Secretary Of Department Research Articles

Forty-Seventh Annual Meeting

116ASSOCIATION OF PACIFIC COAST GEOGRAPHERS FORTY-SEVENTH ANNUAL MEETING Cheney, Washington September 12-15, 1984 More than one hundred geographers attended the 47th annual meeting of the APCG at Eastern Washington University in Cheney, September 12-15. Official registration was ninety-nine (including nine spouses and thirteen students), but guests, student helpers, and Saturday attenders slipping in through the cracks lead me to suggest a total somewhere between 110 and 115 (including fifteen spouses and twenty to twenty-five students). Official registrants included geographers from Korea, Japan, Hawaii, Alaska, British Columbia, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington. Eastern Washington University hosted the meetings to commemorate die fifteenth anniversary of the Association's "conception" by Otis Freeman. Jeremy Anderson served as conference coordinator and program chair, and Mike Folsom was in charge of local arrangements and field excursions. The meeting got off to an excellent start with a keynote address, "The Changing Economic Geography of Washington State," by Bill Beyers, professor of geography at the University of Washington. At the annual banquet the following evening, Earl Kersten gave his presidential address, "Nevada Then and Now: Forging an Economy," which ably complemented Dr. Beyer's talk. A second feature of the banquet was a speech by Risa Palm, AAG president, who spoke briefly on "New Directions for the AAG." Association honors were conferred on Sam Dicken, Jim Parsons, and Joe Spencer (posthumously) . Janet Morlan, Humboldt State University, was given the Stella Louie award for best student paper in the area of physical geography for her study of bald eagle habitat use; Lance Howard of the University of California at Riverside was given an honorable mention award for his study of plant colonization of an abandoned highway. Special banquet guests included Willis and Florence Merriam and Francis and Betty Schadegg. Other highlights of the meetings were the all-day field excursion through Channeled Scablands and across the Northern Columbia Plateau to Grand Coulee Dam, the Grand Coulee, and the Columbia Basin Project (led by Mike Folsom, Dale Stradling, and Bob Quinn); a half-day tour of railroads and the Spokane County landscape led by Sam Scripter; and two early-morning running tours led by Jeremy Anderson—one on Thursday through a portion of the Cheney Palouse "island" and one on Saturday through local scabland and railroad landscapes. The field excursion guide, Landscapes of the Northern Columbia, edited by Mike Folsom, deserves special mention. Included are chapters on geomorphology (Stradling), climate (Quinn), soils and vegetation (Folsom), native settlement (John Ross), railroad development (Charles Mutschler), and the Columbia Basin Project (George Macinko); also featured are a number of excellent maps by Eastern Washington University cartographer David Anderson. YEARBOOK · VOLUME 47 · 1985117 The program included eighteen paper and special sessions, including symposia on geographic information systems (organizer, Nancy Hultquist); Otis Freeman (organizer, Jeremy Anderson); landscapes of the Northern Columbia Plateau (organizer, Mike Folsom); legal issues of resource use (organizer, Paul Matthews); and rural population trends in the western United States (organizer, Harley Johansen). Regular sessions were organized on the following themes: agricultural geography, economic geography, climatology and soils, biogeography, cultural landscapes, eneTgy and water resource, and geomorphology. Aside from the lateness of Saturday's brunch, there were few glitches. One advantage of holding the meeting on Eastern's campus prior to the start of fall quarter was the use of conveniently located Louise Anderson Hall to house those attending. The dormitory is right across the street from Isle Hall, where the geography department is housed and all paper sessions were held. Nearby are the Pence Union Building, where the annual banquet was held, and Tawanka Commons, where breakfast and lunch were available at very reasonable prices. Cheney's downtown was about twelve blocks away. Anderson, Folsom, and Stradling hosted happy hours at their homes prior to the banquet, and this, too, was a benefit of the small-town setting for the meetings. Key persons other than the organizers listed above included Jennifer Dahl, geography department secretary; student assistants Tom Allen, Liane Waldron, and Jon Albright; and Margie Wallace from EWU's conference center. We had fun hosting the meetings and look forward to doing it once more when our turn comes again in 20341...

Compulsory Health Insurance: The Continuing American Debate

There is persistent interest among proponents of some form of universal health insurance under government auspices in this country as to United States is only remaining large industrial nation without such insurance. The question of why is freighted with implication that United States is, thus, an anomaly. Maybe so, but there is more than one road to universality than a national system, and United States may well back into universality according to its own genius, predilections, and ignorance, as expressed in this book by Poen writing about Truman era and Cohen, former secretary of Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, and architect of Medicare Act, in a short Postscript for Future, where he predicts that at some time the cause of national health insurance will reappear. The compilation of essays is largely a result of papers given at a symposium

Editor's Note

The point of departure for this issue of Soviet Studies in History was an extended conversation with V. I. Ivanov of the Institute of Oriental Studies, who visited the University of Hawaii in 1980. Ivanov, who serves as Academic Secretary of the institute's Department of Problems of the Pacific Ocean, responded favorably to my invitation to members of the department to submit articles for a special issue of SSH devoted to "Recent Soviet Works on the Pacific." After returning to Moscow, Ivanov discussed the matter with his colleages and during the next year or so I worked out details with K. V. Malakhovskii, founder and director of the institute's Pacific Department.

No passion for Brownlow: Models of staffing the presidency

Abstract Post‐Watergate critics of the American presidency have directed much attention to the problem of controlling the White House staff. This paper argues that their proposals have ignored an implicit lesson contained in the Brownlow Report of 1937 and that it is unrealistic to build the Cabinet and department secretaries into any model of white House staff functions, particularly as a constraint mechanism on the staff. Such proposals understate the political role of the staff and approaches to reform must search for a political rather than an institutional response.

Menard steps down

When a new administration takes over in Washington, it is not unusual at all for top government officials to be replaced. The administration will be held responsible for the success or failure of the federal agencies, so it is logical for a new president, or his close advisors, to approve top‐level staff. The level defined as ‘high’ has been extended, particularly since the days of the Nixon administration, to beyond cabinet and department secretary, reaching broadly to within the structure of federal agencies. The U.S. Geological Survey remained unscathed by political appointments until 1977, when the Carter administration abruptly removed Vincent McKelvey from his position as director. Now, the Reagan administration has followed suit by terminating the appointment of H. William Menard, U.S.G.S. director for the past 4 years under the Carter administration. In both instances, submittal of resignation letters was a courtesy—a formality, but acceptance of their resignations was not. Both McKelvey and his successor, Menard, are professionals, but both were treated politically. These are only the first and second cases of political interference at the U.S.G.S. in over a century. Until these instances, the position of director was held as a purely professional one.

The Drug Regulation Reform Act of 1978.

To Editor.— The Drug Regulation Reform Act of 1978 (HR 12980 and S 2755, 95th Congress, second session) supposedly is designed to update Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act of 1938 and is hoped to provide a mechanism that will facilitate introduction of safe and effective drugs into our health care system. In preface to an analysis of proposed legislation,1Secretary of Department of Health, Education, and Welfare Joseph Califano notes that the dynamic developments in science of therapy clearly have outstripped a relatively static law. In light of that comment, one wonders why proposed Act continues to recognize as official anachronousHomeopathic Pharmacopeiaand drug entities and drug products contained therein. The analysis report makes following statement: Homeopathy is analogous to (but in fact quite distinct from) theory of immunization. An elaboration of that statement

Are Department Secretaries Really a President's Natural Enemies?

It is widely believed that there exists in the United States a phenomenon called ‘clientelism’: that most federal government departments in the USA do not really control the interests with whom they do business but rather are controlled by them; that the interests and the departments between them typically have great influence over the department secretaries appointed by the president; and that in consequence a department secretary is, in reality, more likely to act as the interests' spokesman, or as his department's, than as the spokesman of the president. Thus it is often asserted that ‘cabinet officers are a president's natural enemies’. My aim in this article is to show that this belief, as it relates to the relationship between department secretaries and presidents, is widely held, plausible, but mistaken.

HEW: As Secretary of Department of Health, Education and Welfare Gardner Faces Formidable Tasks

HEW: As Secretary of Department of Health, Education and Welfare Gardner Faces Formidable Tasks

Reporting on Offenses in Police Departments

Glen Christman has served as Secretary, Highland Park (Michigan) Police Department, for the last two years during which time he assisted in the reorganization of the records system of the Department. The bookkeeping system which was evolved is described at length in his present article, and because of its simplicity of operation and thoroughness of coverage should be of interest to all police administrators who desire to modernize and improve their department's records and reports. Mr. Christman 's experience in the police field has been varied and includes work as a police reporter on a metropolitan Detroit newspaper and five years' duty with the U. S. Naval Intelligence Service. He recently resigned his position as department secretary to accept private employment.-EDITOmR.