Public Administration Clearing House
| Date | 01 June 1957 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9299.1957.tb01193.x |
| Published date | 01 June 1957 |
Public Administration Clearing
House
HE
years between the wars saw a notable development in the Unitcd
T
Statcs of organisations devoted to the study of public administration
and to the improvement of administrative practices, An important impetus
came from the Spelman Fund of New York, when it gave grants
in
the
1930s
to
set up Public Administration Clearing House, a body designed to bring
together under
a
common roof existing professional organisations in the
field of public administration, and to help to establish new ones for which
there seemed to be a need.
In
1938
the present Clearing House was opened at
1313
East 60th Street,
Chicago. Ths handsome building stands
on
land owned by the University
of Chicago, and was erected under an agreement with
the
University which
provides that the students and faculty may use the library and materials
of the Clearing House, thus making
“
1313
”
a source of study and research.
For the past
25
years Public Administration Clearing House has served
two r8les.
It
has helped to provide a home, and a library and other common
services, for more than a dozen important organisations such as the Council
of
State Govcrnments, the International City Managers Association, the
Public Perscnnel Association and the Federation of Tax Administrators.
It
has also undertaken certain pioneering activities
of
its own, and in this
it
was
recently helped by grants from the Ford Foundation. These activities
included special research projects, maintaining contacts and communications
with university faculties and research centres, and liaison work with federal
government agencies and with international organisations. It took particular
interest in the international field and in assistance
to
officials in newly self-
governing countries.
Unfortunately Public Administration Clearing House was not endowed
and, on the expiration of its long-term grants, its governing body came
to the conclusion that it should go into a period
of
orderly liquidation and
transfer its responsibility for the management of the
“
1313
”
centre to the
organisations headquartered there. The new controlling body from the
beginning
of
1957
is Public Administration Service, a non-profit-making
consultancy service already housed in the Clearing House, and on whose
Board of Trustees all the organisation housed in
“
1313
”
have a representative.
Public Administration Clearing House has had only two Directors.
The first was Louis Brownlow, who served from
1930
to
1945,
and who,
in the mid-1930s, was Chairman of the President’s Committee on Admin-
istrative Management. Mr. Brownlow is still active. He recently published
the first volume of his autobiography,
Passion
for
Politics
(Chicago University
Pressj, and has lately undertaken a course
of
university lectures. The second
Director was Herbert Emmerich, who has
also
been a good friend
of
the
Royal Institute of Public Administration’s
in
recent years and who is known
to many of its members. He took part in an Institute conference at Ashridge
in 1947 and was entertained by members during his \.isit to London in
1951.
Mr. Emmerich has now taken up an appointment as a Consultant in Public
Administration in the Technical Assistance Administration of thc United
Nations.
One of the organisations which Public Administration Clearing House
192
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