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 UMASS/AMHERST 
 
 
 3120bb 0270 A3E1 A 
 
 
 Introduc tion 
 
 This is the story of an unsuccessful effort in 195>2 to reorganize the 
 Department of Conservation in Massachusetts through legislative action* The attempt 
 was made by the Special Commission on the Structure of the State Government, gen- 
 erally known in Massachusetts as the "Baby Hoover" Commission. Its failure raises 
 questions as to whether the Commission, ziid especially its Executive Director, 
 Thomas He Bliot, erred in making decisions concerning both the proper organization 
 of the Department and the use of tactics in the face of concerted opposition . 
 
 The situation in Massachusetts in 1952 was such as to make the kind of 
 questions faced by the Commission of general applicability. The same type of problem 
 may well confront reorganizers in other states at othsr times. Particular local 
 factors, such as one-party domination or personal opposition to a Governor, were 
 conveniently absent. Although it was established as the result of a message from 
 Governor Paul A* Dever, a Democrat, and although Eliot, its first Executive Director, 
 was a former Democratic Congressman* the Massachusetts Commission was bipartisan in 
 composition and nonpartisan in spirit. To a degree that is praiseworthy and surpris- 
 ing, considering the hot party contest in the state (with the Democrats having a 
 small majority in the House and the Republicans an even smaller ons in the Senate), 
 the Commission ignored considerations of partisan advantage* The Governor, while 
 generally endorsing the Commission's aims, did not intervene strongly in behalf of 
 any particular proposals. Thus the Commission lacked the benefit of vigorous 
 political Bv^port s b»t at the same time escaped the handicap of partisan opposition. 
 By 195>?-0 .■fter' 1 it .had hssn at work for two y?ar3, the Baby Hoover Commission had 
 
 won a fair measure of respect in the Legislature and a generally favorable press, 
 
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 and had made few ensndLaso. 
 
 For the 195>2 session of the Legislature, the Commission prepared reports 
 on five major Departments, accompanying each one with legislation to carry out the 
 recommendations in the report „ Of these five Departments, the one ^hich seemed most 
 obviously in need of reorganization was the Department of Conservationc As the 
 report began to take shape, in the summer and fall of 19^1, it appeared to Eliot 
 , and his staff that it would be easy to make a persuasive case for reorganisation. 
 Only one organized group could be counted in the opposition, and if necessary, that 
 group could be placated o Furthermore, unlike most Department heads, the Commissioner 
 of Conservation himself was clearly in favor of having the Department reorganized 
 along the lines suggested by Eliot and agreed upon by the Commissi on <> 
 
 Yet, while other Baby Hoover bills prevailed over the bitter protests 
 of Department heads, the reorganization of the Conservation Department was defeated 
 
 i 
 
 in 1952o This stucfy presents the story of that losing fight, analyzing the factors 
 which produced defeat, and asking whether, had any one of a number of decisions been 
 made differently 9 the result would have been victory. x 
 
 The '"'Baby Ho over" Commission 
 
 The Massachusetts Commission, during the 1951-52 period considered 
 here, consisted of 13 men, k of them Representatives and k Senators <, Of the non- 
 legislative members appointed by the Governor, one had been a Representative and 2 
 
 had served in both houses. The Commission was supposed to have 3ii members, equally 
 
 *Tn the 1952 session of the Legislature, out of 20 Baby Hoover bills, 10 were 
 enacted. Several were "lost in the shuffle 1 ' at the end of the session, and were 
 hastily referred back to the Commission for further study! aside from the Conser- 
 vation measures discussed herein, the only major proposal rejected by the House of 
 Representatives was one which would have attached the Massachusetts Commission 
 Against Discrimination to the Department of Education. 
 
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divided between the parties, but the resignation of a Republican public member in 
 September- 19^1 created a vacancy which remained unfiliedo By this time, however, 
 the nonpartisanship of the Commission had already become well established! and the 
 equality between the parties was effectively maintained by the appointment of a 
 Democratic public member, Frank Vorenberg, who although a registered Democrat, re- 
 garded himself as an independent voter and was commonly so considered. 
 
 The Commission was unpaid, and the task of directing its research 
 work was entrusted to Eliot, its Executive Director© Eliot had a small full- 
 time staff , and also called upon a number of expert consultants, who served on a 
 per diem basis „ At the outset, the Commission decided that it v/ould be impolitic 
 to try to present a single report covering the entire state government . It was 
 believed that any such report would be doomed to failure, because each interest 
 group opposing a particular recommendation would probably join forces with all 
 ether similar interest groups and successfully attack the whole report* There- 
 fore, the Commission decided to bring out a series of separate reports, each 
 with draft bills attached, keeping in mind, throughout, a general view of the' Thole 
 picture so that recommendations affecting more than one Department would not con- 
 flict with subsequent proposals by the same Commission » 
 
 Including, as it did, a preponderance of legislators, the Commission 
 was acutely aware of the need for legislative support „ At one of its very first 
 meetings, it had heard a high State official, express the cynical opinion that all 
 that this Commission should do was to copy the language of reports made in earlier 
 years, and resign itself to having its reports gather dust in the archives. There 
 was a very general skepticism, in the state administration and in the legislature 
 and among the public, concerning the possibility of any successful reorganization 
 
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1 
 
 o^ any Department » Experience in the neighboring state of Connecticut, where 
 a sweeping reorganization report had been rejected by the legislature in 19;?0, in- 
 creased this skepticism. 
 
 To build up support for the Commission's recommendations, therefore, 
 Eliot proposed that an effort be made to establish a broad-based Citizens' Com- 
 mittee along the lines of the National Committee for the Hoover Report * But the 
 Commission's Chairman^ Chester Ac Dolan, Jr», rejected this suggestion, and was 
 supported by a majority of his colleagues, They felt that if any "leading citi- 
 zens*' were recruited to head a Citizens' Committee , they would either be well 
 lmown partisans, with many political enemies in the legislature, or they would be 
 persons carrying l?lttle weight with the legislature, despite their possible dis- 
 tinction in professional or business life c Furthermore, they were fearful of 
 criticism if the Commission or its staff actually stimulated the creation of any 
 such pressure group . Finally, the Connecticut experience showed that a committee 
 of this sort could easily melt away once specific recommendations were madej and 
 indeed, in Massachusetts, some prominent individuals who were vocal in their en- 
 thusiasm about the establishment of the Commission became quickly silent or hostile 
 tfhen their own ox was gored by any "Baby Hoover" billo 
 
 The idea of a Citizens' Committee was therefore dropped,, From that 
 point on, Eliot sought a wide base of general support chiefly through the press, 
 r/hich was largely favorable, and through two half -hour television programs in the 
 winter of 195>2 C In addition, the state branch of the National Committee for the 
 ioover Report made its regular weekly radio program available from time to time to 
 the Commission^ arid Eliot, his assistant (and successor) William A <» Waldron, and 
 jome members of the Commission also made numerous speeches to luncheon clubs and 
 
other groups. The use of all these publicity media unquestionably- created a 
 generally favorable atmosphere "which imparted itself - to the legislature -when the 
 Baby Hoover bills were brought up for action. 
 
 The opposite side of the same shield v/as the elimination, where pos- 
 sible, of enmity arising from the misunderstanding or fears of department and 
 'bureau chiefs and state personnel,, The Commission promptly adopted and publicised 
 a policy of not affecting the rights of any civil service personnel, justifying 
 this position by pointing out that in recent years the regular personnel turnover 
 in Massachusetts had exceeded 15 per cent, so any reduction in personnel permitted 
 by reorganization could take place quickly through not filling vacancies. This 
 satisfied the civil service workers • There remained the question of dealing with 
 the higher placed appointive officials. 
 
 At Waldron's suggestion, and upon the urging of both YTaldron and Eliot, 
 the Commission adopted an elaborate and time-consuming procedure . For each of its 
 major reports, the work began with the preparation of a staff memorandum, which 
 stated the facts and asked numerous questions, but contained no specific recom- 
 mendations. This staff memorandum, after being revised by the Commission, was 
 then sent to the heads of the various state agencies affected. Each of them was 
 invited to sit down and discuss it with the Commission. Thereafter, the same or a 
 revised staff memorandum was sent to a group of unpaid *' advisers" who were citi- 
 zens with some special knowledge or interest in the field being studied. They, 
 •too, met with the Commission and expressed their views. 
 
 The staff memorandum was then rewritten in the form of a Tentative 
 Report, which was given to the press, together with an announcement that the 
 Commission would hold a public hearing on the Tentative Report. After the public 
 
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hearing, the Commission met again, and made further revisions before filing its 
 formal report with the legislature 
 
 It was this procedure which was followed in the case of the prepara- 
 tion of the report on the Department of Conservation., It was supposed to allay 
 the opposition of appointive officials and to satisfy private citizens that they 
 ' had had a chance to be heard and to participate . In this case, apparently, it 
 did neither. 
 
 The Department of G^nsei^vation 
 
 For many years, the Massachusetts Department of Conservation had been 
 a subject of widespread criticism o It was hardly a Department at all, but 
 rather a conglomeration of several different agencies, each of them jealous of 
 its prerogatives o Its history was marked by internal conflict aid duplication, 
 and a significant lack of any affirmative program to develop the state's natural 
 resources. 
 
 Nominally, the head of the Department was the Commissioner of Conserva- 
 tion, appointed by the Governor. Bub although the statutes appeared to give the 
 Commissioner control of almost all of the Department, no Commissioner, for many 
 years, had been able effectively to exercise, any such control. This was primarily 
 because the Commissioner did not have the power to appoint or remove the Directors 
 of the Divisions in the Department. These officials were, instead, named by the 
 .Governor for fixed terms. Furthermore, the substantive laws conferred various 
 powers upon the Division Directors, exclusive of the Commissioner. To a very 
 considerable degree,, therefore, the last few Commissioners of Conservation in 
 Massachusetts had felt themselves to be little more than figureheads . 
 
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By statute, there were five Divisions in the Department — Marine 
 Fisheries, Parks and Recreation,, Forestry, Law Enforcement, and Fisheries and 
 Game. All hut the last were supposed to be under the control of the Commissioner « 
 Until 19I48, the Division of Fisheries and Game was also at least nominally under 
 his controlo In that year, however 9 the legislature established a new agency, the 
 Fisheries and Game Board, and entrusted it with the responsibility for the admin- 
 istration of the Division of Fisheries and Game,, The. Board, an unpaid five-member 
 body, appointed by the Governor for staggered terms, appointed the Director and 
 other officials of the Division of Fisheries and Game. That Division was financed 
 by appropriations from an earmarked inland Fisheries and Game Fund, into which were 
 placed all the receipts obtained by the sale of hunting and fishing licenses to 
 sportsmen o 
 
 The Division of Parks and Recreation was responsible for operating a 
 number of state-owned recreational areas, several of them located within the bounda- 
 ries of state forests. The Division of Forestry was responsible for the state 
 forests and for the adaiini strati on of a potentially lucrative forests-cutting 
 program which remained ineffective . The Division of Marine Fisheries administered 
 the laws with respect to shellfish sad deep sea fishing o In the Division of Law 
 Enforcement were two groups s- Conservation Officers, exclusively occupied in 
 enforcing the inland fish and game laws, and Coastal Wardens, whose only duties 
 were those concerning the prevention of illegal digging, catching or processing 
 of clams, lobsters, and similar marine life c One-half of the salai^ies of the 
 Conservation officers was paid out of the Inland Fisheries and Game Fund,, 
 
 The Commissioner of the Department was Arthur T, Lyman, Jr., appointed 
 by Governor Bradford, a Republican, in 19h& to serve for a five-year term. He 
 
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was ail experienced public servant, having previously been Commissioner of 
 Correction by appointment of Governor Ely, a Democrat As indie ated, he had to 
 exert whatever influence he could chiefly through persuasion, rather than through 
 any real authority > With two of his Division Directors he was on close and 
 friendly terms % with the head of the Division of Law Enforcement, a man with a 
 political background who has since retired to seek political office, Lyman dealt 
 at arm's length c Between Lyman and the Director of the Division of Forestry 
 there was open and obvious hostility c That Director., Raymond J e Kenney, was him- 
 self a former Commissioner of Conservation, and appeared ready to resist anything 
 which he considered interference with his prerogatives as Division chief « 
 
 Early in lyman's term as Commissi oner s the Fisheries and Gams Board was 
 established and the Division of Fisheries and Game was removed from the Commis- 
 sioner's control. lyman did not appear to resent this, but rather Yfelcomed it, as 
 he disliked the constant pressure exerted by various sportsmen's groups in connec- 
 tion with the administration of the fish and game lawso It appeared, however, that 
 \rhile the Fisheries and Game Board and the Commissioner now moved in separate orbits, 
 neither had very much respect for the other 
 
 This was the Department which the Baby Hoover Commission, among its 
 other duties <, sought to reorganize in 1°£2« 
 
 T he Staff Mem orandum 
 
 The Staff Memorandum on Conservation, was prepared under Eliot's 
 direction largely by Kelvin Zurier, a young Harvard graduate who had worked, the 
 previous summer, for a special commission investigating the Milk Control Board of 
 Rhode Islando The consultant on the project was Professor Arthur Ac Maass of 
 
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Harvard, who had taken part in the Hoover Commission's work in Washington and had 
 headed the n task force" on natural resources in the Connecticut reorganization 
 progranic Most of the interviewing was done by Zurier, and some by Maass and Zurier 
 together , with Zurier writing full reports of the facts found.* Eliot put these 
 reports together into a preliminary memorandum, while Maass, separately, prepared a 
 full report, of his own,, Eliot believed that many of Maass' suggestions were too 
 drastic to be politically practicable, but drew on some of them substantially in 
 revising the preliminary draft and preparing the Staff Memorandum for discussion, 
 which was completed on August 27, l°£l • 
 
 In view of what later transpired, it is interesting to concentrate, 
 here, on only a few of the questions raised by the Staff Memorandum „ The final 
 battle, many months later, concerned four substantive issues g (1) whether the 
 Department should continue to be headed by a Commissioner or should instead be 
 headed by a five-man Boards (2) whether the Division of Fisheries and Game, func- 
 tioning under an independent Fisheries and Game Board, should instead become an 
 integral part of the Department, its Director to be appointed by the Commissioner; 
 (3) whether the Department's law enforcement activities should be entrusted to 
 "Conservation Officers" trained and equipped to enforce all of the conservation 
 laws instead of only segments of them; and (h) how a unification of two Divisions, 
 those of Forestry and Parks and Recreation, could be effected. 
 
 The first of these questions was not raised in any way by the Staff 
 Memorandum. Neither Eliot, nor Zurier and Maass, nor members of the Commission, 
 gave any serious thought to establishing a board or commission to direct the 
 Department. Shortly before this Staff Memorandum was prepared, the Commission had 
 filed its report on the Department of Education. The members had rather reluctantly 
 
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•L^reed to leave that Department under the direction of the Board of Education, but 
 ♦ *d publicly explained that this was the "exception that proved the rule" and had 
 iterated their belief that ordinarily an operating department should be headed 
 by a single individual. Far from getting rid of the Commissioner and replacing 
 hin with a Board, the Staff Memorandum asked whether the Commissioner should not 
 b« given greater power — especially, the power to appoint and remove his Division 
 
 directors. 
 
 In connection with the Division of Fisheries and Game, the Staff 
 Memorandum suggested that "it would seem that there is an excellent opportunity 
 for the Commonwealth to realize a savings by making the Division of Fisheries and 
 Gams part of the Department of Conservation", with the Director of the Division 
 to be appointed by the Commissioner, and the Fisheries and Game Board (an unpaid 
 body) to be retained only in an advisory capacity, without administrative responsi- 
 bility,, These suggestions were made in extremely tentative form, the memorandum 
 also including arguments for a continuation of the system in effect since I9J48 
 when the Fisheries and Game Board was established and placed in charge of the Divi- 
 sion of Fisheries and Game,, 
 
 The development of a "multipurpose" staff of Conservation Officers, a 
 key proposal in the Maass report, was not mentioned in the Staff Memorandum. The 
 latter, instead, suggested that possibly the law enforcement officers in the Law 
 Enforcement Division should be assigned to the particular operating divisions with 
 which their major duties were connected. Thus, the Conservation Officers enforcing 
 the Fish and Game laws might be assigned to the Division of Fisheries and Game, and 
 wi6 Coastal Wardens to the Division of Marine Fisheries. 
 
 Finally, the Staff Memorandum did raise the question of a merger of 
 
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*>< vision of Forestry with the Division of Parks and Recreation, and implied 
 .« if this merger were effective, the head of the new Division should be 
 minted by the Commissioner. 
 
 i t 
 
 The Staff Memorandum was sent to the Commissioner of Conservation, to 
 lha Chairman of the Fisheries and Game Board, to the heads of two Departments 
 ffected by other recommendations which do not concern us here, and to Senator 
 
 rd Stone and Representative Fred Blake, the Senate and House Chairmen of the 
 ■Uncling Committee on Conservation • A dinner meeting of the Commission was 
 pranged, to which Commissioner Lyman, Senator Stone, and Representative Blake 
 wro invited, but only Commissioner Lyman attended. 
 
 Lyman, not at all surprisingly, gave an affirmative answer to the 
 ^tstion of whether the Commissioner should appoint the Division Directors . (At 
 60 time, at that meeting, was there any suggestion of having the Department 
 h«*ded by a Boardc) He expressed some reluctance at having the Division of 
 Fisheries and Game directly under his control, because he believed that this would 
 ke him the subject of ceaseless pressure from rival sportsmen's groups! but he 
 eed that the integration of the Division was logical and justifiable, Yfith 
 respect to lav? enforcement, he suggested (like Maass) that the officers in the 
 division of Law Enforcement should enforce all the conservation laws. Rather 
 ,«ildly, he argued that the work of the Division of Forestry was sufficiently dif- 
 • U'ent from that of Parks and Recreation to justify the continuation of two 
 A J «'irate Divisions, but he indicated his readiness to tt go along" with a recommenda- 
 ; for consolidation. 
 
 * n Massachusetts,, most standing committees of the legislature are joint com- 
 "*ttees, Senators and Representatives sitting together. 
 
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Shortly thereafter, Eliot held a long conference with Senator Stone. 
 (Neither at that time, nor later, did Representative Blake respond to repeated 
 invitations to confer with Eliot or with the Commission „) Senator Stone was 
 deeply interested in the Department, and said that he strongly favored giving the 
 Commissioner authority commensurate with his responsibility. Most of this dis- 
 cussion, however, related to the Department's activities in destroying the gypsy 
 moth by aerial spraying, a subject which was mentioned in the Staff Memorandum 
 and subsequently became an important part of the report. 
 
 At the end of September, 1951, the Fisheries and Game Board, and the 
 heads of the other Departments concerned were invited to meet with the Commissi on „ 
 Throughout its existence, attendance at the meetings of the Baby Hoover Commission 
 had been unpredictable | and unfortunately, on that particular day, the only member 
 of the Commission present was Representative Howard Whitmore, Jr. of Newton. It 
 was probably also unfortunate that the other Department heads were heard first, 
 and talked a long time, so that the members of the Fisheries and Game Board had to 
 wait in an outer office for over an hour. When they came into the meeting they 
 were obviously dismayed by the fact that only "Whitmore and Eliot were present. 
 However, they talked freely, the Chairman of the Board, Matthew Mo Coyne, being 
 the chief spokesman. They found no fault whatever with any factual statements in 
 the Staff Memorandum. They did vehemently oppose any possible suggestion that 
 they be deprived of administrative responsibility, or that the Director of Fish- 
 eries and Game be appointed by the Commissioner instead of by themselves. In the 
 »-ain, they gave an accounting of their stewardship and urged that no change be 
 -ade. They expressed no opinions with respect to the rest of the Memorandum. After 
 *-iot and Whitmore had listened, with few interruptions, for 55 minutes, Eliot 
 
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asked in a moment of silence whether Mr, Coyne or his colleagues had anything 
 further to say* Coyne declared himself satisfied, and the conference was concluded. 
 
 Before preparing the Tentative Report, Eliot personally had further 
 conferences with several advisers whom he invited to discuss the Staff Memorandum 
 with him. (The Commission itself was holding regular meetings on other subjects, 
 And in view of the difficulties of obtaining substantial attendance, Eliot decided 
 that these extra conferences might as well be held by him alone^ although on each 
 occasion he informed the Commission members and invited them to attend.) For 
 present purposes, the only conference with advisers that was relevant was one with 
 Robert Livermore, then president of the Massachusetts Fish and Game Association. 
 Livermore emphatically opposed any change in the Fisheries and Game Board and the 
 Division of Fisheries and Game. He said that for the first time within memory 
 sportsmen were united in supporting the official program of these bodies. He 
 raid that prior to 19l|8, the Director of the Division was appointed by the Governor 
 und was a "political" figure subject to "political" pressure. The establishment 
 of the Board with administrative responsibility, Livermore said, had removed 
 rolitics from the whole area of wild life management. He said that he would 
 ■pprove of integration of the Division within the Department of Conservation, only 
 ~f the Department itself were headed by a similar "nonpolitical" Beard. He told 
 Hliot that both he and many other leaders of sportsmen's organizations were thor- 
 -r.hly "sold" on the idea of a Board and would be happy to see the Department of 
 onservation headed by a Board, but that if it was not headed by a Board, he would 
 Eht to keep Fisheries and Game independent of the Department. 
 
 » • 
 
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The Tentative Report 
 
 Eliot then wrote a draft of the Tentative Report and submitted it to the 
 Commission for consideration „ Now for the first time he raised the question which 
 later turned out to be basic — namely, whether the Department should be headed by 
 a Commissioner or a Boardo Eliot's draft assumed that it would continue to be 
 headed by a single Commissioner, but he reported his conversation with Livermore 
 and suggested that the matter be considered,, When asked for his own views, Eliot 
 said that he would prefer to have a single Commissioner . Several members of the 
 Commission, especially Whitmore, echoed this, as being consistent with a funda- 
 mental principle of administrative management. 
 
 Eliot 11 s draft also raised squarely the question of whether the Division 
 of Fisheries and Game should be integrated and the Fisheries and Game Board either 
 abolished or made an advisory unito Both he and the Commission members were in 
 agreement that "to create a real Department, capable of developing a unified Con- 
 servation program with maximum efficiency and economy", all Divisions should be 
 under the Commissioner,, "The work of the Division" (of Fisheries and Game) should 
 not, functionally, be kept separate from that of the Department of Conservation. 
 To keep it separate is to impair the possibilities of achieving the maximum results 
 from a real Conservation program . , o To insist that the Division remain wholly 
 independent of the Department of Conservation is to assume that the management of 
 *ild life areas should be undertaken separately from the management of parks and 
 forests — some of them the very woods and streams where the wild life abounds." 
 
 This tentative recommendation was the subject of prolonged discussion 
 at the Commission meeting on October II4, 1952. The question was, in part, a 
 political one. The eleven members of the Commission who were or had been members 
 
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of the legislature were acutely aware of the potentialities of the sportsmen as a 
 "pressure group ." Several of them recounted instances of large numbers of hunters 
 and fishermen coming to hearings, buttonholing legislators in the corridors, and 
 "putting on the heat 1 ' in connection with various measures. It was obvious to all 
 that the sportsmen would vociferously oppose the tentative recommendation. Never- 
 theless, the tentative recommendation stoodo It stood largely because the Commis- 
 sion members agreed with Eliot, first, that it was a sound recommendation in it- 
 self, and second, that the Commission had more to gain than to lose by making it. 
 The Commission members themselves were unwilling to appear subservient to any 
 pressure group. Eliot believed and said, furthermore, that as a tactical matter 
 it would be sensible to make the tentative recommendation, because if the opposi- 
 tion should prove to be too fierce, the Commission could still gracefully with- 
 draw from its position. By such withdrawal, he assumed, the sportsmen would be 
 mollified. 
 
 Thus, after prolonged deliberation, but without dissent, a basic 
 decision was taken?- namely, to recommend in the Tentative Report that the Divi- 
 sion of Fisheries and Game be brought under the Commissioner of Conservation, with 
 the Fisheries and Game Board becoming an advisory body. A concession was made, in 
 the form of giving the Fisheries and Game Board the right to nominate a list of 
 six persons, from whom the Commissioner would select the Director of the Division. 
 
 The Tentative Report, as drafted by Eliot and approved by the Commis- 
 sion, specifically provided for the multi-purpose Conservation Officers urged by 
 Maass. This was agreed to with little discussion. Furthermore, the Tentative 
 Report proposed a new, combined Division of Parks and Forests. In discussing this 
 part of the Tentative Report, Commission members did raise a question, as to what 
 
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would become of the Directors of the two Divisions which would be merged. One of 
 
 I 
 these Directors, Kenney, had wide political contacts in the state and especially 
 
 in the State House. While the fact that he might have some political influence 
 
 was noted, however, no one on the Commission urged that any special provision be 
 
 made for hiim This was partly because the Commission, as a matter of policy, 
 
 consistently refrained from dealing in personalities and chose to abide by its 
 
 fixed rule of protecting civil service employees, but disregarding the claims, 
 
 political or otherwise, of officials outside of civil service . 
 
 The Tentative Report was then adopted and made public, and the Commis- 
 sion held a hearing on it on November 2, 1951° Of the four questions which we 
 have been considering here, only one was emphasized at the hearing — the tentative 
 recommendation with respect to Fisheries and Gameo No witness urged that the 
 Commissioner be replaced by a Boardj nobocty- discussed the expansion of the func- 
 tions of the Conservation Officers! and there was no opposition to the merger of 
 the Division of Parks and Recreation with the Division of Forestry, nor to having 
 the head of that Division appointed by the Commissioner. 
 
 Commissioner Lyman himself spoke in favor of almost the entire Tentative 
 Report, but "reluctantly opposed" the proposals with respect to the Division of 
 Fisheries and Gameo He implied that integration, in the face of the fierce opposi- 
 tion of the sportsmen, might well be self-defeating = 
 
 More surprising was the statement made by Coyne, Chairman of the 
 Fisheries and Game Board • Instead of discussing the issues presented by the 
 Tentative Report, Coyne attacked the Commission and its staff c He complained 
 about Zurier's youth | he complained, quite incorrectly, that neither he nor the 
 chief Division of Fisheries had been more than perfunctorily interviewed, nor 
 -ho hatcheries and game farm visited] he complained that he and his fellow Board 
 
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-bers had not been given a hearing by the Commission Eliot corrected him with 
 pect ^ interviews with officials and visits by Zurier and Haass to the Division's 
 installations, and pointed out that Coyne had said everything he had to say at the 
 Cocnission meeting on September 2k ■> To this, of course, Coyne could and did reply 
 that only one member of the Commission was present. Eliot 1 s rejoinder was to ask 
 Covne whether despite all the alleged shortcomings of the Commission and its staff, 
 there were any factual misstatements in the Tentative Report. Coyne admitted that 
 ho had found none, 
 
 A number of other speakers stuck to the issue more closely. Represent- 
 ing various rod and gun clubs, they reiterated Livermore ' s earlier point, to the 
 effect that a "nonpolitical" Fisheries and Game Board had in three years succeeded 
 in establishing a program which they could all support. These sportsmen claimed to 
 represent many thousands of persons, although less than a hundred attended the 
 hearing . The showing was sufficiently impressive, however, to make Eliot believe 
 that the time had probably come to retreat, especially with Commissioner Lyman sid- 
 ing with the sportsmen on this issue. He was ready to leave the decision to the 
 Commission members, without any comment by himself. In a brief conference after 
 the hearing, Eliot found the members all ruefully agreeing that in its final 
 report the Commission should recommend leaving the Fisheries and Game setup alone. 
 They said that this reversal was absolutely necessary if the vrhole Conservation 
 Report was to have a good chance of success in the legislature. Eliot then assured 
 them that he could draft a final report vrtiich would thus reverse the Commission's 
 position but at the same time save its face. 
 
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The Opposition Organizes 
 
 Nobody was surprised, when the Tentative Report was issued in 
 October, to find sportsmen's clubs protesting the proposal to change the status of 
 the Division of Fisheries and Game. Eliot was a little startled,, however, to 
 discover first, that the "alarm" was actually sent to the sportsmen's organizations 
 I by Coyne, the Chairman of the Fisheries and Game Board, and second, that many of 
 the "rod and gun" columns in the daily papers of the state simply reprinted, ver- 
 ratim, handouts prepared by one man in Boston, without any independent evaluation 
 of their fairness or accuracy. 
 
 To be sure, prior to the public hearing on November 2, 1951, the news- 
 paper stories were reasonably accurate, although hardly unbiased, "Trapper Bill" 
 in the Fish and Game column of the Lawrence Eagle on October 29, 195l, noted a 
 forthcoming meeting of the State Council of Sportsmen's Clubs, Massachusetts 
 Federation of Sportsmen's Clubs, and Middlesex and Norfolk County Leagues to "talk 
 over the report," and said that at the hearing the following Friday, sportsmen's 
 croups, individuals, etc., in opposition to this proposed reorganization, "should 
 be on hand to register their opposition." Henry Moore, Rod and Gun Editor of the 
 3cston Herald, about whom more will be heard later, ran a strictly factual column 
 bn November 2nd. The Springfield Union, on the same day, reported a sizeable 
 tooting of sportsmen's representatives as opposing the Tentative Report, and made 
 *-*i unexplained reference to "wholesale sabotage of the sportsmen's funds." It is 
 noteworthy that several of the "representative sportsmen" at the meeting mentioned 
 * n this story were themselves "rod and gun" editors of various papers. 
 
 Widespread publicity was given to a statement by Paul White, then Field 
 Secretary of Wild Life Conservation, Inc., opposing the Tentative Report. White 
 
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paid that when the Fisheries and Game Board was established "the sportsmen succeeded 
 in divorcing fisheries and game policies from political control — under the Baby 
 Hoover proposal, the Fisheries and Game Director would again be a political 
 aDpointee, the only difference being that he would be named by the Conservation Com- 
 missioner instead of the Governor. Since the Commissioner himself is a political 
 nppointee, fisheries and game administration would be right back where it was three 
 years ago, deep in the heart of politics „" 
 
 Virtually all of this publicity, like virtually all of the arguments 
 made at the hearing itself, was confined to the issue of whether the Division of 
 Fisheries and Game should be brought under the Commissioner, or remain under a 
 
 1 responsible Fisheries and Game Boardo Thus far, the opposition seemed to be reason- 
 able, and developments were just about what Eliot had expected. The first tip-off 
 
 ; of a different kind of campaign — the kind of campaign that ultimately had much to 
 do with the Commission's defeat — came into the "Sportsmen's Roundup" column in a 
 relatively small paper, the Lowell Sunday Telegram. The writer of that column, one 
 "Ed" Coughlin, wrote as follows? "The biggest proposed steal since the Brink 
 robbery was uncovered this week by a few wide-awake sportsmen's leaders, and an 
 innocent-appearing report of the Baby Hoover Commission was disclosed as the key 
 the politicians had hoped to use in their raid on the lucrative, but well-guarded 
 treasury of the state's sportsmen's fundo Once again, the hunter and the fisher- 
 man had learned the only way to safeguard the money derived from their license 
 fees is to handcuff the suction-cupped fingers of the slush fund grabbers." 
 Coughlin referred to the Tentative Report as "highly secretive" and said that "it 
 appears on the surface to be a fairly deliberate attempt to get the Division of 
 
 fisheries and Game back into politics." 
 
 % 
 
 - 19 - 
 
This story was significant, despite its limited circulation. It stated 
 three themeso The first of these, relating to the "steal" of the sportsmen's fund, 
 nas so far-fetched that it reappeared only infrequently. The other two, however, 
 
 the charge of "secrecy" and the insinuation that the Baby Hoover Commission was 
 
 nefariously interested in "politics" — were played over and over again, in all 
 parts of the state . Coughlin's column may well have given to the aforementioned 
 Ha nry Moore the basic ideas upon which he framed the later publicity which was so 
 effective in wrecking the reorganization plan. 
 
 One other factor, in this early period, must not be overlooked. That 
 
 * 
 vas the unity of the various sportsmen's groups. Historically in Massachusetts, 
 
 these clubs and leagues have constantly been at war with one another, each wanting 
 nore fish for its own streams. The Tentative Report had the effect of uniting them, 
 for it appears clear that in the main, the sportsmen were well satisfied with the 
 administration of the fish and game laws under the Fisheries and Game Board and 
 were most sincere in their opposition to any change. In November, all the major 
 conservation, wild life and outdoor groups formed a representative booy called 
 United Conservationists, with Paul White as Director. 
 
 This unity, however, did not seem particularly significant at the time. 
 It helped to persuade Eliot and the Commission to recede from their original pro- 
 posal, but they assumed that once they had receded, the opposition would cease. 
 They did not realize that the Tentative Report had so stirred and united the 
 sportsmen, or at least their official leaders, that the opposition would continue 
 tmd grow more vehement as time went by. They did not see, at first anyway, that 
 v-nited Conservationists had come into existence primarily to fight the Baby Hoover 
 Report, and that the fight was therefore likely to continue regardless of how much 
 
 - 20 - 
 
[he report was changed* They overlooked the fact that others, before White, had 
 \ . a ined political reputations by successfully organizing opposition to proposed 
 legislation. 
 
 r ue Rival Bill 
 
 On December h» 1951, a small self-constituted "steering committee" of 
 Republicans in the Massachusetts legislature, including the President of the 
 Senate and the minority leader of the House, issued a proposed program for the 
 coming legislative session, due to convene in January 1952c In this "policy 
 statement," they urged the reorganization of the Conservation Department, and 
 specifically proposed placing it under the direction of a five-man Board instead of 
 & single Commissioner o This was the first time that this suggestion had been 
 publicly made, at least in 195>1. It was followed immediately by the filing of a 
 kill by Senator Christopher H« Phillips to carry out the proposal . United Con- 
 servationists were behind both the statement and the bill, White openly admitting 
 that his group had drafted the measure Senator Phillips was selected to intro- 
 duce it because his uncle had been a conservation pioneer in Massachusetts and 
 because, unlike Senator Stone, he was persuaded that a Board should supplant the 
 Commissioner. 
 
 These moves took the Baby Hoover Commission by surprise. Whitmore, 
 *1 though an assistant floor leader of the House, had not been consulted and was 
 somewhat indignant. After conferring with some of his fellow Republicans, how- 
 v °r, he understood that the program was not binding on the party and did not be- 
 neve that it was necessarily a firm commitment to any particular details of 
 Policy . Eliot, engrossed at that time in rewriting the Conservation Report, 
 
 - 21 - 
 
i 
 
 ^afting the Conservation bills , and preparing two other reports for early presen- 
 tation to the legislature , was inclined to shrug the matter off . 
 
 There were two things that he might well have done 3 The first was 
 fairly obvious , and had he had more time, he probably would have done its- namely, 
 arranging a prompt conference with Paul White and other spokesmen for the sports- 
 men's groups. Such a conference might have reduced the subsequent hostility to the 
 Baby Hoover Report., Eliot knew, however, that it was most unlikely that the Baby 
 Hoover Commission -would advocate the establishment of a Board to run the Department, 
 He also thought that while White was committed to continuing the battle regardless, 
 his supporters would be satisfied by the final report «> Underestimating the inten- 
 sity of the opposition, he did not see that much could be gained by any conference. 
 
 The other thing which Eliot or a Commission member might well have done 
 was something that did not occur to therrio Not until months later, in fact, did it 
 appear to be a matter of any real significance • It concerned the referral of bills 
 to standing committees of the legislature. 
 
 All of the Baby Hoover bills were filed in the House, and were auto- 
 ratically referred to the Committee on State Administration . Commission members, 
 and especially Eliot, had worked many hours with that Committee, acquainting them 
 with the over-all objectives of the Baby Hoover Commission and with the details of 
 its various bills c The Chairman of the Committee, Senator Ralph Lerche, was him- 
 self a member of the Baby Hoover group, and he relied heavily not only on Eliot, 
 but also on Edward Ho O'Brien, of Eliot's staff, for general assistance in the 
 Cosaaittee's work as it pertained to the Baby Hoover reportso 
 
 Under the Massachusetts system, even a favorable report from the Com- 
 siittee on State Administration was not enough to bring a bill before the House 
 
 - 22 - 
 
for action, if the bill in any way related to the raising or spending of money. 
 Thus, all of the Baby Hoover bills^ after receiving favorable reports from State 
 Administration, were automatically referred to the House Committee on Ways and 
 yeans • All of them, therefore, had to run a double gauntlet <> 
 
 Each bill, of course, related to some specific function of the state 
 government, and for each such function there was a separate legislative committee, 
 such as the Committee on Education, the Committee on Conservation, the Committee 
 on Labor, and the like To send the Baby Hoover bills to these Committees, how- 
 ever, would have meant that each measure would have had to run the gauntlet three 
 times. Such an obstacle course was something to be avoided at almost any cost. 
 
 The Baby Hoover Commission attempted to work out a reasonable compro- 
 mise, by inviting the members of the appropriate standing Committees to confer with 
 them, and to sit with them at the time of the public hearing on the tentative report, 
 These efforts evoked little or no response o 
 
 When Senator Phillips, on December 5> 195>l s introduced his Conservation 
 bill (Senate 73) * the Clerk of the Senate had to decide where the bill should be 
 referred. If the bill had been introduced by a Representative in the House, prob- 
 ably the House Clerk would have referred it to the Committee on State Administra- 
 tion. He would have recognized it as a reorganization bill, like the Baby Hoover 
 bills. The clerk of the Senate, however, had not had the job of referring any 
 Jiaby Hoover bills „ He did recall that four years before, the Committee on Conserva- 
 tion had studied the Department and introduced some bills looking towards its 
 reorganization (including the establishment of the Fisheries and Game Board) It 
 "as natural for him, therefore, to refer the Phillips bill to the Committee on 
 Conservation o 
 
 - 23 - 
 
As soon as they heard of the introduction of the Phillips bill, Eliot, 
 r'3rien, or some member of the Commission would have done wel3. to hasten to the 
 cffice of the Senate Clerk and urge referral to the Committee on State Administra- 
 tion. Thus they might have avoided the complicating factor of inter-committee 
 'ealousy and conflict — although to be sure, the Senate Clerk might still have 
 rent the bill to the Committee on Conservation . 
 
 The Phillips bill was relatively short. It abolished the position of 
 Commissioner, and established a Commission of five members, four of them to be 
 appointed by the Governor with staggered terms. The fifth member was the Chair- 
 nan of the Fisheries and Game Board, ex officioo This five-member Commission was 
 authorized to appoint an Executive Secretary to act as the chief administrative 
 officer of the Department . 
 
 The only other change in the existing organization proposed by Senate 73 
 was the merger of the Division of Parks and Recreation with the Division of 
 Forestry,, The bill included a specific provision that the Director of Forestry — 
 Kenney — should head the new consolidated Division. No similar provision was made 
 for the Director of Parks and Recreation. 
 
 The Final Report 
 
 On January 19, 1952, the Commission filed its report on Conservation 
 with the legislature, together with seven bills drafted to carry out its recommen- 
 dations . 
 
 Although, as we have seen, Livermore's idea of heading the Department 
 *ith a five-man Board had by now borne fruit in a bill with apparently substantial 
 support, the Commission's report did not raise this question at all. It did 
 
 - 2k - 
 

 .-ccommend that the Directors of all Divisions, except the Division of Fisheries 
 and Game, should be appointed by the Commissioner „ It changed the name of the 
 division of Law Enforcement to the "Division of Conservation Services", and 
 recommended that the Conservation Officers in this Division should be trained, 
 authorized and directed to enforce all Conservation statutes and regulations. 
 One-half of their salaries were to be paid out of the Inland Fisheries and Game 
 Fund. The Report expressly left the Division of Fisheries and Game alone, together 
 with the Fisheries and Game Board. All of these recommendations were embodied 
 in a bill entitled "Appendix A" . 
 
 The "face-saving" promised by Eliot was apparent in the Report's 
 introduction as follows g- 
 
 "There may come a time when a completely integrated 
 resources program can be achieved. At present, however, 
 the organized sportsmen of the State do not recognize, the 
 Conservation Department as 'their' department; they are 
 mainly interested in only one of its functions, wildlife 
 management. This particular function has been performed 
 well in recent years. We cannot reasonably expect the 
 sportsmen to accept a change in the existing organization 
 unless and until they are convinced, by experience, that 
 the rest of the Department is capable of running a scien- 
 tific, constructive, coordinated program affecting all 
 natural resources. The first necessary step, therefore, is 
 to make it possible for the Department to do this." 
 Appendix B, attached to the Report, was a bill providing for the 
 establishment of a new Division of Parks and Forests, formed by the merger of 
 
 - 2S - 
 
two existing Divisions o No special provision was made for the continuation in 
 office of the Directors of either of the merged Divisions. The bill provided 
 that the Commissioner should appoint the Director of the new Division . 
 
 Appendix C directed the Department of Conservation to embark on a 
 state-wide aerial spraying program to destroy the gypsy moth, and provided for 
 the transfer of funds from the cities and towns to finance the program. The 
 Commission estimated that this program would, within five years 5 bring about 
 savings of approximately $900,000 annually to the taxpayers of Massachusetts. 
 Aside from the merits of this recommendation, its inclusion in the report was 
 doubly beneficial to the Commission. First, the proposal was dear to the heart 
 of Senator Stone » Second, and more important, it gave the Commission a chance to 
 talk in definite figures and make a reasonably accurate estimate of cash savings. 
 All reorganization commissions are plagued by this problem — people seem to ex- 
 pect "price tags" to be placed on each structural change, but the wise and honest 
 commission can seldom make an accurate estimate of just how much money can be 
 saved by the merger of agencies or the reassignment of functions. Accordingly, 
 Eliot had long since seized on the n gyj>sy moth" issue as one which would enable 
 the Commission to speak of large savings when it made its Conservation Report 
 public. Although the recommendation hardly pertained to the "structure" of the 
 etate government, Eliot justified its inclusion in the report because it was a 
 recommendation for instituting "modern practices" of operation. 
 
 Appendix D related to the Division of Marine Fisheries — the unit 
 
 £i^.nistering the laws with respect to ocean shellfish and deep sea fishing, as 
 
 ^ - , . , * — — ■■ ■ ■■ " ' — — — i . . * 
 
 ~ven this was a little farfetched \ the Resolve creating the Baby Hoover Commission 
 ^-ntioned "improvement of operational efficiency by . . . the introduction of 
 sound management practices . . «" However, no one at any time raised any ques- 
 tion about the propriety of the recommendations. 
 
 nv % - 26 - 
 

 distinguished from "sport" on inland waters. In the main, this bill merely trans- 
 ferred numerous legal powers, such as those to issue licenses, from the Division 
 Director to the Commissioner of the Department . It also provided for increases 
 in license fees, which, the Commission said, would increase the state's revenue 
 about $50,000 a year. 
 
 Appendix E made the Department of Public Works responsible for main- 
 taining automobile roads in State Forests e Appendices F and G concerned reassign- 
 ment of functions, which aroused little controversy and need not concern us here. 
 All of the bills were drawn by Eliot, and the whole program was deliberately 
 separated into seven legislative proposals, in the hope that even if some were 
 defeated, others would pass. As will be seen, this was a wise move. 
 
 The report received fairly wide publicity in the state, hitting the 
 front pages of several Sunday papers. All of the newspaper stories made it clear 
 that the Fisheries and Game Board would continue unaffected. As the Associated 
 Press story said, "The final report of the Commission proposes leaving the Fish- 
 eries and Game Division under its present Board direction." The Boston Sunday 
 Advertiser story was more specifics "Completely reversing its Tentative Report 
 of last October, the Commission advises a status quo, with the Division func- 
 tioning under a Fisheries and Game Board as presently constituted. The reversal 
 is the result of nearly unanimous and organized protests of sportsmen against the 
 first proposal to return the Division to Conservation Department control." The 
 Commission's own release, part of which was used intact by several papers, saids 
 "The Division of Fisheries and Game should continue, for the present at least, to 
 operate under the Fisheries and Game Board, which should appoint the Director of 
 the Division." 
 
 - 27 - 
 
? he Battle Opens 
 
 The Baby Hoover report's initial reception was generally favorable. 
 The news editors gave it prominence j editorial writers praised it. (One curious 
 gidelight of this whole controversy was the journalistic schizophrenia which it 
 exposed; the editorial page and the sports page were frequently on opposite sides 
 Tne sports page won,) 
 
 The report and the seven appended bills were referred to the Committee 
 en State Administration. That Committee was devoting one day a week to con- 
 sideration of the various Baby Hoover proposals, and Chairman Lerche fixed 
 Tuesday, January 29, 195>2, as the date for consideration of this particular 
 report. Lerche, himself a member of the Baby Hoover Commission, was well aware 
 of the fact that its recommendations had been revised, since October, in con- 
 formity with the requests of the organized sportsmen. He also recalled that sub- 
 stantially all of the opposition at the Baby Hoover Commission's hearing on 
 November 2 had been directed at the proposal to alter the status of the Fisheries 
 and Game Board and incorporate the Division of Fisheries and Game in the Depart- 
 r-ent. This proposal having been abandoned, Lerche could see little or no purpose 
 In holding another public hearing. He persuaded his fellow committee members to 
 dispense with a hearing, pointing out that if any groups wished to offer new 
 '~<;stimony, they would still have an opportunity to do so when the bill was con- 
 sidered by the House Ways and Means Committee. 
 
 Accordingly, on January 29, Lerche invited two people — Eliot and 
 CorTiissioner Lyman — to sit with his Committee in executive session. At this 
 cssion, layman stated his opinion, several times, that the Baby Hoover Report 
 W3L3 ,! 80und as a nut," and Eliot answered a few questions about the details of 
 
 - 28 - 
 
the various bills o After some perfunctory discussion, the Committee voted to 
 report the whole matter favorably to the House, knowing that it would then be 
 automatically referred to Ways and Means* 
 
 The Baby Hoover Commission as such had nothing to do with this pro- 
 cedure. Eliot, in fact, was very much surprised when he learned that only him- 
 self and Commissioner Lyman were to attend the meeting „ Apparently the organized 
 sportsmen had not been invited, nor even notified that any meeting was to be held. 
 On that particular day, they were concentrating on the forthcoming hearing of 
 Senate Bill 73 before the Committee on Conservation, which was held the following 
 day and was attended with enthusiasm by representatives of various "wild life" 
 groups o The witnesses at the Conservation Committee hearing supported Senate 73 
 and opposed the Baby Hoover recommendations, although the latter were not before 
 that Committee o The opposition was still harping on the idea that under the 
 Baby Hoover proposals the status of the Fisheries and Game units would be altered; 
 as the Lowell Sun reported, "indications point toward the fact that Senate bill 
 73, which was submitted by the sportsmen, will be enacted into law, thus continu- 
 ing the Division (of Fisheries arid Game) as it currently is," 
 
 It was several days before the sportsmen returned to the fight „ Then, 
 suddenly, on the front page of the Boston Sunday Herald of February 10, 1952, they 
 fired away with both barrels • Henry Moore, publicity man of United Conservation- 
 ists, Inc. and also Rod and Gun. Editor of the Herald, wrote a blistering article 
 headed "Outdoor Groups Act to Block 'Sneak' Conservation Bill." 
 
 Moore's article was designed to appeal to all possible opponents of 
 the whole Baby Hoover Report „ First it attacked the Commission by implication, 
 
 - 29 - 
 
 
saying that its plan "to reorganize the Massachusetts Department of Conservation 
 under one-man control has been smuggled through the House and referred to the 
 Ways and Means Committee under the same cloak of secrecy which roused a storm of 
 opposition -when the report was first uncovered last summer . c the Baby Hoover 
 plan supporters are maneuvering to get their bill before the House, even though 
 it is defeated, simply to block consideration of United Conservationists' own 
 organization bill. Senate 73, which asks for the unpaid Commission form of stream- 
 lined reorganization unanimously endorsed by all interests involved.," 
 
 Moore implied that the Fisheries and Game Board would be supplanted by 
 a new Board appointed by the Governor, saying that the Report "authorizes the 
 Governor to name a five-man advisory board to the Fisheries and Game Division.," 
 Quoting one of his bosses, Paul White, Moore said that the Baby Hoover plan 
 "would nullify every gain made in the Conservation Department three years ago 
 and turn it into a one-man dictatorship . . o under control of one political 
 appointee o" The story described the five-man unpaid commission form of control, 
 as a proposal "advocated by conservation interests and made an integral part of 
 the state GOP's twelve-point better government program.," 
 
 Moore left few stones untouched. He sought to alarm the employees of 
 the Department, saying that the Baby Hoover report "gives the Commissioner the 
 sole right to transfer any Department employee from job to job, place to place, 
 or abolish their positions and transfer them to other state departments as he sees 
 fit M — a thoroughly inaccurate statement. He pointed out that the Baby Hoover 
 proposal for uniting all state lands under a Division of Parks and Forests would 
 result in certain County Commissioners being "stripped ot their control" over 
 state reservations in their counties. He charged that the Commissioner of Con- 
 
 - 30 - 
 
nervation would be given the right to "manipulate the state highway fund" be- 
 cause the Baby Hoover Report proposed that the Public Works Department, financed 
 out of the highway fund, should be responsible for maintenance of automobile 
 roads in state forests « Thus, in this one story, United Conservationists and the 
 3oston Herald (which, editorially, had consistently been favorable to the Baby 
 Hoover Commission's work) sought to discredit the Commission, condemn its plan 
 for responsible management, and arouse the sportsmen, the state employees, the 
 County Commissioners and the Public Works Commissioner against the report. The 
 fact that the charges concerning the Fisheries and Game Board and the State 
 employees were false was of no significance. Moore's story had the effect which 
 he sought. 
 
 Ill and angry, Eliot drafted a long point-by-point reply, thought better 
 of it, and instead sent a short letter to the Herald. He decided that the heart 
 of the matter was the continuing mistaken belief that the Commission was seeking 
 to abolish the Fisheries and Game Board. His brief letter, accordingly, dealt only 
 with that point. Eliot wrote that Moore's article "was astonishing because it was 
 based on a wholly false premise. It apparently assumed that the Commission was 
 recommending a change in the status of the Division of Fisheries and Game and the 
 Fisheries and Game Board. The fact is that no such change was recommended. The 
 status of both the Division and the Board is unaffected by the Baby Hoover Report." 
 In a reply in the Herald three days later, Moore said merely that Eliot "seems 
 to have missed the main point" which, according to him, was that the Committee on 
 State Administration had reported the bill without a hearing. 
 
 On February 1$ s Moore's column again charged that the Baby Hoover 
 bill was a "legislative secret", and said that "it is believed to ask for a 
 
 - 31 - 
 
single, politically appointed Commissioner in absolute control of all department 
 divisions except Fisheries and Game,," The idea that the report was "secret" was, 
 of course, absurd* While printed copies were not yet available, the Baby Hoover 
 Commission itself had multigraphed several hundred copies and had sent them to all 
 interested organizations, notifying them that additional copies were available. 
 
 Moore 1 s columns were widely reprinted throughout the state. Other rod 
 and gun editors came back into action 5 and White himself traveled about the state 
 making speeches. When he could not attend himself, he sent messages carefully 
 designed to stir up opposition in particular quarters. He wrote to the Chairman 
 of one of the local Reservation Commissions, saying that "1 feel that I would not 
 be fulfilling my job if I did not bring to your attention a certain section of 
 the 'Baby Hoover Report' " — the section combining all state reservations under 
 the new Division of Parks and Forests . His letter to the Amesbury Sportsmen's 
 Club was reported in the Haverhill Gazette, saying that the "Baby Hoover bill 
 calls for the curtailment of the existing department and would not be advantageous 
 to ' sportsmen." He spoke to delegates from sixteen sportsmen's clubs in Franklin 
 County, where it was reported in the Greenfield Gazette, with White saying that 
 the Baby Hoover bill would create a single Commissioner "with all power imagin- 
 able — a Conservation dictator — and no man knows enough about the whole field 
 to undertake that job." He also repeated the false charge that the Fisheries and 
 Game Board would be abolished, and would be replaced by a brand new five-man 
 Board appointed by the Governor. In this particular speech, furthermore, he com- 
 bined his attack on the Baby Hoover Report with criticism of a proposed budget 
 cut, with which the Baby Hoover Commission had nothing to do, so that the story 
 was conveniently headed "Conservation Department Change Threatens New Hatchery 
 in Sunderland, Clubs Told." 
 
 - 32 - 
 
Again and again, the same old charges were made. As late as March 30, 
 the Lowell Sunday Telegram was describing the Baby Hoover Report as "the contro- 
 versial bill which had been slipped into Committee by the Hoover Commission with- 
 out benefit of public hearing" and was urging sportsmen to "protest the radical 
 changes proposed for the presently smooth running Division of Fisheries and Game." 
 
 Meanwhile , although busy with other matters (the Baby Hoover Report on 
 Education was given a public hearing on March k$ and its report on Public Safety 
 was issued a few days later), Eliot was not ignoring the opposition to the Con- 
 servation Report, He continued to believe that most of it, at least as far as the 
 rank and file of the sportsmen were concerned, was based on the mistaken belief 
 that the Fisheries and Game setup would be changed,, All of his counterattacks 
 were aimed primarily at that point. He prepared a speech delivered by Senator 
 Maurice Jo Donahue before the Hampden County Council of Sportsmen's Clubs on 
 February 17 . Donahue, a member of the Committee on State Administration, 
 supported the whole report and pointed out that the Commission's recommendations 
 did not affect the Division of Fisheries and Game. This seemed to have little 
 effect, even at the very meeting where Donahue spoke As the Springfield 
 Republican reported it, the Senator was followed by the president of the State 
 Council of Sportsmen's Clubs, who said "We are very satisfied with the management 
 of the Division of Fisheries and Game under the management of the present five-man 
 Board and don't want to see any changes." According to the newspaper story, "he 
 pointed out that the Commission's plan would affect the Division in many ways." 
 
 Eliot also prepared a speech for delivery by Senator Lerche before the 
 League of Women Voters in Springfield on March 21. In this speech, Lerche said 
 that he was "very disturbed by the various groups who wish to misinterpret the 
 
 - 33 - 
 

 proposed Conservation reorganization," and emphasized that the proposals would 
 in no way modify the autonomy of the Division of Fisheries and Game,, 
 
 On the same day, Chairman Dolan signed a vigorous statement, drafted by 
 Eliot/ denouncing the " confusing smoke screen of misinformation thrown up by the 
 opponents of the Conservation Report „" Eliot sent this statement to editors, with 
 a personal letter referring to the frequent inaccuracies in their rod and gun 
 columns o Receiving fairly wide publicity, this was about as effective a counter- 
 attack as could have been made at that time Probably the Dolan statement would 
 have been more effective if it had been printed on the sports pages instead of 
 in the regular news columns. It not only reiterated the facts about the Commis- 
 sion^ report, but also made a pointed attack on the claims of supporters of 
 Senate 73 that -they were backing a "nonpolitical" bille The Dolan statement 
 said that while the Baby Hoover bills would remove four positions from guberna- 
 torial control, Senate 73 would create four new positions to be filled by the 
 Governor's appointees, ^t singled out as obviously "political" the provision in 
 Senate 73 assuring Raymond J. Kenney, Director of Forestry, of continuation in 
 office as the head of the new combined Division of Parks and Forests, and it said 
 that, in providing that Fisheries and Game should be independent of the Department 
 but that the Chairman of the Fisheries and Game Board should be a member of the 
 Commission running the Department, the sportsmen were attempting to "have their 
 cake and eat it too." 
 
 All during March, Eliot, speaking at luncheon clubs and other meetings, 
 hammered home the point that the Conservation Report did not adversely affect the 
 sportsmen's interests. During that month, he talked privately with Governor 
 Dever. When the subject of the Conservation Report was brought up, the Governor, 
 
 - 3k - 
 
I 
 
 I 
 
 with instinctive political prescience, immediately asked if Kemey was "making 
 trouble ." Eliot replied that he thought that he was, or at least would, but that 
 the present difficulties were chiefly caused by the opposition of the organized 
 sportsmen. The Governor's reaction was to appear somewhat rueful. He said that 
 the sportsmen were a really powerful political group, so powerful that both parties 
 sought to make special appeals to them in political campaigns. The Governor 
 promised to speak to the Democratic leaders in the House, including the Chairman 
 of Ways and Means, in favor of the Report, inasmuch as it did not affect or hurt 
 the sportsmen,. However, Eliot understood him to imply that he might be reluctant 
 to throw himself fully into the battle for the, adoption of Baby Hoover Conserva- 
 tion bills if the latter- ran into serious trouble . 
 
 The Ways and Means Committee held a public hearing on the Baby Hoover 
 Report on April 1, 195>2 . Eliot, Lyman, Representative Johnson of Worcester, and 
 four Baby Hoover Commission members spoke in favor of the seven bills. The 
 opponents were more numerous . Senator Phillips, who had introduced Senate 73$ 
 made a reasonable argument in favor of the Commission form of Department direc- 
 tion, and indicated no opposition to any other phase of the Baby Hoover Report. 
 A whole series of sportsmen's representatives opposed the Report, but at this 
 hearing, before well informed legislators, their opposition was primarily in the 
 nature of favorable comments on Senate 73 . One and all, they urged that the Baby 
 Hoover Report be sent to the Committee on Conservation for further stuoy. 
 
 Indicative of the effectiveness of White's campaign was the appearance 
 of several representatives from the western part of the State, who knew little or 
 nothing about the details of the report but wished to register their opposition. 
 Each of them said he did not wish the Fisheries and Game organization disturbed. 
 
 -35- 
 
Each was speaking upon request of his local sportsmen's clube 
 
 Coyne, the Chairman of the Fisheries and Game Board, admitted that his 
 own unit would not be directly affected by the reorganization „ He now justified 
 his opposition, however, by claiming that under the Baby Hoover bills a part of 
 the inland fisheries and game fund would be diverted to pay the expenses of enforc- 
 ing other Conservation laws,, This presumably referred to the recommendation that 
 all Conservation officers should enforce all Conservation laws, with half of their 
 salaries being paid from that fund. As Eliot pointed out, any small increase in 
 the drain on the fund might well be matched by an increase in service, in more 
 effective enforcement of the fish and game laws| but Eliot also said, and other 
 Commission witnesses repeated, that this particular matter was of no great sig- 
 nificance and that the Commission would readily support an amendment confining the 
 use of the fund solely to the enforcement of fish and game laws. 
 
 The Ways and Means hearing was the scene of the first public appearance 
 of certain other persons in opposition to the report. These included people 
 alerted by Henry Moore's original article. Thus, a spokesman for the Public Works 
 Department protested the bill making that Department responsible for maintenance 
 of automobile roads in state forests, and several County Commissioners spoke against 
 the plan to have the state Division of Parks and Forests administer all state res- 
 ervations o By far the most bitter testimony, however, was that offered by two 
 Division Directors, Kenney and Cenedella, Director of the Division of Law Enforce- 
 ment. If ever there was proof of the Commission's charge that the Department of 
 Conservation was a "conglomeration of independent agencies", it was furnished 
 here. Both Kenney and Cenedella, especially the former, occupied themselves in 
 studiously insulting the man to whom they vrere supposedly responsible, namely 
 
 - 36 - 
 
Commissioner lyman. Kenney made a vehement defense of the status quo, while 
 Cenedella picked up the argument that under the plan,, state employees might be 
 transferred, and his Division decimatedo Kenney »s opposition was not surprising, 
 for his dislike of the Commissioner was well known . The vigor with which Cenedella 
 spoke was, perhaps, explained a few months later, when he resigned to seek the 
 Republican nomination for a political office 
 
 The only important new development at the hearing was the emphasis 
 laid by several witnesses on the need for referring the Baby Hoover bills to the 
 Committee on Conservation . Several sportsmen and also Representative Howard 
 Russell, a member of that Committee, urged that this be done. This was the first 
 public indication that a new opposition force was gathering — namely, the legis- 
 lators on the Committee on Conservation, who could be appealed to on the ground 
 that their own prerogatives had been slighted. The effective exploitation of 
 this appeal, as it turned out, was a major factor in the ultimate defeat of the 
 Baby Hoover plan. 
 
 Efforts at Co mpromise 
 
 The pressure now was turned on the Ways and Means Commit tee . The 
 Chairman was visited at his home by a delegation of sportsmen, who threatened 
 him with defeat in the forthcoming election if he permitted his Committee to 
 report the Baby Hoover bills favorably. When a speech by Eliot before the Boston 
 Rotary Club was widely reported, quoting him as saying that the Division of Fish- 
 eries and Game would be unaffected, nearly a hundred letters promptly reached the 
 Governor and as many more went to the members of the Ways and Means Committee, 
 disputing Eliot's statement and demanding that the bills be killed. A syndicated 
 
 - 37 - 
 
State House column , appearing in many newspapers, reported that although "the 
 Baby Hoover Commission skirted any trouble with the sportsmen by proposing that 
 the Fisheries and Gams Division and its fund not be affected" nevertheless 
 "sportsmen saw red when they thought major alterations were being made in their 
 pet function." This column also pointed out what Chairman Dolan' s statement had 
 revealed,, that the sportsmen's own proposition was to give their representatives 
 a "foot in the door" to control of the whole Department o 
 
 The rod and gun editors kept the pressure up c For instance, on May 1, 
 the Brockton Enterprise and Times described the Baby Hoover bill as making the 
 Commissioner of Conservation "the boss of the Division of Fisheries and Game," 
 and on May U~> Henry Moore wrote bitterly about the Baby Hoover Report having 
 been "sneaked into the YiTays and Means Committee", having received only "token 
 favor" but ™ overwhelming opposition of o o half a million people ." 
 
 Meanwhile, the Director of Forestry, Kenney, spoke to individual 
 members of Ways and Means, urging first that the whole report be pigeonholed, and 
 second, that in any event, a special provision be inserted taking care of him e 
 
 Representative Harrington, Vice Chairman of the Baby Hoover Commission 
 and also a member of the Ways and Means Committee, decided that Kenney' s political 
 strength was too great to ignore „ He therefore asked Waldron to draft an amend- 
 ment to the bill "taking care" of Kenney • This amendment, which provided that 
 the Director of the Division of Forestry would remain an employee in the Depart- 
 ment, with no change in pay, for the duration of the term for which he was appointed, 
 was duly agreed upon by the Ways and Means Committee . It did not satisfy Kenney, 
 however c He objected that it did not specifically provide that he should be the 
 head of the new Division of Parks and Forests, nor, he said, did it take care of 
 him after his present term expired a year and a half hence., 
 
 - 38 - 
 
In May, Waldron reviewed the -whole situation with John Mo Woolsey, 
 a Director of an old established organization known as the Trustees of Public 
 Reservations o Waldron believed that the Commission should "fight back" by caus- 
 ing the legislature to be bombarded by letters favoring the Baby Hoover Report. 
 Eliot viewed this suggestion very dubiously, partly because he was busy with *\ 
 countless other matters and partly because he did not think that letters from 
 individual citizens, no matter how distinguished, would have much effect. His 
 
 j 
 
 reluctance was increased when Commissioner lyman poured cold water on the whole 
 idea, saying that it would only serve to "stir the animals up " However, a 
 letter was drafted, and a copy of it was sent to a few people known to be sympa- 
 thetic to the Baby Hoover proposals. These few signed it, but Woolsey himself 
 then wished to rewrite it entirely before signing it, and the project came to 
 nothing. 
 
 Despite the sportsmen's pressure, and perhaps because of the 
 generally favorable attitude of the Governor, Ways and Means favorably reported 
 all seven Baby Hoover Conservation bills on June 10, 1952. The Committee acted 
 unanimously. Moore sent out the alarm in his column, widely reprinted, and the 
 pressure increased,, 
 
 By this time, Eliot, O'Brien, and Harrington all believed that the 
 major reorganization proposals had only a bare chance of passage. Eliot was think- 
 ing in terms of salvaging as many of the seven bills as possible. O'Brien and 
 Harrington thought that with a few breaks in the luck, and an all-out fight, the 
 major bills might pass the House, but even they could make no favorable predictions 
 with respect to Senate action,, Waldron, however, refused to accept any defeatist 
 attitude. He urged Eliot to see the Governor and demand that the Governor come out 
 
 - 39 - 
 
strongly for the whole report » This Eliot refused to do for several reasons. 
 First, he believed that it would be futile, because the Governor had already in- 
 dicated that he did not particularly desire to get into a brawl with the organized 
 sportsmen,, Second, he thought that even if the Governor did assume leadership, 
 such leadership might result in the death of the bill in the Republican Senate. 
 Furthermore, he was most unwilling to inject the Governor too far into any of the 
 Baby Hoover battles because of the probability of incidentally arousing purely 
 partisan opposition, especially as the gubernatorial election was only a few 
 months away O'Brien, who was in frequent contact with the Governor's legislative 
 secretary, concurred with Eliot in this appraisal of the situation. 
 
 Waldron did not give up e In early June, in a radio debate, Eliot 
 and the sportsmen's spokesman, White, had agreed that the only real issue was 
 whether the Department should be headed by a single person or a five=member board. 
 Waldron thereupon proposed that the sportsmen's leaders sit down with the Commis- 
 sion and try to work out a satisfactory compromise. He believed that the issue of 
 Commissioner versus the Commission was relatively unimportant and was himself 
 ready to advocate acceptance of the sportsmen's five-man board proposal if the 
 rest of the program could be saved. 
 
 With Eliot's reluctant acquiescence, Waldron, at the Baby Hoover 
 Commission's meeting on June 18, urged that this conference be held, and the 
 Commission agreed to hold it. Several Commission members, therefore, met on 
 Friday, June 20, with White, Woolsey, and representatives of the Conservation 
 Council, a "holding company* of numerous organizations interested in wild life 
 management. More or less self-invited, a number of legislators were also present - 
 Senators Stone and Phillips, and several representatives serving on the Committee 
 
 - 1,0 - 
 
on Conservation. One of the latter, Representative Porter, said that he had 
 drafted an amendment to the Baby Hoover bill to provide for a five-man boards It 
 seemed possible that the Baby Hoover Commission members would agree to support 
 this amendment, if the sportsmen could assure them that, as so amended, the -Whole 
 program would be adopted,. At this point, White hastily backtracked. Although 
 claiming that he was representing half a million sportsmen, he now said that he 
 could not possibly speak for all the groups Yfhich belonged to his organization 
 nor could he foreclose any of their individual members from opposing various parts 
 of the Baby Hoover Report. Furthermore, he pointed out that Fred Blake, House 
 Chairman of the Conservation Committee, was strongly opposed to any five-man Board, 
 and the Porter amendment might therefore be defeated, for Blake was influential. 
 Whitmore, and especially Frank Vorenberg, of the Baby Hoover Commission, then 
 spoke cut vigorously against the Commission form of control and in favor of re- 
 taining a single Commissioner „ Thus the chance for any real compromise was lost. 
 
 Eliot, never hopeful of any satisfactory compromise, nevertheless now 
 made one last effort to pull the chestnuts out of the fire. He suggested that the 
 Porter amendment be carefully redrafted, so that it would clearly pose the issue 
 without causing an unnecessary number of changes to be made in all of the Baby 
 Hoover bills and that it be introduced at the outset of the debate on the first 
 bill. He expressed the hope that if the amendment was passed, the bills would 
 then be enacted, and that if the amendment was defeated, the sportsmen would still 
 get behind the bills and try again next year to supplant the Commissioner with a 
 Board. This proposal was greeted favorably by all present, and White, Woolsey and 
 Eliot spent the afternoon drafting the proposed amendment. 
 
 Over the ensuing weekend, both White and Representative Porter changed 
 
 - Ill - 
 
their minds . Porter, -who was a neighbor of one of the chief sportsmen's lobby- 
 ists at the State House, told Eliot on Monday that he did not see how he could 
 possibly offer the amendment. Instead, he said, all the bills should be referred 
 to the Committee on Conservation for study during the forthcoming legislative 
 recess, from July, 1952 to January 195>3 ° Eliot promptly called White on the 
 telephone and received the same information o Eliot then asked Porter if he was 
 definite as to what he was going to do c Porter replied that someone had urged him 
 'to refer three bills (Appendices A, B and D) to the Committee on Conservation, 
 but apparently novf "the idea was that the bills should be referred,," He said he 
 had nothing against the four other bills, nor had he heard of any opposition to 
 them. 
 
 As soon as Porter left his office, Eliot quickly called O'Brien, who 
 was keeping a close watch on Baby Hoover legislation on the floor of the House., 
 O'Brien then suggested to the Clerk of the House that there were four bills 
 (Appendices C, E, F and G) which he understood were noncontroversial and might be 
 passed even though they were not on the regular House calendar for the day. The 
 clerk handed them over to the Speaker, and they duly received the requisite 
 number of readings, and passed the House without any debate at alio If this quick 
 action had not been taken, and they had come up at the same time as the other three 
 bills, there is no question but that they would have all been sidetracked,. This, 
 i perhaps, was the kind of "steamroller" or "sneak* 9 tactics to which Henry Moore had 
 objected, but it was his very objection which had played such a large part in 
 making such tactics necessary,. And in any event, these bills still had to pass 
 the Senate ~ which they did, without substantial change. 
 
 - 1,2 - 
 
Defeat 
 
 The remaining Conservation bills were on the House calendar for 
 June 23 i 1952 «. As soon as the first of the three bills was read, Representative 
 Porter moved to refer it to the Committee on Conservation for study during the 
 recess o Before the debate started, several Republican representatives reported 
 that the Republican leadership had "passed the word" to vote for Porter's motion. 
 By no means all of the Republican members, however, were ready to follow the 
 leadership,. The recalcitrants were besieged by lobbyists in the corridors'— some 
 by regular, registered and paid lobbyists, some by sportsmen, and some by 
 frightened and angry state employees. Several employees of Cenedella' s Division 
 of Law Enforcement buttonholed Representative Johnson of "Worcester, a well- 
 informed proponent of reorganization, and claimed that passage of the bills 
 would cost them their jobs. When he pointed out to them that this was not so, 
 they argued that in any event, it might mean that they could be transferred. 
 Johnson angrily retorted that if he were the Director of the Division he would 
 transfer them to China, and stamped back onto the floor of the House. Kenney 
 divided his time between the lobby and the House gallery. 
 
 Four Republicans, only one of them a member of the Baby Hoover 
 Commission, spoke forcefully in favor of the Baby Hoover bills, along with two 
 Democratic members of the Commission. The first speakers in opposition were not 
 particularly effective, for they were obviously incompletely informed and merely 
 repeating what their local sportsmen's groups had told them. The program was 
 doomed, however, when Representative Blake, a Democrat and the House chairman of 
 the Conservation Committee, made a vigorous speech in favor of referring all 
 three bills to his Committee. Blake had the respect of the members, especially 
 
 - 1*3 - 
 
as an authority on all natters pertaining to Conservation,, It was hardly necessary 
 for several other members of his Committee, of both parties, to follow him to the 
 microphone and echo his appeal. 
 
 The vote came up on motion to refer to the Committee on Conservation, 
 and on a standing vote the House was evenly divided, IjO to l|0o When the roll was 
 1 called, however, the appeal of the Committee on Conservation, plus the pressure of 
 Republican leadership on members who had missed the debate, helped to put the 
 opponents of the Baby Hoover Report well into the leado When the call was half 
 completed, it was obvious that the bills were to be sidetracked and for the rest 
 of the alphabet almost every Representative voted "Aye", including many Democrats 
 from city districts » The final vote of 179 to $2 thus gave an exaggerated picture 
 of the extent of the opposition., Once the Baby Hoo^7er bills were surely defeated, 
 it was easier for all concerned to vote against them, and thus avoid recriminations 
 
 To be sure, there were some recriminations of a very public sorto The 
 Boston Globe and the Springfield Union editorially chastised the legislature for 
 its action 6 Ironically, this very chastisement — perhaps, too, a twinge of con- 
 science — helped to get the next major Baby Hoover Commission Report, on Public 
 Welfare, through the House without opposition two days later,. 
 
 Aftermath 
 j 
 
 At this writing, in the autumn of 195>2, the Department of Conservation 
 
 • is still a conglomeration of independent agencies, badly in need of reorganization. 
 
 By a curious twist of fate, the Committee on Conservation does not have before it 
 
 either the Phillips bill, Senate 73, or the Baby Hoover proposals* The House 
 
 resolve referring those measures to the Conservation Committee for study during the 
 
 - Ui - 
 
recess, got lost in the shuffle in the rush for adjournment a week later, and 
 never passed the Senate 
 
 If the referral resolve had been adopted, the Baby Hoover Commission 
 would clearly have had to wash its hands of the whole subject of the Conservation 
 Department. However, as no final action was taken, the Baby Hoover Commission 
 still has at least the legal right to report to the 19^3 legislature on the same 
 subject, and recommend, if it wishes, exactly the same bills that were side- 
 tracked in 1°5>2 o But the question is what the Commission should do, not what it 
 can legally do Some members have suggested that the Baby Hoover Commission 
 should do nothing o Others have rather vaguely proposed some form of joint action 
 with the Conservation Commit tee „ Some of these go further, and urge a compromise 
 with T/hite and the United Conservationists. O'Brien, feeling that the event justi- 
 fies his opposition to any attempted comprcmJ.se, believes that the Commission 
 should simply renew its report and file the same bills, and fight to win without . 
 any thought of conciliation,, In support of this proposal, he points to Moore's 
 column of June 22, which referred to the "compromise conference „" Moore described 
 that conference as an attempted "deal", and said that it "roused party leaders to 
 the scope and legitimacy of the Hoover opposition „" In other words, it was a rec- 
 ognition of the opposition's strength, and conversely, a confession of weakness. 
 Any decision will have to take into account certain legislative 
 
 ' changes impending as a result of the 1952 election,, Chief of these is the retire- 
 ment of Representative Blake." Rumors abound that he will succeed Lynian as Commis- 
 
 i 
 
 sioner„ He is known to oppose the Commission type of control; with respect to 
 the other proposals, he is an unknown factor, and may well want a free hand with- 
 out legislative interference. He may have been taking the long view, in fact, in 
 
studiously avoiding any official contacts with the Baby Hoover Commission and its 
 
 staff . 
 
 Major questions of policy , therefore, remain to be decided . The 
 
 issue is not dead. Decisions taken in the past, whether they were right or con- 
 stituted errors of commission or omission, played an inexorable part in the 
 
 I 
 
 history of the 195>2 legislation. The same type of decision, under altered circum- 
 
 ? stances, will have to be made again many times over if the effort is renewed. 
 Waldron, Eliot's successor, and the Baby Hoover Commission will have to plan their 
 course of action in the light of the choices made in the past and the results of 
 those choices, both with respect to the substantive content of their report and 
 the strategy and tactics to be employed in the legislative battle 
 
 # * # it # # # # # 
 
 Notes- The author of this study is Thomas Ho Eliot, who retired from 
 his position as Executive Director of the Massachusetts Baby Hoover Commission on 
 September 15, 1952, to become Professor and Chairman of the Department of Political 
 Science at Washington University, St. Louis. To a considerable degree, Eliot 
 wrjtea in a mood of self-appraisals "What did I do wrong?" He does so, however, 
 without any tone of apology or appearance of regret, and with the optimistic con- 
 viction that reorganization of the Massachusetts Conservation Department is still 
 a very live possibility. 
 
 - I46 -