GILBERT F. WHITE 219 



Red variety and toward domination by single agencies, as in the cur- 

 rent surveys in the Delaware and Potomac basins. 



May it be concluded that co-ordination attempts are likely to bear 

 such limited fruit in future? The evidence seems strongly in that direc- 

 tion. 



Why has partnership between federal and private enterprise been 

 largely fictional and often exploitive? The concept of "partnership" in 

 resources development is not new; it is as old as the General Dam 

 Act of 1910 and the system of mineral leasing. Its effectiveness has 

 been high in situations where the agreed aim has been to maximize 

 private production of a commodity, such as oil or timber, without 

 regard to auxiliary effects upon other resources. Where other aims are 

 involved, partnership becomes cumbersome, quite aside from the 

 hazards it carries for mismanagement and abuse. Mix grazing with 

 timber or wildlife production and the trouble begins. 



In most sectors of resources development the public aims have been 

 established beside rather than as synonymous with private aims of 

 maximizing profit. Only intelligent vigilance prevents unwise contract 

 cutting of national forests or excessive pumpage from oil reserves or 

 single-purpose pre-emption of sites for water storage. Where the inter- 

 est groups play a strong role in setting regulations, as in the case of 

 local livestock grazers on the public domain, the danger of resource 

 destruction may be great. Present emphasis upon partnership in the 

 water field has the apparent effect of slowing up the investment in 

 public power without stepping up private investment. Perhaps more 

 significant in its long-run implications is the partnership implied in 

 the Watershed Protection Program, where federal investment is match- 

 ing much smaller private investment for purposes which mix the 

 public effort to save the soil with the private effort to increase income. 

 These projects may in time challenge the one-time pre-eminence of 

 the Rivers and Harbors program in pork-barrel qualities. 



My tentative conclusion here is that heightened collaboration be- 

 tween federal and private enterprise does not promise, either in past 

 or present performance, a substantial improvement in the quality of 

 organizational co-operation. 



Why have aggressive, articulate interest groups played an increas- 

 ingly influential role? When the President in 1908 called a pioneering 



