Federal Use of Administrative Areas
| Author | James W. Fesler |
| Published date | 01 January 1940 |
| Date | 01 January 1940 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/000271624020700114 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
111
Federal
Use
of
Administrative
Areas
By
JAMES
W.
FESLER
REGIONALISM
is
a
term
whose
very
vagueness
makes
its
defini-
tion
largely
a
personal
matter.
Those
who
are
regionalists,
it
seems
to
me,
progressively
embrace
the
following
propositions:
1.
Social
phenomena,
in
almost
a
lit-
eral
sense,
grow
out
of
geographic
condi-
tions-climate,
soil,
topography,
subsoil
resources.
2.
Many
social
phenomena
coincide
as
to
area,
thereby
creating
the
homo-
geneous
region.
3.
Regional
institutions,
mores,
crafts,
art,
and
literature
should
be
protected
against
the
threats
of
a
monotonous
na-
tional
uniformity.’
4.
Governmental
handling
of
regional
phenomena
should
be
at
the
regional
level,
rather
than
at
a
national,
state,
or
local
level.
The
four
propositions
as
stated,
are,
to
my
way
of
thinking,
incontrovertible.
But
each,
if
pushed
too
far,
can
become
an
absurd
assertion.
There
is
no
valid
geographic
version
of
Calvinistic
pre-
destination.
Many
social
phenomena
do
not
coincide
as
to
area.
Some
re-
gional
customs
do
violence
to
national
standards
of
justice
and
should
give
way
to
the
higher
national
standards.
Es-
tablishment
of
regional
governments
would
so
complicate
the
governmen-
tal
structure
that
we
should
soon
tire
of
being
governed
by
such
a
logical
unit.
ANALYSIS
OF
ADMINISTRATIVE
AREAS
Analysis
of
the
administrative
areas
used
by
the
Federal
Government
can
contribute
to
an
evaluation
of
the
re-
gionalists’
position.
Some
instrumen-
talities
of
the
Federal
Government
have
divided
the
country
into
hundreds
of
administrative
districts.
The
National
Recovery
Administration’s
Retail
Code
Authority
had
over
700
local
agencies,
while
its
Food
and
Groceries
Code
Au-
thority
used
110
district
agencies
and
over
600
local
agencies.2
2
The
United
States
Employment
Service
has
750
dis-
tricts .3
However,
such
small
and
nu-
merous
districts
are,
in
the
case
of
most
agencies,
merely
subordinate
areas
of
ad-
ministration.
The
administrative
areas
next
below
Washington
are
character-
istically
formed
by
the
grouping
of
sev-
eral
states
in
such
a
manner
that
the
resultant
scheme
provides
for
not
more
than
seventeen
of
these
major
areas.
The
fact
that
an
agency
has
estab-
lished
a
scheme
of
major
administrative
areas
may
have
little
to
do
with
re-
gionalism.
The
agency
may
simply
be
applying
public
administration’s
span-
of-control
principle.
The
principle
was
well
phrased
by
the
Brownlow
Commit-
tee :
&dquo;The
number
of
immediate
sub-
ordinates
with
whom
an
executive
can
deal
effectively
is
limited.
Just
as
the
hand
can
cover
but
a
few
keys
on
the
piano,
so
there
is
for
management
a
lim-
ited
span
of
control.&dquo;
4
Applied
to
the
problem
of
organizing
a
bureau’s
field
service,
this
means
that
the
Washington
1
This
third
proposition
may
mean
a
nos-
talgic
yearning
for
return
of
a
region’s
golden
age
(as
the
Southern
Agrarians
yearn
for
the
antebellum
South),
or
it
may
mean
a
strong
belief
in
a
future
in
which
each
region
will
contribute
something
distinctive
and
worth
while
to
the
national
life.
See
Howard
W.
Odum,
Southern
Regions
(1936),
and
Howard
W.
Odum
and
Harry
E.
Moore,
American
Regionalism
(1938).
2
Leverett
S.
Lyon,
et
al.,
The
National
Re-
covery
Administration
(1935),
p.
174.
3
W.
Brooke
Graves,
"The
Future
of
the
American
States,"
American
Political
Science
Review
30
(Feb.
1936),
p.
37.
4
President’s
Committee
on
Administrative
Management,
Report
(1937),
p. 34.
at SAGE PUBLICATIONS on November 29, 2012ann.sagepub.comDownloaded from
To continue reading
Request your trial