!66 PROBLEMS IN WILD LIFE CONSERVATION 



mitted to it until February 13, 1923 just before the adjourn- 

 ment of the sixty-seventh Congress. Thus it was not until 

 January of 1924 that the committee began to hold hearings, 

 and it did not report until June 3, 1924. 



The committee had originally been composed of Senators 

 Smoot of Utah, Wadsworth of New York, Harrison of 

 Mississippi, and Congressmen Mapes of Michigan, Temple 

 of Pennsylvania, and Moore of Virginia, but the resolution 

 was later amended to permit the President to designate a 

 representative to sit with the committee. 



The report of the committee completely emasculated the 

 cabinet plan. Pressure from bureau chiefs who opposed 

 transfer, from constituents who feared their established 

 connections with various bureaus might be broken, and in- 

 deed from individual cabinet officers who appeared before 

 the committee for cross-examination led to the depletion of 

 the principal parts of the cabinet plan. 



In the joint committee's report the War and Navy de- 

 partments were, with a few very minor exceptions, left as 

 they were. A new department of Education and Relief in 

 which were grouped bureaus taken chiefly from Interior or 

 from one of the independent establishments. The only im- 

 portant feature of the cabinet plan that was kept was the 

 proposed grouping of bureaus having like functions under 

 assistant secretaries in each department. 



The joint committee's report, as did the cabinet plan, 

 recommended that the conservation bureau already in In- 

 terior be grouped together under an Assistant Secretary for 

 Public Domain, and Biological Survey, the Forest Service, 

 and the Bureau of Fisheries be left where they were, the 

 first two in Agriculture and the last in Commerce. The 

 committee did, indeed, consider establishing an inclusive 

 conservation group in either Agriculture or Interior but ap- 

 parently could not agree as to which department. As a 



