The Committee as an Instrument of Coördination in the New Deal

Of all criticisms of the New Deal, the one most frequently emphasized is the lack of coördination. Headlessness in policy-framing and sprawling aimlessness in policy execution are twin charges which the Administration has been forced to admit. The recent report of the President's Committee on Administrative Management is an indication that the Administration intends to leave to posterity a good record on this score; but both practitioners and students of government are well aware that no reorganization can be so complete, so perfect in its functional allotment of duties to departments, that the problem of horizontal integration will not still need to be faced and solved. This reminder is less an apologia than an indication of the frame of reference of the present note; those who have been administering the government for the past four years have never been unaware of the need for concerted action among the executive departments, and many attempts have been made to achieve it. A device often employed for the purpose has been the interdepartmental committee.