory.