WILLIAM PINCUS 241 



areas of government are relatively easy for the average citizen to com- 

 prehend in the terms in which he usually comprehends: How will 

 this or that affect people, including myself? The functions of the Fed- 

 eral Security Agency are a good, clear example of this. Just look 

 around the federal government and one can find a multitude of others. 

 Even agriculture has largely been treated as a human clientele matter 

 and part of our pains in agricultural policy today are due to the con- 

 flicts between increasing impersonalization of more industrialized 

 farming and the older approach of the situation of people making a 

 living on the land. 



State and local government show the same characteristics. Educa- 

 tion is something we think we all understand and want to participate 

 in. The administration of criminal law and psychology, narcotics, al- 

 coholism, family relations, juvenile delinquency are in the darker 

 recesses of the public policy area, not because we are not involved, 

 but because we don't like to feel that we are involved. We shove these 

 problems aside. We sweep them under the rug. We refuse to accept 

 the fact that these involve us. The result is slow and extremely difficult 

 progress, and indeed even retrogression at times. 



The lesson seems clear to me — an activity must give our citizens 

 a sense of involvement. Its meaning must be translatable into terms of 

 importance for them before we get the fullest citizen attention and 

 ultimately the kinds of searching public scrutiny, debate, conffict, and 

 finally the resolution of issues into tangible public policy and action to 

 the benefit of the greatest number. 



Now what has this got to do with organizational co-operation for 

 resources conservation and development? It has this relationship: 

 unless we do something to pull together organizational responsibilities 

 for resources development, there will be no clear picture presented to 

 the public for a determination among alternative choices. The people 

 will never feel involved in something which is so fragmented that they 

 cannot possibly understand. Even names are important in conveying 

 a sense of content of program. In this regard we are more deficient 

 at the federal level than at the state level. While we experts analyze 

 and discuss "resources," and "conservation," and "development," 

 these terms seldom appear in the official organizational titles involved. 



The key problem is breadth of participation, not of whether we 



