The Fifty-Ninth Annual Meeting of the Organization of American Historians

Abstract

THE fifty-ninth annual meeting of Organization of American Historians (formerly Mississippi Valley Historical Association) was held on April 28, 29, and 30, 1966 at Netherland Hilton Hotel in Cincinnati. opening sessions on Thursday, April 28, included panels on' conservation, journal editing, 1920s, and late nineteenth-century politics, as well as joint sessions with labor historians, American Studies Association, and Southern Historical Association. About 30 people attended session on Science and Conservation, chaired by Jerry A. O'Callaghan. Gordon B. Dodds analyzed intellectual content and policy implications of Pinchot-Chittenden Controversy over Forest and Stream Flow. Dodds' paper not only delved into technical arguments but illuminated public policy issues disguised in technical format. paper also illustrated rapidity with which interesting working hypotheses can be converted to articles of faith. Lawrence Rakestraw's paper, Conservation and Territories: George Patrick Ahern and Philippine Bureau of Forestry 1900-1914, was a detailed narrative of an army officer's successful transplanting of American forestry profession to newly won island possessions at turn of century. In short, technical assistance to developing nations is not as new as we might think. Morgan Sherwood read a set of comments prepared by A. Hunter Dupree, who commented: The two able papers presented here both present insights in disturbing some of least questioned cliches of Progressive Era. In Dupree's words, Dodds' paper pointed out the ambiguous position of military men in American life and dimly understood restraints on full participation in debate in a democracy. Dupree asked for explicit development of several themes in Rakestraw's paper on Philippine forestry, noting: For our own generation which has faced