Administrative Literature and the Second Hoover Commission Reports

The appearance of the second Hoover Commission reports is an invitation to attempt to place them in the context of official and unofficial efforts over the past quarter century to give order and meaning to the study of public administration and of its leading example, our national administration. The object here is more than bibliographical, and if it seems ambitious it can hardly be more so than the Commission's own work. No previous study has been so amply financed, or has employed so many people, or has enjoyed such official and public relations support, in and out of government, as this one. What do the reports have to contribute, to knowledge and to policy about organization?