Many social scientists employed by the government or in the armed services during the war found their research and scientific wisdom not eagerly accepted, wisely interpreted, or sensibly followed by policy-makers. Unlike some of the old-line departments, the war agencies had no established procedure for utilizing social science. Social scientists had a place on the ever-changing organization charts, sometimes merely because it was somewhat vaguely felt that all kinds of brains, even academic, were necessary to win a total war. Often they had to carve out for themselves the specific rôles they wished to play. They functioned, not in accordance with the charts, but within what Mansfield and Marx call informal organizations of their own making.

In many situations, there was a discrepancy between what social scientists thought they could do and what the policy-makers were prepared to let them do. Some sought deliberately to bridge the gap by promoting and marketing their disciplines and themselves. Like their colleagues in the natural sciences, they wished to be consulted when problems involving their own expertness were involved.

The informal techniques that social scientists employed in behalf of social science and themselves are worth recording because certainly similar ones must often be utilized whenever social scientist meets policy-maker. They should be mentioned to any social scientist about to enter government service, so that he can at least be aware of the problem and more easily survive the initial period of disillusionment and misery. They belong, it seems, within the purview of the student of public administration.

Public programs for agriculture challenge social scientists. How do public aids to agriculture affect the economic freedom of farmers? Can losses of economic freedom be balanced by gains in political self-determination through farmers sharing in the adoption and management of public programs for agriculture? Is governmental power conveyed to farm organizations whose leaders (however “broad-gauged” and public-spirited”) lack institutional responsibility to the public? Notwithstanding mutual interdependence of various aspects of the “farm problem,” is there a tendency toward splintering public policy among separate agencies in different commodity fields and among conservation, educational, regulatory, research, and credit agencies? Can the content of public policy be divorced for research from the process of policy formation and execution? Can federalism survive the vigorous development of regulatory programs administered from Washington? Contrarily, does federalism introduce factors which tend to defeat administrative responsibility in federal agencies? Is it possible for publicly-supported research freely to probe controversial issues raised by public policy?

Such questions are increased in pertinence by current circumstances. Major re-directions of farm programs seem in prospect. The Committee on Agriculture in the House of Representatives is holding the first comprehensive hearings on agricultural policy since 1937. Meanwhile, Congress has authorized an expanded research program for agriculture which in itself may embody a marked shift in policy.

Consider the implications for social science of the Hope-Flannagan Act (P.L. 733, 79th Congress). While including important traditional elements, the measure reflects the judgment that the country was thrown into ill-conceived regulatory programs in the 1930's and the assumption that redoubled research into the entire production and distribution process will discover ways to construct public policy which would be at once less arbitrary and more effective than New Deal measures. The challenge to the natural and social sciences concerned with argriculture is clear and profound.

The principal provisions of Sections 9 and 12 of the Hatch Act, designed to limit the political activities of federal employees and of certain state employees, were challenged in two cases decided by the Supreme Court in February, 1947, and held constitutional in both instances by a divided court.

Section 9 of the Hatch Act forbids most officers and employees in the executive branch of the federal government to take “any active part in political management or in political campaigns.” At the same time, all such persons are to “retain the right to vote as they may choose and to express their opinions on all political subjects and candidates.” The penalty for violation of the act is dismissal from the office or position held. A similar prohibition against taking part in political management or political campaigns is imposed by Section 12 of the act on any state or local employees whose principal employment is in connection with any activity financed in whole or in part by federal loans or grants. The activities prohibited are declared by Section 15 to be the same as those previously determined by the United States Civil Service Commission to be prohibited to employees in the classified civil service of the United States.

A whole barrage of charges was brought to bear against the constitutionality of this legislation. As applied to federal employees, the attack was centered on the second sentence of Section 9 of the act, which reads: “No officer or employee in the executive branch of the Federal Government … shall take any active part in political management or in political campaigns.”

The oft-heard argument in behalf of federalism that the states furnish important laboratories for social and political experimentation is illustrated by a good many new constitutional provisions interpreted for the first time this year. Two states, Missouri and Georgia, adopted entirely new constitutions in 1945, important sections of which have come before the highest courts for interpretation. One of these, the Georgia constitution of 1945, provides specifically: “Legislative acts in violation of this constitution or the constitution of the United States, are void, and the judiciary shall so declare them.” Such a provision may very well raise more questions than it settles—for example, what effects can be accorded unconstitutional acts?; can the other agencies of government refuse to perform under statutes they consider unconstitutional?; can the judiciary declare acts of the governor and other officers unconstitutional?; etc. Such questions have not as yet been raised. But there is some evidence that we may be embarking on an era of constitutional revision similar to that which followed the Civil War. If so, the problems of constitutional law now being discussed may furnish a clue to the kind of new documents to be written. This year the emphasis has been on civil rights and methods of adjusting state finances to the rapidly fluctuating value of the dollar—problems which naturally arise out of the intense social and economic conflicts of the past decade.

The relationship between ideas and social and political changes remains one of the major controversial questions in the social sciences. Certain groups, particularly the Marxists and the behaviorists in both psychology and sociology, relegate ideas to a very subordinate rôle. They claim that for the most part changes in ideas are the result of changes in material conditions or other concrete external factors to which men in society must adjust. At the other extreme are certain philosophers, historians, and philosophically inclined political scientists who assign to ideas an outstanding rôle in the development of economic, political, and social institutions.

The controversy is one that has immediate and practical significance, as well as purely scientific importance. If the United States is to achieve a successful adjustment in a world of rapid economic and political change, the country's leaders will need an accurate understanding of the factors behind these changes, and the probable directions of such change. Such understanding cannot be obtained without knowledge of the major factors involved, such as material conditions and abstract ideas, and the relative importance to be attached to each one. Such knowedge is particularly important in assessing changes in the power relationships among America's potential allies and competitors in the modern world. At the present time, if one may judge from the published diaries of our ambassadors, as well as from what is known of the operations of various intelligence agencies that have received a good deal of publicity since the end of the war, there is no general agreement concerning the procedures to be followed in evaluating symbolic and ideological data, such as statements by important foreign leaders, programs of political parties, and the like, as opposed to more concrete data, such as information on natural resources, economic trends, and similar matters.