Page images
PDF
EPUB

(19) HARRIS, A. W., CHAIRMAN.

1894.

REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON UNIFORMITY OF STATION PUBLICA

TIONS *** AND DISCUSSION.
Stas. Proc. (1893) 7: 30-33.
Bul. 20.)

(20) HENRY, W. A. 1889.

Assoc. Amer. Agr. Cols. and Expt. (U.S. Dept. Agr., Off. Expt. Stas.

DISCUSSION: [HOW CAN THE DEPARTMENT ASSIST THE STATIONS?]
Assoc. Amer. Agr. Cols. and Expt. Stas. Proc. 2: 45-48. (U.S.
Dept. Agr., Off. Expt. Stas. Bul. 1.)

(21) JEHLIK, P. J., and MEYER, W. P.

1960.

PUBLIC RELATIONS ACTIVITIES AT STATE AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT
STATIONS. (Abstract.) Amer. Assoc. Land-Grant Cols. and State
Univs. Proc. 74: 135-137.

(22) KELLERMAN, K. F., CHAIRMAN.

1915. REPORT OF THE EDITORIAL COMMITTEE OF THE JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH. Assoc. Amer. Agr. Cols. and Expt. Stas. Proc.

(1914) 28: 130–131.

(23) LEACH, J. G., MACY, H., and BAILEY, C. H.

1932.

THE INADEQUATE DISTRIBUTION OF STATE AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT
STATION BULLETINS TO FOREIGN COUNTRIES.
Cols. and Univs. Proc. (1931) 45: 263–264.

Assoc. Land-Grant

(24) MEYER, W.P. 1961.

LAW AUTHORIZES STATION FUNDS FOR COMMUNICATIONS RESEARCH.
ACE (official publication of the American Association of Agri-
cultural College Editors). April 1961 issue, 8 pp. East Lansing,
Mich.

(25) RUMMELL, L. L.

1958.

COMMUNICATIONS IN PUBLIC RELATIONS. (Abstract.) Amer. Assoc. Land-Grant Cols. and State Univs. Proc. 72: 175–176. (26) STURTEVANT, E. L.

1883. FIRST ANNUAL REPORT OF THE BOARD OF CONTROL OF THE NEW YORK STATE EXPERIMENT STATION FOR THE YEAR 1882 [REPORT OF THE DIRECTOR]: 10-11.

(27) TRUE, A. C.

1910.

RESEARCH JOURNAL FOR EXPERIMENT STATIONS. Assoc. Amer.
Agr. Cols. and Expt. Stas. Proc. (1909) 23: 110. (U.S. Dept.
Agr., Off. Expt. Stas. Bul. 228.)

and CLARK, V. A.

AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATIONS IN THE UNITED STATES. U.S.
Dept. Agr., Off. Expt. Stas. Bul. 80, 636 pp., illus.

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE.

1913-14. JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH.

v. 1. 533 pp.

v. 78, 741 pp.

(28)

1900.

(29)

(30)

(31)

1949. JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH.
U.S. OFFICE OF EXPERIMENT STATIONS.
1889.

[blocks in formation]

THE WHAT AND WHY OF AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATIONS.
U.S. Dept. Agr. Farmers' Bul. 1, 16 pp.

INTRODUCTION. Expt. Sta. Rec., v. 1 (1889–90): 1–2.

(36)

1896.

(37)

1946.

DISCUSSION ON UNIFORM NUMBERING OF EXPERIMENT STATION PUBLICATIONS. Assoc. Amer. Agr. Cols. and Expt. Stas. Proc. (1892) 6: 80-87, 109. (U.S. Dept. Agr., Off. Expt. Stas. Bul. 16.) OFFICERS OF THE ASSOCIATION. Assoc. Amer. Agr. Cols. and Expt. Stas. Proc. (1895) 9: 4. (U.S. Dept. Agr., Off. Expt. Stas. Bul. 30.)

TERMINATION OF PRINTING NOTICE. Expt. Sta. Rec. 95: Index (cover.)

[graphic]

Chapter Nine

ORGANIZED SELF-APPRAISAL:

The Project System, Improved Procedures, and Consolidated Legislation

The Adams Act of 1906, primarily the product of A. C. True's careful draftsmanship, deliberately gave substantial authority to the Secretary of Agriculture to administer the "original research" financed by Federal grant funds in the State experiment stations. It was Dean Henry's personal relationship with his friend of long standing, Congressman Adams of Wisconsin, which facilitated having the Adams Bill drawn in such manner as to incorporate the improvements that meant so much to Dr. True. Dean Henry wanted more and better research and wanted the new Act to help bring this about. Thus, mutual professional interests of Henry and True, and the personal friendship between Henry and his former neighbor, served to strengthen the concept of research advocated by Atwater in 1899 when he said that "in studying the food of animals we have no right to neglect the food of man." Out of the Adams Act were to come a number of fundamental studies leading to the discovery of vitamins and modern nutritional standards. Within a few years after passage of the legislation there came discoveries that not only had enormous significance to farmers, but to the entire world of science.

The Act redefined and recapitulated the Secretary's jurisdiction, which had developed guardedly since 1887 under the watchful care of the Association and the Office of Experiment Stations. The Adams Act directed the Secretary to "prescribe" the schedules on which each station must submit a detailed statement of its disbursements of the new fund. It further directed him to "ascertain" that the stations did in fact expend the Federal appropriation exclusively for the conduct of "original researches or experiments bearing directly on the agricultural industry of the United States." Thus the Adams Act specifically incorporated the features of fiscal review which, never a part of the Hatch Act, had become an integral characteristic of the evolving Hatch system.

Moreover, the Adams Act openly gave to the Secretary a new power and a noteworthy duty: it required him to "certify to the Secretary of the Treasury as to each State and Territory whether it is complying with the provisions of this act and is entitled to receive its share of the annual appropriation." This provision for annual certification empowered the Secretary to withhold payment of the Adams fund to any station failing to demonstrate that its expenditures under that fund did conform to the stipulation for original research. The act of 1906 also assigned to the Secretary additional powers not mentioned in the act of 1887 nor thus far administratively practiced. It instructed him to report annually to Congress "on the receipts and expenditures and work" of the stations, to inform both the President and the Congress in the event of withholding certification, and to insure "the proper administration of this law."

The heavy weight of the Departmental power in the Adams Act contrasted sharply with the powerless position accorded the Secretary

in the Hatch Act. The authority assigned to the Secretary in 1906 would have evoked from the station movement in earlier years the most heated protests that the exercise of such Federal functions would spell dictation.

In 1906, however, the prospect of possible dictation arising from the award of powers to the Secretary alarmed no one. The station spokesmen, as the crisis of 1904-05 had conclusively demonstrated, regarded James Wilson with deep respect for his scientific competence and his administrative integrity; they did not regard the Secretary as nursing designs for domination. Similarly the traditions of independence in the station movement, not susceptible to quick dislodgment, impressed Wilson with equal force. Station spokesmen understood, furthermore, that the determination to increase the Federal supervisory strength did not originate with Wilson, nor with Congress, but with their own Director True, earnestly intent on serving the interests of station statesmen and scientific research.

The Federal authority to certify, withhold, and report did not signify, in short, that the Department of Agriculture or the Federal Government would dominate or absorb the State stations; it did signify, however, that once again the station enterprise would subject itself to a self-imposed and self-administered discipline in order to improve the quality of station productivity. The station movement took the calculated risk, when it substantially increased the Federal powers in the Adams Act, that Secretary Wilson would delegate to the Office of Experiment Stations the entire responsibility for administering the Adams fund and thus permit the station enterprise to govern itself. OES ROLE OUTLINED

The Secretary of Agriculture completely justified the faith that Director True placed in Wilson's capacity to respond to the spirit and purpose of the Adams Act. The Secretary acted promptly. Only 4 days after President Theodore Roosevelt had approved that measure, Wilson issued a reassuring notification to all station directors. "The Director of the Office of Experiment Stations is hereby designated my representative in all matters relating to the business of this Department in connection with the administration of this law," he announced, "and the Office of Experiment Stations will aid in promoting effective work under this Act in the same general way as it has heretofore in relation to the Hatch Act." With these words Secretary Wilson formally commended the decade of effort that True had devoted to the policy of station inspection; and he forthwith encouraged the True policy of fiscal review. "It will be necessary," he continued, "that a separate account of the Adams fund shall be kept at each station, which should be open at all times to the inspection of the Director of the Office of Experiment Stations, or his accredited representative" (8).1

Wilson then endorsed the theme which 2 years earlier True had built into the Adams bill, namely that the new appropriation could be used only for original research; this "guiding principle" would govern the administrative procedures followed by Director True "in the interpretation of this Act and the examination of the work and ex

1 Italic numbers in parentheses refer to Literature Cited, p. 173.

penditures of the stations under it." Had True himself composed the Secretary's instruction he could not have phrased more explicitly or sympathetically a statement that more fully supported True's position and the announcements soon to come from True's office.

The Wilsonian instruction, though it did not define "original research," specifically listed a long series of station expenses and activities lying beyond the pale of support by the Adams fund. Moreover, in a revealing preview of True's forthcoming policy it recommended that "each station should outline a definite programme of experimental work to which it will devote this fund .... The work contemplated by this Act will, as a rule, necessarily cover more than one year, and changes in the programme once adopted should not be made until the problems under investigation have been solved, or their solution definitely shown to be impracticable." With a perceptiveness that honored the Atwater standard of 1889, the Secretary then added, "It is much to be desired that this fund shall be a strong incentive to the careful choice of problems to be investigated, thorough and exhaustive work in their solution, and the securing of permanent and far-reaching results..." (8). Thus Wilson, precisely as the terms and spirit of the Adams Act directed, placed the prestige and authority of his Department behind True's persistent campaign to increase the scientific productivity of the State stations.

Director True, fortified by Wilson's carte blanche of March 20, 1906, proceeded with the intricate task of removing, one by one, the impediments to the steady growth of an atmosphere of scientific inquiry at the stations. Promptly he contacted Chairman Davenport of the Experiment Stations Committee on Organization and Policy and arranged for a meeting of the new committee. Director True and his energetic lieutenant, Assistant Director Allen of the Washington office, attended the ESCOP session in Chicago on April 7. The conferees discussed the necessity for achieving continuity in research effort and for establishing attractive tenure for research scientists. Thereupon they issued a statement setting forth the general principles which should govern the administrative attitude at all stations, as follows (13):

It is evidently the intention of the Adams Act to provide the means for carrying on investigations of a relatively high order with a view to the discovering of principles and the solution of the more difficult and fundamental problems of agriculture. To this end it is very desirable that careful attention shall be given to the choice of definite problems to be studied and the methods by which the solution of these problems is to be sought. . . . In selecting the lines of work due reference should be given to the special needs of the State in which the station is located, but the lines of work adopted should be only such as have a reasonable expectation of leading to the establishment of principles of broad application. These lines of work need not be new lines. Indeed strengthening lines of investigation now in progress may be fully as important as the establishment of new lines. Only a few lines can be advantageously undertaken shall be must be determined by the equipment

at a time. What [they]

of the station in men and facilities.

...

The man is the most important factor. . . . [He] and his line of work must be suitable to each other.

After suitable lines of work are decided upon, all payments for salary and labor and purchase of apparatus, tools, books, and other material necessary to carry out this problem are allowable.

Director True, having secured early in April the concurrence of ESCOP in his projected plans for intensifying the participation of his Office in the administration of station research, amplified the

« PreviousContinue »