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The Value of the Hoover Commission Reports to the Educator*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2013

E. S. Redford
E. S. Redford
Affiliation:
University of Texas
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Extract

The Hoover Commission Reports were not written for the educator and his students. The audience was broader and the objective was immediate reform. Nevertheless, the educator must pause at this milepost and take stock. The reports are thrust upon him as inescapable materials for analysis in class and seminar rooms; they record in considerable measure the state of achievement in the development of administrative science; they challenge an examination now of the directions and scope of educational motive forces in the next phase of university education in public administration.

Most teachers of public administration probably found the reports of the President's Committee on Administrative Management and of the Attorney General's Committee on Administrative Procedure to be very valuable aids in teaching. The publication of the Report with Special Studies and the Final Report provided a considerable body of material in convenient form for teacher and student use, and the over-all summary of the Committee on Administrative Management even provided material which could be used in introductory courses in American government. Also, these earlier reports dealt with problems at the growing points in the study of public administration and offered basic points of view around which discussion could be centered.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 44 , Issue 2 , June 1950 , pp. 283 - 298
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1950

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Footnotes

*

This article is an elaboration of the comments of the author on a similar topic at a round table at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, December, 1949.

References

1 President's Committee on Administrative Management, Report with Special Studies (Washington, 1937)Google ScholarPubMed; Final Report of the Attorney General's Committee on Administrative Procedure (Washington, 1941)Google Scholar.

2 Department of Agriculture, p. 23.

3 Social Security and Education; Indian Affairs, pp. 49–51.

4 Federal Medical Services, Supplement to Appendix O.

5 Medical Activities, p. 15.

6 Acheson, Aiken and Rowe, , Medical Activities, pp. 41–46 Google Scholar.

7 Ibid., p. 42.

8 Ibid., pp. 49–51.

9 There were four separate statements for eight commissioners. Ibid., pp. 31–52.

10 Federal Business Enterprises, p. 92. The full statement is carried at pp. 91–112.

11 Pp. 95–99.

12 Pp. 99–102.

13 P. 103.

14 Pp. 103–112. Compare the statement of Commissioner Aiken, pp. 113–119, of Commissioner Forrestal, pp. 121–124, and Commissioner Manasco, pp. 125–127.

15 Task Force Report on Regulatory Commissions (Appendix N), pp. 27–28.

16 Regulatory Commissions, p. 4.

17 Unfortunately for the educator, the systematic and detailed studies on the regulatory commissions, prepared for the task force, have not been published.

18 Macmahon, Arthur W., “The Future Organizational Pattern of the Executive Branch,” American Political Science Review, Vol. 38, pp. 1179–1191 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at p. 1189 (1944).

19 Task Force Report on Regulatory Commissions, p. 22.

20 Ibid., pp. 19–24. Group deliberation was the specific advantage claimed in the task force report, but even in single-headed agencies the process of decision involves group collaboration.

21 Gulick, Luther, “War Organization of the Federal Government,” American Political Science Review, Vol. 38, pp. 1166–1179 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at p. 1174 (1944).

22 See Cuahman, Robert E., The Independent Regulatory Commissions (New York, 1941), p. 643 Google Scholar, for comments on a proposal by William A. Robson for ministerial influence through the “open letter of instruction.”

23 There was, it should be said, some analysis of this sort in the nine unpublished volumes on the separate commissions.

24 Herring, E. Pendleton, Public Administration and the Public Interest (New York, 1936)Google Scholar.

25 See particularly Landis, James M., The Administrative Process (New Haven, 1938)Google Scholar; Attorney General's Committee on Administrative Procedure, Final Report, pp. 55–60 Google ScholarPubMed; Blachly, Frederick F. and Oatman, Miriam E., Federal Regulatory Action and Control (Washington, 1940), pp. 177–182 Google Scholar. For the proposal for separation of functions, see Cushman, Robert E., “The Problem of the Independent Regulatory Commissions,” in President's Committee on Administrative Management, Report with Special Studies, pp. 207–243 Google Scholar.

26 Personnel Management, p. 54.

27 Regulatory Commissions, pp. 5–6.

28 Reorganization Plans Nos. 5 and 6 of 1949.

29 As in articles in this Review, including Price, Don K., “Staffing the Presidency,” Vol. 40, pp. 1154–1168 (1946)Google Scholar; Coy, Wayne, “Basic Problems,” Vol. 40, pp. 1124–1137 (1946)Google Scholar; Corson, John J., “Organizing Government Staff Services for Full Employment,” Vol. 39, pp. 1157–1169 (1945)Google Scholar; Nourse, Edwin G. and Gross, Bertram M., “The Role of the Council of Economic Advisers,” Vol. 42, pp. 283–295 (1948)Google Scholar; Souers, Sidney W., “Policy Formation for National Security,” Vol. 43, pp. 534–543 (1949)Google Scholar; Watkins, Ralph J., “Economic Mobilization,” Vol. 43, pp. 555–563 (1949)Google Scholar; Marx, Fritz Morstein, “The Bureau of the Budget: Its Evolution and Present Role,” Vol. 39, pp. 653–684, 869–898 (1945)Google Scholar. See also Millett, John D., The Process and Organization of Government Planning (New York, 1947)Google Scholar.

30 General Management of the Executive Branch, pp. 17–18.

31 Ibid., p. viii.

31a Contrast the view of Finer, Herman, “The Hoover Commission Reports,” Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 64, pp. 579–595, 405–419 (1949)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

32 Personnel Management, pp. 47–59.

33 Legislation creating the Commission (61 Stat. at L. 246) declared it “to be the policy of Congress to promote economy, efficiency, and improved service in the transaction of the public business in the departments, bureaus, agencies, boards, commissions, offices, independent establishments, and instrumentalities of the executive branch of the Government by—

(1) limiting expenditures to the lowest amount consistent with the efficient performance of essential services, activities, and functions;

(2) eliminating duplication and overlapping of services, activities, and functions;

(3) consolidating services, activities, and functions of a similar nature;

(4) abolishing services, activities, and functions not necessary to the efficient conduct of government; and

(5) defining and limiting executive functions, services and activities.”

34 See White, Leonard D., “Congressional Control of the Public Service,” American Political Science Review, Vol. 39, pp. 1–11 (1945)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

35 Hart, James, “The Exercise of Rule-Making Power,” in Report with Special Studies, pp. 313–355 Google Scholar.

36 See particularly Appleby, Paul H., Policy and Administration (University, Alabama, 1949)Google Scholar; Friedrich, C. J., “Public Policy and the Nature of Administrative Responsibility,” in Friedrich, C. J. and Mason, Edward S. (eds.), Public Policy (Cambridge, 1940)Google Scholar, Ch. 1.

37 As in the task force report on Departmental Management (Appendix E), especially at pp. 16, 51–54.

38 Commission report on General Management of the Executive Branch, p. 38.

39 Public Affairs Institute, The Hoover Report—Half a Loaf (Washington, 1949), p. 7 Google Scholar.

40 See Long, Norton E., “Power and Administration,” Public Administration Review, Vol. 9, pp. 257–264 (1949)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

41 oncluding Report, p. 3.

42 Ibid., p. 45.

43 See Long, op. cit., p. 258.

44 The Commission noted in its Concluding Report, p. 46, that “There still may be much needed work to be done … in such fields as public relations and executive-legislative relationships; and the reorganization problems of the field services are still practically untapped.”

45 Council of State Governments, Federal-State Relations (Report prepared for the Hoover Commission), S. Doc. No. 81, 81st Cong., 1st Ses., 1949.

46 Overseas Administration, Federal-State Relations, Federal Research, pp. 25–37.

47 General Management of the Executive Branch, pp. 42–45.

48 See the author's Field Administration of Wartime Rationing (Washington, 1947)Google Scholar, passim, and the literature cited therein.

49 Gaus, John Merriman, Reflections on Public Administration (University, Alabama, 1947), pp. 2–3 Google Scholar.

50 Ibid., p. 5.

51 See Gaus' comments, ibid., p. 14.

52 Political scientists have recognized the importance of this aspect of government rather lately. When Witte, Edwin E. wrote his article on “Administrative Agencies and Statute Lawmaking” in Public Administration Review, Vol. 2, pp. 116–125 (1942)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, he noted that he had found only one article on the subject, namely, Weeks, O. Douglas, “Initiation of Legislation by Administrative Agencies,” Brooklyn Law Review, Vol. 9, pp. 117–131 (1939–1940)Google Scholar. But McFarland, Carl in Judicial Control of the Federal Trade Commission and the Interstate Commerce Commission, 1920–1930 (Cambridge, 1933)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Ch. 5, had drawn some interesting conclusions on administrative recommendations to Congress.

53 Barnard, Chester I., The Functions of the Executive (Cambridge, 1938)Google ScholarPubMed; Simon, Herbert A., Administrative Behavior (New York, 1948)Google Scholar. “Management,” says Donald C. Stone, “cannot secure its aims on a command basis.” In McLean, Joseph E. (ed.), The Public Service and University Education (Princeton, 1949), p. 59 Google Scholar.

54 Marx, Fritz Morstein, “Administrative Ethics and the Rule of Law,” American Political Science Review, Vol. 48, pp. 1119–1144 (1949)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

55 Compare Simon, op. cit., Ch. 3.