SAMUEL p. HAYS 45 



between public and private interest is to distort the issue. No such 

 juggling of symbols can obliterate the fundamental conflict between 

 preservation and development as perennial and competing public 

 values. 



I am not nearly as sanguine as is Mr. Griffith about the "greater 

 conformity to public norms" of which he speaks. This, it seems to 

 me, is a shift in language, rather than a change in the amount of 

 agreement over conservation issues. The new language and technical 

 concepts of "public interest" do not guarantee that conservation goals 

 will be achieved. They do not answer the basic question: Who deter- 

 mines the public interest? The National Rivers and Harbors Congress' 

 definition of public interest may differ from that of the National 

 Reclamation Association, and the choice between them will depend 

 upon how much poUtical power each can wield. 



The widespread use of the concept of the public interest often ob- 

 scures the importance of this political struggle, and substitutes rhet- 

 oric for reality. It permits bitter political contests to be waged far 

 beneath the calm surface of agreed-on language and technical jargon, 

 and drives those contests even farther into the dark recesses of legal 

 and statistical mystery, away from the annoying eye of the public. The 

 great danger of the rhetoric of the "public interest" is that it can lull 

 one into complacency by persuading him to accept a mythological in- 

 stead of a substantive analysis of both historical and contemporary 

 conservation issues. 



NOTE BY MR. GRIFFITH With the views that Dr. Hays has 

 presented — that overstressing of the issue of public versus private tends 

 to obliterate reality — I agree; but I still sense a very considerable con- 

 vergence. I am with Dr. Hays in trying to pierce beyond the symbols and 

 the myths to the realities. Yet symbols and myths can also serve as norms, 

 and at least in Congress I can witness to a growing search for realities 

 lying back of these symbolic norms. 



Professor Hart pointed out the difficulty of a definition of public inter- 

 est. I will stand on my earlier statement that however much we may 

 quarrel about the public interest and what it is — and that is the essence 

 of the quarrel — I still say that there is a net gain insofar as today it is the 

 nature of the public interest that is the battle, and not whether we shall 

 conform to the public interest. 



