220 Broader Bases for Choice: The Next Key Move 



conference he limited the invitation to the key federal agencies and 

 the governors of the states. A similar call today would be more likely 

 to go to the heads of several dozen vigorous interest groups which 

 have full-time representatives in Washington. Those groups have 

 grown markedly in number and strength over the half-century. They 

 were not absent in 1908, but I would venture the observation that 

 their expanding role in the process of decision making has been as 

 momentous as any set of organizational changes in resources conser- 

 vation and development. 



These organized groups now disseminate information, sponsor edu- 

 cational campaigns, advise on management methods, appraise the 

 efforts of individual agencies, and carry the agency battles for appro- 

 priations and administrative authority. To a considerable extent they 

 mediate disputes among agencies, and successfully bolster lagging 

 co-ordination. They also work to maintain separate, single-purpose 

 agencies at both state and federal levels. 



The wildUfe conservation groups are excellent examples. Knowing 

 their own objectives to maintain certain animal populations and habi- 

 tats, and combining recreational, natural history, and commercial in- 

 terests, they are organized to carry the fight to the military, the oil 

 men, or the water-management agencies. They sometimes obtain a 

 clear departmental decision where two agencies within the same de- 

 partment may fail. 



The proliferation of the interest groups reflects in part a trend which 

 may be observed in other sectors of our political life, but may it not 

 also reflect a movement to fill a vacuum of political power? The con- 

 flicts and uncertainties of method inherent in a growing group of 

 single-purpose agencies confronting multiple-purpose aims calls for 

 lively political action to offset the absence of organized means to set 

 new aims and reconcile differences in method. 



Taken separately, none of the five questions we have just been con- 

 sidering, nor the various parts of the broader background that pre- 

 ceded them, suggests, upon critical examination, a panacea for the 

 organization of resources conservation and development. We have 

 turned up no sweeping explanations pointing unmistakably to a line of 

 action that would bring wholesale improvements. Consolidation of 

 agencies, co-ordination of both federal and state activities, and im- 



