York Bureau Research Articles

Settlement Women and Bureau Men: Did They Share a Usable Past?

In Settlement Women and Bureau Men: Constructing a Usable Past for Public Administration Stivers (1995) highlights important role that substantive as opposed to procedural concerns played in emergence of public administration as a field of inquiry. To increase contemporary knowledge about field's origins she advocates including work of turn-of-the-century settlement women in public administration history because they strove to expand government programs for poor unlike research bureau men, whose primary concerns were procedural. Stivers does field a service in highlighting substantive aims of Progressive reform. Her work on settlement movement shows that both genders gave field progenitors. But her use of New York's Bureau of Municipal Research as a foil for her argument is totally misplaced. From time that William Allen and Frederick Cleveland planned bureau in 1905 until its 1914 reorganization a prime goal of bureau was to increase scope of government action for poor. Allen's opinion on expanding role of state emerges quite clearly in a bit of doggerel he penned to counter arguments that private efforts on infant mortality were sufficient: Won't you move a little faster? said baby to state. I keep right on a-dying, and its getting pretty late; All sorts of folks are working hard to give me half a chance But their work is worse than wasted until you join dance. (Allen, 1911, 201). That this view on private philanthropy dovetails with settlement philosophy stems, in part, from Allen's social work background. From 1903 to 1905 he was general agent for New York Association for Improving Condition of Poor, an organization dedicated to pressuring state to assume new obligations to poor people. The association developed first vacation schools as a charity endeavor and then worked successfully to have them incorporated into budget of New York City Board of Education. In 1905 Allen fought hard to keep board from slashing funds for this service association had invented and institutionalized in an approach to reform similar to that Stivers identifies as settlement movement's strategy (New York Association for Improving Condition of Poor, 1905). Bureau personnel shared a community of discourse with settlement workers. Articles written by people working in both spheres appeared in Charities and Commons, a reform social work periodical; both Jane Addams and Frank Tucker, a bureau trustee, sat on journal's publication committee. In 1907 Allen spoke at a National Conference on Charities. Another speaker was Florence Kelley, identified as a social policy advocate by Stivers. The director of Bureau of Municipal Research chaired a session on increasing programs for poor in health field; settlement woman spoke on child labor legislation. Both reformers pushed a substantive agenda (The Minneapolis Conference, 1907). The original prospectus of bureau indicates that part of its mission was to bring scientific management to public agencies and part was to research the extent and cause of remediable conditions that indicate governmental responsibility for physical deterioration of children... for preventable disease; for pauperism; for crime (Cleveland, 1905). Once incorporated, bureau worked to meet both of its goals. It pressured city and state governments to alleviate conditions responsible for poverty and disease and spearheaded projects to improve accounting and budgeting in public agencies. Although modern writers sometimes score bureau for a concern with economy, many of its proposals actually required outlay of public money. The bureau fought to open a child hygiene section in city health department (Gulick, 1928); campaigned against reducing New York's tenement department budget (Bureau of Municipal Research, 1909); and championed free dental clinics in public schools (Bureau of Municipal Research, 1911, 6). …

Reinventing Government or Reinventing Ourselves: Two Models for Improving Government Performance

In this article, I analyze the Bureau of Municipal Research's concept of efficient citizenship as an alternative paradigm to customer-centered public administration. Reinventing government is powerful buzz phrase these days both in the world of practical politics and academe. (The term emanates from Osborne and Gaebler [1992] and appears in the much discussed National Performance Review report, From Red Tape to Results [Executive Office of the President, 1993], and in Gore [1994]). The aim is political change to make government work better and cost less (Executive Office of the President, 1993). The strategy is a new customer service contract (Executive Office of the President, 1993; i) where administrators give taxpayers the same responsiveness and consideration businesses supposedly give customers. Frederickson (1994) criticizes the customer-centered model of change for using the wrong metaphor. He argues that citizens are not the customers of government; they are its owners who elect leaders to represent their interests. A customer-centered model puts citizens in reactive role limited to liking or disliking services and hoping that the administrators will change delivery if enough customers object. Owners play proactive role; they decide what the government's agenda will be. Before we accept customer-centered model, it would be useful to compare it with one that envisions the citizen as owner. This allows us to see if different way of looking at citizen roles leads to new emphasis on the kind of changes that are necessary to improve government performance. Unfortunately, the major contemporary reform prescriptions tend not to elaborate owner metaphors. Although DiIulio, Garvey, and Kettl called their 1993 book, Improving Government Performance: An Owner's Manual the bulk of their analysis hinges on the customer model. An intriguing variant on the owner model emerged from the New York Bureau of Municipal Research (BMR), progressive organization incorporated in 1907 to help solve urban political problems. (For its history, see Dahlberg, 1966. Its concept of efficient citizenship posited that urban citizens owned their government and as owners had duty to get involved in city affairs and instruct politicians and public administrators in shareholder demands. The implications of this concept emerge from studying the writings of the bureau's founders and from analyzing the organization's miscellaneous publications that appeared under the heading, Efficient Citizenship (1908-1913). The bureau model does not address all of the problems that have been raised in relation to the reinventing government scenario. Another type of analysis would be needed to determine whether the Osborne and Gaebler model undermines bureaucratic accountability to legislatures suggested by Moe (1994) cratic accountability to and Rosenbloom 1993). Exploring the bureau model is useful for critiquing the scenario's proposed relationship between agencies and the public. It helps modern administrators in two ways. First, the bureau's ideal citizen role contrasts with that offered in Osborne and Gaebler (1992), which models bureaucratic reform on paradigm of the citizen as customer of public services. Comparing the currently much-debated customer model with the bureau's idea of the citizens as owners shows that the earlier concept provided more expansive public role and identifies strategies for producing citizens who want to act like owners. Second, this exercise provides good example of how historical ideas can illuminate modern issues by throwing different light on them. While early urban administration and politics textbooks stress the importance of the efficient citizenship concept (e.g., Rowe, 1908; Munro, 1915; and Capes, 1922), the post-World War Il literature almost never mentions this metaphor. Examining the bureau's work shows what can be lost by neglecting old ideas--a loss that exists even though most modern readers are likely to find the older literature somewhat naive in its authors' expectations from the average citizen. …

Harry F. Byrd, Sr. and the New York Bureau of Municipal Research: Lessons from an Ironic Alliance

Nearly 100 years ago political scientist Woodrow Wilson provided some of the intellectual underpinnings and the symbolic origin for the study of American public administration.' It is not surprising that, as students of politics and administration now approach the bicentennial of the Constitution and the centennial of Wilson's contribution, renewed attention is being directed to the historical and theoretical bases of the field.2 Some of these efforts have been guided by the explicit aim of identifying weaknesses or inaccuracies in various aspects of the field's conventional wisdom and thereby advancing understanding.3 This paper belongs in such a genre. A portion of any standard account of the development of American politics and administration deals with the relative roles of the administrative reform movement and the nation's political machines. During the early 20th century reformers initiated a series of alterations in the structures and conduct of public life. These changes included the commission and city manager plans of municipal government, the state reorganization movement, and civil service and budget innovations. The reformers, claims the conventional wisdom, employed their tenets of administration in doing battle not only with inertia, ineptitude, and ignorance. They also had to contend with malevolence: political machines, especially in urban locales, and their leaders -the bosses-fought reform generally and opposed such specific proposals as neutral, merit-based hiring and the development of sound financial procedures. Gradually, however, the reformers won the day against the machines.4 This is an outline of the familiar account. But is it accurate? Or, more precisely, to what extent does it underplay significant features of the actual political context? To what effect? These two questions frame the study of an important case, an analysis of which can contribute to a more mature understanding of American politics and administration. The discussion below proceeds in two stages: first, the facts of the case are presented; and second, some lessons are elicited from the case for the study of politics and administration.

I Believe in the Community Idea

As I look back on my professional career of some fifty years and try to summarize the guiding principles in my work, I wish to acknowledge my indebtedness to the protagonists and advocates of the community concept and responsibility for Jewish education, the men who were my mentors, teachers and senior colleagues. Foremost among them was Samson Benderly, under whose influence and guidance I came when I was seventeen and continued to be under his influence during my association with the New York Bureau of Jewish Education for fourteen years. The other men were those who were associated with Dr. Benderly: Isaac B. Berkson, Israel Chipkin, Alexander Dushkin, Emanuel Gamoran, Leo Honor and Albert Schoolman. During my professional work, I had the opportunity to meet and work with this distinguished group of Jewish educators, and their influence on me, personally and via their writings, was compelling.

The New York Bureau of Municipal Research: Pioneer in Government Administration

The New York Bureau of Municipal Research: Pioneer in Government Administration

The New York Bureau of Municipal Research: Pioneer in Government Administration

The New York Bureau of Municipal Research: Pioneer in Government Administration

Premises of Public Administration: Past and Emerging

W HEN the first textbooks in public administration appeared in the United States a little more than thirty years ago (Leonard D. White's Introduction to the Study of (Macmillan Co., 1926), and W. F. Willoughby's Principles of (Johns Hopkins Press, 1927)), they were based upon premises and concepts about the executive branch and its administrative agencies which had been at least a half century in the making. The civil service reform movement beginning in the late 186o's and culminating in the Pendleton Act of 1883, Woodrow Wilson's essay on Public Administration in 1887, Goodnow's Politics and in 1goo (MacMillan Co.), the work of the New York Bureau of Municipal Research and its counterparts throughout the country, the scientific management movement in industry, the reorganization movement (including the Taft Commission studies of 1910-12, the Illinois and New York reports of 1915), the city manager movement beginning in 191o, the Budget and Accounting Act of 1921, the Classification Act of 1923, the New York state governmental reorganizations un-

Book Reviews

Abstract Abstract Balance of Payments Yearbook, 1938, 1946, 1947. International Monetary Fund. Washington, D.C., 1949. Pp. 383. Paper $4.00, Cloth $5.00. Review by Myrtle Brickman International Trade Economist, Office of International Trade U.S. Department of Commerce, Washington 25, D.C. Quality Control in Industry: Methods and Systems. John G. Rutherford. New York: Pitman Publishing Company, 1948. Pp. xvii, 201. $3.50. Review by W. R. Pabst, Jr. Quality Control Division, Bureau of Ordnance Navy Department, Washington 25, D.C. Length of Life, A Study of the Life Table, Revised Edition. Louis I. Dublin, Alfred J. Lotka and Mortimer Spiegelman (Metropolitan Life Insurance Company). New York: The Ronald Press Company, (15E. 26th St.) 1949. Pp. xxv, 379. $7.00. Review by Harold F. Dorn Chief, Biometrics Branch, National Institute of Health, Bethesda, Md. Public Health Statistics, 2nd Ed. Rev. Marguerite F. Hall. New York: Paul B. Hoeber, Inc. 1949. Pp. xxvii, 441. $7.50. Review by John W. Fertig Professor of Biostatistics, School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York Bureau of the Census Manual of Tabular Presentation: An Outline of Theory and Practice in the Presentation of Statistical Data in Tables for Publication. Bruce L. Jenkinson. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1949. Pp. xiv, 266. $1.50. Superintendent of Documents, Washington 25, D.C. Review bt Ray Ovid Hall Economist, 1763 Columbia Road, Washington, D. C. Experiment Design and Judgment of Evidence. Errett C. Albritton, M.D. (Professor of Physiology, George Washington University School of Medicine, Washington, D. C.) 1949. Pp. vi, 122. $2.75. (Lithoprinted by Edwards Brothers, Inc., Ann Arbor, Michigan). Review by Margaret Merrell Associate Professor of Biostatistics, School of Hygiene and Public Health, and Lecturer in Preventive Medicine, School of Medicine, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md. Applied Experimental Psychology. Alphonse Chapanis (Assistant Professor of Psychology, Johns Hopkins University), Wendell R. Garner (Director, Psychological Laboratory Institute for Cooperative Research, Johns Hopkins University), and Clifford T. Morgan (Professor of Psychology and Chairman of the Department, Johns Hopkins University). New York: Wiley and Sons, Inc., 1949. Pp. xi, 434. $4.50. Review by Reuben L. Revens Head, Special Reports Unit, Air Studies Division, Library of Congress Seasonal Fluctuations in Employment in the Women's Clothing Industry in New York. Gertrud Berta Greig. New York: Columbia University Press, 1949. Pp. 164. $2.75. Review by Lazare Teper Director, Research Department, International Ladies Garment Workers' Union, 1710 Broadway, New York 19, N. Y. Statistical Techniques in Market Research. Robert Ferber (Research Assistant Professor, Bureau of Economic and Business Research, University of Illinois). New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., 1949. Pp. xiv, 542. $6.00. Review by Melville J. Ulmer Assistant Chief, Current Business Analysis Division, U. S. Department of Commerce, Adjunct Professor of Economics, American University Historical Statistics of the United States, 1789–1945. A Supplement to the Statistical Abstract of the United States. Washington, 1949. Government Printing Office, Washington D.C. Review by W. S. Woytinsky The Johns Hopkins University Proceedings of the Berkeley Symposium on Mathematical Statistics and Probability. Edited by Jerzy Neyman (Director of the Statistical Laboratory, University of California). Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1949. Pp. 501. $7.50. Review by C. C. Craig Professor of Mathematics and Director of the Statistical Research Laboratory, The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan National Transportation Policy. Charles L. Dearing and Wilfred Owen. Washington 6, D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 1949. Pp. xiv, 459. $4.00. Review by Paul H. Anderson Associate Chief, Program Control Branch, Transportation Corps, Department of the Army, Washington, D. C.

County Government in vifginial, Reporet prepared by New York Bureau of municipal Research, January, 1927. Published at Richmond, 1928

County Government in vifginial, Reporet prepared by New York Bureau of municipal Research, January, 1927. Published at Richmond, 1928

A Survey of Virginia State and County Governments

EARLY in I926, the general assembly of Virginia authorized Governor Byrd, at his request, to have a survey made of the state and county governments. The purpose of this survey was to furnish a factual basis for promoting the adoption of a plan of reorganization and consolidation, which the governor had roughly in mind at that time. It was Governor Byrd's idea that the services of an organization from outside the state should be secured to make the survey. After canvassing the agencies engaged in making such governmental studies, he selected the New York Bureau of Municipal Research. The Bureau's staff began work on the survey in May, I92.6, and finished in January, I917, at which time two reports, one on the state administration and one on the county governments, were completed. The actual field work, however, was concluded before the end of November. In conducting any governmental survey, the Bureau has found it both advisable and necessary to place one person in charge of the work. This individual is selected from the staff that actually takes part in the survey. He is made responsible for planning the broad outlines of the study, for the general direction of the field work, and for the editing and arrangement of the report. The Bureau, as you probably know, has long advocated individual responsibility in the conduct of public administration, as opposed to boards or commissions. This method merely applies the same idea to survey work; in other words, the Bureau takes its own medicine. In making the Virginia survey, the task of general supervision fell on me. Under the terms of our agreement with Governor Byrd, the scope of the survey was definitely marked out. It included the administrative departments, boards and institutions of the state government, and the entire organization of the county governments, the city governments being excluded from the study. Therefore, in planning the survey, the work naturally fell into two divisions, namely, state and county. A preliminary examination of the laws and the existing organization was made to determine the major functions in both the state administration and the county governments. On the basis of these functions, the work assignments were made to the different investigators taking part in the survey. These assignments were not clear cut in every instance; there was some overlapping between certain functions which could not be avoided. This, however, was readily handled by conferences between the in-

Book Review City Health Administration . By Carl E. McCoombs, M.D. National Institute of Public Administration and New York Bureau of Municipal Research. Macmillan Company, New York. 1927.

Book Review City Health Administration . By Carl E. McCoombs, M.D. National Institute of Public Administration and New York Bureau of Municipal Research. Macmillan Company, New York. 1927.

Municipal Finance. By A. E. Buck, in collaboration with other staff members of the National INstitute of Public Administration and the New York Bureau of Municipal Research. New York: The MacMillan Company, 1926. Pp. xii, 562.

Municipal Finance. By A. E. Buck, in collaboration with other staff members of the National INstitute of Public Administration and the New York Bureau of Municipal Research. New York: The MacMillan Company, 1926. Pp. xii, 562.

The New York Bureau of Municipal Research

When the New York Bureau of Municipal Research was started people said, You can never get efficiency standards accepted by New York. After several borough presidents had been recalled via removal on evidence of inefficiency, albeit, as Governor Hughes said, is no evidence of personal corruption; after accounting revision was started for all departments; after the period of public interest in budget making lengthened from two days to six months; after health work for children was reorganized, people began to say, Oh, you can do such things in New York, but you can never such methods work in Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Hoboken, etc. Yet, in January, 1912, Mayor Blankenburg, of Philadelphia, and Mayor Hunt, of Cincinnati, stated publicly that they believed the recent reform waves in their cities would make good because they started, as previous reform waves had never started, with a vast amount of definite information with respect to the city's business methods and with the promise of continuing co-operation of an informed citizen agency working through health, school, accounting, engineering and other research experts. Just because municipal research concerns itself with methods rather than with men, just because it operates impersonally through discovering and publishing facts, it promises to be just as successful in one place as in another. Because there are more cities with fewer than 100,000 population, I shall cite concrete results that are reported from the expenditure of $4,000 a year during 1910 and 1911 for the City of Hoboken, N. J., with a population of 70,000. Mrs. Robert L. Stevens was considering various alternatives-a wing to a hospital, a day nursery, etc., for a memorial to her husband. An officer of the Bureau of Municipal Research was asked on which he would spend $2,500 a year. He replied, Neither. When a substitute was demanded he replied, Brains. Mrs. Stevens finally set aside $4,000 a year for a three-year test to be administered by the Bureau of Municipal Research in co-operation with the people of Hoboken to (235)

Reviews and Notices

Abstract Abstract Medical Statistics of the Negro: The Surgical Peculiarities of the American Negro. By Rudolph Matas, M.D., Professor of Surgery, Medical Department of Tulane University of Louisiana. Reviewed by Frederick L. Hoffman. Mulhall's Statistics: Industries and wealth of Nations. By Michael G. Mulhall. Longmans, Green & Co. London, New York, and Bombay. 1896. Pp.451. New York Bureau of Municipal Statistics. Boston Department of Statistics. Memorials. Washington Meetings. Municipal Statistical Offices.