!6o PROBLEMS IN WILD LIFE CONSERVATION 



ization of the administrative structure of the federal gov- 

 ernment and the re-alignment of departments upon a strictly 

 functional basis would be advantageous. 



The Related Conservation Bureaus: The first principle 

 of any reorganization plan, so far as conservation goes, 

 must be to bring into close relation in the administrative 

 organization those bureaus whose chief interest is the con- 

 servation of renewable natural resources, that is, the Bio- 

 logical Survey, Forest Service, National Park Service, and 

 the Bureau of Fisheries. Conceivably these bureaus might 

 well be part of a larger combination composed of all those 

 bureaus whose chief interest is the administration of im- 

 provement of the public domain. In this larger group would 

 be the General Land Office, the Bureau of Reclamation, the 

 Soil Erosion Service, and the Geological Survey in addition 

 to the conservation bureaus. 



Unfortunately, under any principle of grouping there 

 would be border-line cases. The Office of Indian Affairs, 

 for example, does administer large areas of the public do- 

 main which have been set aside as Indian reservations; 

 however, its chief function is the care and protection of In- 

 dians and it does not belong in a public domain group. 



The Office of Subsistence Homesteads is an even more 

 doubtful case. There would be no great harm in including 

 it in a public domain group, yet its chief function is the 

 settlement and development of specific areas near industrial 

 centers. Its work is essentially different from the other 

 agencies dealing with the public domain in, as it were, 

 " the raw." 40 



40 The Bureau of Mines, the Bureau of Public Roads, the Federal 

 Power Commission, and others have been omitted for the reason that 

 their chief function is neither conservation of renewable natural resources 

 *ior administration of the public domain. 



