INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

byLeonard D. White '14. The MacmillanCompany, 1939. p. 611. $4.00.

The administrator must face actual situations as they occur. His is a life of action if not speculation. He must work with people in a real world of powerful interests and keen conflicts. Accordingly, it is of doubtful value to talk about the administrative process as if it were a "science." One can convey little information about it in the usual cliches, symbols and tags of "government of laws and not of men," bureaucracy, red tape, separation of powers, efficiency, at cetera.

It follows, therefore, that Professor White's new volume, a great improvement over his first pioneering text, is a valuable contribution to the available texts on the subject of Public Administration. Organized into the subdivisions of Structure, Fiscal Management, Personnel Management, Forms of Action, and Responsibility, the volume is encyclopedic in information, clear and interesting in presentation, and thorough in understanding. Upon finishing this book the reader will, understand why we have administrative agencies in government and how they are organized. He will learn of the many problems of collecting, keeping and disbursing the revenues and he will see the close connection between these activities and those of the other administrative agencies. The section on personnel as well as describing the existing civil service system presents the author's plea for a "career service" for which he has been working for years. From the last two sections the reader will discover (and, judging by the newspapers, many people have yet to discover) that administrative agencies are not irresponsible. The established and well defined procedures are explained and the checks on administrative officers are described. Throughout, the author keeps his material well up to date and includes the most recent of our administrative organizations.

This reviewer predicts that this book will become a leading text in the field and he would like to recommend the book to all persons interested in informed thinking about government, its problems anprocesses. A leading national authority on the subject and a former member of the Federal Civil Service Commission, Professor White knows and makes indisputable the necessity for administrative machinery and action and its continuing importance in the government of the future. Most certainly one cannot read this book and continue to "close his eyes and refuse to see."