20 Main Lines of Thought and Action 



Conservation Corps; the steadily mounting millions of visitors to 

 national and state parks and forests; the expanded clientele of hunting 

 and fishing; the interest in wildlife; the growth of a thirst for and 

 sense of beauty, not only in art and music but in nature; a re-exami- 

 nation of the contribution to our national tradition, fitness, and char- 

 acter of the out-of-doors — these and other social forces have brought 

 strength to nonmaterial insights and values. The "Mission 66" pro- 

 gram of the National Park Service withstood the general cuts in esti- 

 mates in 1957. The recreation wing of the conservation front was 

 strong enough to defeat the powerfully supported Echo Park Dam in 

 the Dinosaur National Monument in 1956. It saved, at least tem- 

 porarily, the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge from the designs of 

 the Department of Defense. It is rallying support for giving a statutory 

 base to the few remaining wilderness areas — symbols of values of 

 past days that have their importance for present and future genera- 

 tions as well. We may even come to measure the maturity of a civiliza- 

 tion by the regard it pays to nonmaterial values — in the conservation 

 field no less than elsewhere. 



Not all is well, especially in those matters which arise out of an 

 archaic system of organizing resource decision making. Agriculture, 

 Interior, and the Corps still have rival plans and approaches to river 

 basin development. Their counterparts on Capitol Hill — the Agri- 

 culture, Interior, and Public Works committees — have no effective 

 liaison. What little over-all view there is in the Executive Branch 

 stems from a small unit in the Bureau of the Budget, and the rela- 

 tively untried co-ordinator of public works planning in the White 

 House. Structured efforts at co-ordination in the shape of river basin 

 interdepartmental committees have registered relatively little success. 

 In the end, perhaps only the fiscal controls in the Executive as well as 

 in Congress may contain the answer to the crying need for more effec- 

 tive multiple-purpose development of land and water. For the present, 

 rival clienteles have entrenched themselves in their institutional coun- 

 terparts. Nor have Soil Conservation and Agricultural Extension 

 reconciled their differences. 



The past decade has seen some noteworthy studies by commissions. 



The Natural Resources Task Force of the First Hoover Commis- 

 sion was marked by its attention to organizational problems, and by 



