PROBLEMS IN WILD LIFE CONSERVATION 



ities now being carried on by one of the conservation 

 bureaus, it can promise little in the way of money economies 

 to the government. 



Secretary of Agriculture Hyde suggested turning over to 

 the states certain activities now being carried on by the fed- 

 eral government. Possibly some money could be saved that 

 way by the federal government provided, of course, that the 

 states were willing and able to assume the financial burden 

 of those particular activities. One suspects that in most in- 

 stances they would not, for one of the chief reasons why 

 many activities were undertaken by the federal government 

 was lack of interest upon the part of the states. At its best, 

 this proposal would only be a means of shifting the burden 

 from the federal to the state governments. 



Simplification of the governmental activities in the in- 

 terests of the public who have to deal with the government 

 bureaus is perhaps a more valid argument in favor of re- 

 organization. Mr. Hoover, when Secretary of Commerce, 

 testifying before a Congressional investigation committee 

 on this point, said : 42 



The tax on the public in the necessity to maintain contact with 

 many different bureaus in many different departments in con- 

 nection with the same type of relation ... is a tax probably 

 greater than the cost of conducting many of these groups. Our 

 industries and business are badgered to death for duplicate in- 

 formation by a host of non-coordinating agencies. 



The strongest point that may be urged in favor of re- 

 organization is the bad effect of the present system upon the 

 departments themselves. 43 Where a number of agencies 

 have contact with the same problem and are not clear re- 



42 Hearings on the Reorganisation of the Executive Departments, Joint 

 Committee on Reorganization of the Administrative Branches, on S. J. R. 

 282, 67th Cong., January, 1924, p. 352. 



43 Note Secretary Wallace's comment on consolidation, ibid., p. 271. 



