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The Brownlow–Brookings Feud: The Politics of Dissent Within the Academic Community

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 October 2011

Alasdair Roberts
Alasdair Roberts
Affiliation:
Queen's University
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Extract

In January 1937, President Franklin Roosevelt submitted an ambitious plan for administrative reform of the national government to Congress. Roosevelt's reorganization bill was based on a report produced by the President's Committee on Administrative Management–a panel of three “specialists in public administration” appointed by Roosevelt in March 1936 and led by Louis Brownlow, who was perhaps the best-known expert in the field. The Brownlow recommendations produced intense debate in Congress; and the reorganization proposals were ultimately defeated in March 1938 in what historian William Leuchtenburg has described as “the worst rebuff Roosevelt was ever to suffer” in his twelve years as president. The public aspects of the battle over the Brownlow proposals have already received extensive scholarly attention. Some of the most important skirmishes in this battle, however, were not fought in public, and even after half a century they remain largely obscured from public view. One such skirmish was the contest within the academic community about the recommendations on administrative reform that were to be put before Congress.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Policy History , Volume 7 , Issue 3 , July 1995 , pp. 311 - 340
Copyright
Copyright © The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA. 1995

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References

Notes

1. Leuchtenburg, William E., Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal (New York, 1963), 279Google Scholar.

2. The fullest account of the legislative struggle is provided by Richard Polenberg: Reorganizing Roosevelt's Government (Cambridge, Mass., 1966). Other, briefer recountings of the struggle may be found in numerous histories of the Roosevelt administration, as well as in recollections by members of the Brownlow Committee's research staff, such as those by Herbert Emmerich and Harvey Mansfield, and also in some contemporary journal articles, such as those by Lindsay Rogers (also a member of the committee's research staff) and Ray, J. M.: Herbert Emmerich, Essays on Federal Reorganization (University, Ala., 1950)Google Scholar; Mansfield, Harvey, “Reorganizing the Federal Branch,” Law and Contemporary Problems 35 (1970): 461–95CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rogers, Lindsay, “Reorganization: Post Mortem Notes,” Political Science Quarterly 53.2 (1938): 161–72CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ray, J. M., “The Defeat of the Administration Reorganization Bill,” Southwestern Social Science Quarterly 20 (September 1939): 115–24Google Scholar. Extensive studies of the Brownlow Committee's work have also been made by Barry Dean Karl and Peri Arnold, but these have focused primarily on the intellectual history of the ideas embodied in the committee's final report: Karl, Barry Dean, Executive Reorganization and Reform in the New Deal (Cambridge, Mass., 1963)Google Scholar; Arnold, Peri, Making the Managerial Presidency (Princeton, 1986)Google Scholar.

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5. Louis Brownlow, Draft memorandum to Harold Moulton, 11 March 1937: Papers of the President's Committee on Administrative Management, Franklin D. Roosevelt Archives, Box 2.

6. Earlier but partial accounts of the Brownlow–Brookings fight are provided in Polenberg, Reorganizing Roosevelt's Government, 35–41; Karl, Executive Reorganization, 35–41; Critchlow, Donald, The Brookings Institution, 1916–1952: Expertise and the Public Interest in a Democratic Society (DeKalb, Ill., 1985), 251–56Google Scholar; and Arnold, Making the Managerial Presidency, 110–14. The Karl, Polenberg, and Arnold accounts draw primarily on archival material from the Brownlow Committee and the Roosevelt administration, while Critchlow's draws primarily on archival material from the Brookings Institution. This article draws more extensively from both sources and adds previously unused material from the Rockefeller Foundation Archives. It stresses more heavily that all of the parties to this fight were preoccupied with larger concerns about the status of the new community of “specialists in public administration.”

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14. Social Science Research Council, Minutes of the Meeting of the Committee on Public Administration, 5–6 October 1935: Rockefeller Foundation Archives, Record Group 1.1, Series 200, Box 405, Folder 4788.

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19. PCAM, Administrative Management in the United States, 21–25.

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26. Fred Powell, Memorandum to Harold Moulton, 11 March 1936: Brookings Institution Archives, Entry 29, Box 2, File: Government Organization #1.

27. Brownlow, A Passion for Anonymity, 342.

28. Miller, “Journal of the President's Committee.”

29. Brownlow Diary, 13 March 1936.

30. Fred Powell, Memorandum to Harold Moulton, 27 March 1936: Brookings Institution Archives, Entry 29, Box 2, File: Government Organization #1.

31. Brookings Institution, “Government Organization Study: Sent to Senator Byrd, March 26, 1936”: Brookings Institution Archives, Entry 29, Box 4, file 4.

32. Fred Powell, Letter to the Hon. Harry Byrd, 25 July 1936: Brookings Institution Archives, Entry 29, Box 1, File 4.

33. Harold G. Moulton, “Memorandum on Relations Between the Institute for Government Research and the Brownlow Committee with Respect to the Reorganization of the National Government,” 2 April 1937: Brookings Institution Archives, Entry 29, Box 1, File 4.

34. Miller, “Journal of the President's Committee.”

35. Fred Powell, Memorandum to Harold Moulton, 8 May 1936: Brookings Institution Archives, Entry 29, Box 2, File: Government Organization #1.

36. Fred Powell, Letter to the Hon. Harry Byrd, 24 August 1936: Brookings Institution Archives, Entry 29, Box 1, File 4.

37. Brownlow Diary, 12 September 1936.

38. Moulton, “Memorandum on Relations.”

39. Louis Brownlow, “The President's Committee on Administrative Management,” n.d., 175: Brownlow Papers, Box 47, File: PCAM Reorganization Story.

40. Brownlow, “The President's Committee,” 176.

41. Lewis Meriam, Memorandum to Joseph Harris regarding “Financial Management by the President,” 1936: Brownlow Papers, Box 45, File C-XLVII-8 to D-IX-2.

42. Moulton, “Memorandum on Relations.”

43. Luther Gulick, “Notes of Conference with President Roosevelt, November 14, 1936”: Brownlow Papers, Box 47, File: Correspondence, 8/11/1936–12/31/1936; Harold Moulton, Memorandum to Louis Brownlow, 24 March 1937: Brookings Institution Archives, Entry 29, Box 1, File 4.

44. Brownlow, A Passion for Anonymity, 328.

45. Arthur Holcombe, Letter to Joseph Harris, 29 October 1936: PCAM Papers, Box 7, File D-II-A.

46. Stacy May, “Notes on Interviews with Harold Moulton and Louis Brownlow,” 12 March 1937: Rockefeller Foundation Archives, Record Group 1.1, Series 200, Box 310, Folder 3700.

47. Brownlow, “The President's Committee,” 176.

48. Gulick, “Notes of Conference with President Roosevelt.”

49. John R. McCarl, “Government-Run Everything,” Saturday Evening Post, 3 October 1936, and 17 October 1936.

50. Gulick, “Notes of Conference with President Roosevelt.”

51. Luther Gulick, Letter to Franklin Roosevelt, 23 November 1936: Brownlow Papers, Box 45, File A-II-22 to A-II-54.

52. Karl, Executive Reorganization and Reform, 254.

53. Harry F. Byrd, Letter to Franklin Roosevelt, 13 January 1937: Franklin Roosevelt Papers, Franklin Roosevelt Library Archives, OF285C, Box 7.

54. Fred Powell, Letter to the Hon. Harry Byrd, 24 December 1936: Brookings Institution Archives, Entry 29, Box 1, File 4.

55. Moulton, “Memorandum on Relations.”

56. Luther Gulick, Letter to Harold Moulton, 13 January 1937: Brookings Institution Archives, Entry 29, Box 1, File: Brownlow Committee, Relations of Brookings Institution To.

57. Luther Gulick, Letter to Frederic Delano, 12 January 1937: Brookings Institution Archives, Entry 29, Box 1, File: Brownlow Committee, Relations of Brookings Institution To.

58. Moulton, “Memorandum on Relations.”

59. Harold Moulton. Letter to Frederic Delano, 27 August 1935: Brookings Institution Archives, Entry 30, File: Delano, Frederic A.

60. Harold Moulton, Handwritten note titled “Illustrations of Mr. D's Opposition,” May 1937: Brookings Institution Archives, Entry 30, File: Delano, Frederic A.

61. Greene had also served as the Rockefeller Foundation's first secretary.

62. Eliot, “Summary of Conference with the President.”

63. Stacy May, Letter to Harold Moulton, 16 June 1936: Brookings Institution Archives, Entry 65, Box 3, File: Rockefeller Foundation 1935–36.

64. May, “Notes on Interviews.”

65. Ibid.

66. Luther Gulick, Letter to Harold Moulton, 29 January 1937: Brookings Institution Archives, Entry 29, Box 1, File: Brownlow Committee, Relations of Brookings Institution To.

67. Harold Moulton, Letter to Luther Gulick, 4 February 1937: Brookings Institution Archives, Entry 29, Box 1, File: Brownlow Committee, Relations of Brookings Institution To.

68. Brookings Institution, Minutes of the Meeting of the Executive Committee of the Board of Trustees, 18 February 1937: Brookings Institution Archives, Entry 4, Box 1.

69. Moulton, “Memorandum on Relations.”

70. Ibid.

71. Ibid.

72. John J. Cochran, Letter to Harold Moulton, 26 February 1937: Brookings Institution Archives, Entry 29, Box 2, File: Government Reorganization #2.

73. Moulton, “Memorandum on Relations.”

74. Harold Moulton, Letter to Rep. John Cochran, 3 March 1937: Brookings Institution Archives, Entry 29, Box 2, File: Government Organization #1.

75. May, “Notes on Interviews.”

76. Luther Gulick, “Fundamental Considerations Concerning the Place of Control and Audit in Administration,” 8 March 1937: Brookings Institution Archives, Entry 29, Box 1, File 4.

77. Brookings Institution, “Issues Involved—As Basis for Discussion,” 8 March 1937: Brookings Institution Archives, Entry 29, Box 1, File 4.

78. May, “Notes on Interviews.”

79. Louis Brownlow, Draft memorandum to Harold Moulton, 11 March 1937.

80. Louis Brownlow, Memorandum to Harold Moulton, 11 March 1937: Brookings Institution Archives, Entry 29, Box 4, File 4.

81. Moulton, “Memorandum on Relations.”

82. Harold Moulton, Memorandum to Louis Brownlow, 24 March 1937: Brookings Institution Archives, Entry 29, Box 1, File 4.

83. Moulton, “Memorandum on Relations.”

84. Joint Committee on Government Organization, Hearings on the Report of the President's Committee on Administrative Management, 75th Cong., 1st sess. (1937), 324.

85. Moulton, “Memorandum on Relations.”

86. Brookings Institution, Minutes of the Annual Meeting of the Board of Trustees, 27 May 1938: Jerome Greene Papers, Harvard University Archives, Record Group 4436.11, Box 2.

87. Louis Brownlow, Transcript of Lectures at University of Minnesota, 10–12 April 1940: Louis Brownlow Papers, John F. Kennedy Library Archives, Box 48, File: Lectures 4/40. Brownlow's claim of detachment ought to be taken with a grain of salt. For a review of the committee's activity after the release of the report, see Alasdair Roberts, “Why the Brownlow Committee Failed,” Administration and Society, in press.

88. Joseph Harris, “Note on No. 26” [A response to Moulton, “Memorandum on Relations”], 1937: PCAM Papers, Box 2, File A-II-45a.

89. Brownlow, Louis, “Democracy and Council-Manager Government,” Public Management 18 (1936): 325–28Google Scholar.

90. Brownlow, A Passion for Anonymity, 236.

91. Reed, Thomas H., Municipal Government in the United States (New York, 1926), 240Google Scholar.

92. Brownlow, A Passion for Anonymity, 237.

93. Brownlow Diary, 16 January 1936.

94. Brownlow Diary, 11 August 1936.

95. Louis Brownlow, Letter to Arthur E. Morgan, Tennessee Valley Authority, 23 October 1935: Rockefeller Foundation Archives, Record Group 1.1, Series 200, Box 405, Folder 4788.

96. See: Roberts, Alasdair, “Demonstrating Neutrality: The Rockefeller Philanthropies and the Evolution of Public Administration, 1927–36,” Public Administration Review 54 (May–June 1994): 221–28CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

97. See Fosdick, Raymond, The Story of the Rockefeller Foundation (New York, 1952)Google Scholar.

98. Guy Moffett, “Notes on Development of Spelman Fund Policy and Program”: Spelman Fund Archives, Series 2, Box 2, Folder 107.

99. See Bulmer, Martin and Bulmer, J., “Philanthropy and the Social Sciences in the 1920's,” Minerva 19.3 (1981): 347–407CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

100. See Polenberg, Reorganizing Roosevelt's Government.

101. Mansfield, “Reorganizing the Federal Executive Branch,” 473.

102. Arnold, Making the Managerial Presidency, 111.

103. See Polenberg, Reorganizing Roosevelt's Government.

104. Lindsay Rogers, “Reorganization: Post Mortem Notes,” 167.

105. Harold Moulton, Letters to Lindsay Rogers, June 21, 1938, and July 6, 1938: Brookings Institution Archives, Entry 29, Box 1, File 4.

106. Lindsay Rogers, Letter to Harold Moulton, July 18, 1938: Brookings Institution Archives, Entry 29, Box 1, File 4.