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Prior to 1930 discussion of public investment was conducted largely on the basis of an assumption of full employment within a closed economy. Consequently it centred around the productiveness of public investment as opposed to that undertaken in the privately-operated sector of the economy, the appropriate methods of financing the projects undertaken, and the legitimate spheres of operation of public bodies. The usefulness of public investment projects was believed, in the main, to be confined to their long term contribution to the productiveness of the economy. In practice, even well into the nineteen-thirties, governments, with exceptions, undertook public projects when finances were buoyant and borrowing relatively easy, and curtailed them, in attempts to balance budgets, when depression became serious.After 1930 both in the thought and practices of some central governments and in economic writing the pendulum swung the other way. Main emphasis was laid on the current employment and income giving effects of public investment. This change in emphasis received additional impetus after the advent of The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money when economic discussion became much more concerned with the level of employment than the distribution of the factors of production among alternative uses.The transfer of attention from the long term aspects of public projects to their effect on current employment and income maintenance was accompanied by the shortcomings of practice and thought which are inevitable in an undeveloped field. While a good deal was written and spoken about the desirability of well thought out and well planned investment, insufficient attention was given to its attainment and in practice resort was had to many undertakings whose value, from either a short or long term viewpoint, was dubious. The shortcomings were largely associated with failure to cope adequately with the institutional and administrative problem involved. Further, there was a penchant for fastening on single devices to meet the overall employment problem.

The M. H. Ross Papers contain information pertaining to labor, politics, social issues of the twentieth century, coal mining and its resulting lifestyle, as well as photographs and audio materials. The collection is made up of five different accessions; L2001-05, which is contained in boxes one through 104, L2002-09 in boxes 106 through 120, L2006-16 in boxes 105 and 120, L2001-01 in boxes 120-121, and L2012-20 in boxes 122-125. The campaign materials consist of items from the 1940 and 1948 political campaigns in which Ross participated. These items include campaign cards, posters, speech transcripts, news clippings, rally materials, letters to voters, and fliers. Organizing and arbitration materials covers labor organizing events from "Operation Dixie" in Georgia, the furniture workers in North Carolina, and the Mine-Mill workers in the Western United States. Organizing materials include fliers, correspondence, news articles, radio transcripts, and some related photos. Arbitration files consist of agreements, decisions, and agreement booklets. The social and political research files cover a wide time period (1930's to the late 1970's/early 1980's). The topics include mainly the Ku Klux Klan, racism, Communism, Red Scare, red baiting, United States history, and literature. These files consist mostly of news and journal articles. Ross interacted with coal miners while doing work for the United Mine Workers Association (UMWA) and while working at the Fairmont Clinic in West Virginia. Included in these related files are books, news articles, journals, UMWA reports, and coal miner oral histories conducted by Ross. Tying in to all of the activities Ross participated in during his life were his research and manuscript files. He wrote numerous newspaper and journal articles on history and labor. Later, as he worked for the UMWA and at the Fairmont Clinic, he wrote more in-depth articles about coal miners, their lifestyle, and medical problems they faced (while the Southern Labor Archives has many of Ross's coal mining and lifestyle articles, it does not have any of his medical articles). Along with these articles are the research files Ross collected to write them, which consist of notes, books, and newspaper and journal articles. In additional to his professional career, Ross was adamant about documenting his and his wife's family history in the oral history format. Of particular interest are the recordings of his interviews with his wife's family - they were workers, musicians, and singers of labor and folk songs. Finally, in this collection are a number of photographs and slides, which include images of organizing, coal mining (from the late 19th through 20th centuries), and Appalachia. Of note is a small photo album from the 1930s which contains images from the Summer School for Workers, and more labor organizing. A few audio items are available as well, such as Ross political speeches and an oral history in which Ross was interviewed by his daughter, Jane Ross Davis in 1986. All photographic and audio-visual materials are at the end of their respective series. ; Myron Howard "Mike" Ross was born November 9, 1919 in New York City. He dropped out of school when he was seventeen and moved to Texas, where he worked on a farm. From 1936 until 1939, Ross worked in a bakery in North Carolina. In the summer of 1938, he attended the Southern School for Workers in Asheville, North Carolina. During the fall of 1938, Ross would attend the first Southern Conference on Human Welfare in Birmingham, Alabama. He would attend this conference again in 1940 in Chattanooga, Tennessee. From 1939 to 1940, Ross worked for the United Mine Workers Non-Partisan League in North Carolina, working under John L. Lewis. He was hired as a union organizer by the United Mine Workers of America, and sent to Saltville, Virginia and Rockwood, Tennessee. In 1940, Ross ran for a seat on city council on the People's Platform in Charlotte, North Carolina. During this time, he also married Anne "Buddie" West of Kennesaw, Georgia. From 1941 until 1945, Ross served as an infantryman for the United States Army. He sustained injuries near the Battle of the Bulge in the winter of 1944. From 1945 until 1949, Ross worked for the International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers, then part of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), as a union organizer. He was sent to Macon, Georgia, Savannah, Georgia and to Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where he worked with the United Furniture Workers Union. He began handling arbitration for the unions. In 1948, Ross ran for United States Congress on the Progressive Party ticket in North Carolina. He also served as the secretary for the North Carolina Progressive Party. Ross attended the University of North Carolina law school from 1949 to 1952. He graduated with honors but was denied the bar on the grounds of "character." From 1952 until 1955, he worked for the Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers as a union organizer, first in New Mexico (potash mines) and then in Arizona (copper mines). From 1955 to 1957, Ross attended the Columbia University School of Public Health. He worked for the United Mine Workers of America Welfare and Retirement Fund from 1957 to 1958, where he represented the union in expenditure of health care for mining workers. By 1958, Ross began plans for what would become the Fairmont Clinic, a prepaid group practice in Fairmont, West Virginia, which had the mission of providing high quality medical care for miners and their families. From 1958 until 1978, Ross served as administrator of the Fairmont Clinic. As a result of this work, Ross began researching coal mining, especially coal mining lifestyle, heritage and history of coal mining and disasters. He would interview over one hundred miners (coal miners). Eventually, Ross began writing a manuscript about the history of coal mining. Working for the Rural Practice Program of the University of North Carolina from 1980 until 1987, Ross taught in the medical school. M. H. Ross died on January 31, 1987 in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. ; Digitization of the M. H. Ross Papers was funded by the National Historical Publications and Records Commission.

The current slump in the number of university students taking courses in public administration suggests that this is a good time to reflect on what form education for the public service should take after the war. It is highly probable that many university students will again undertake to prepare themselves for jobs and careers in government, despite an inevitable reduction in the number of federal employees. Educational assistance to veterans may, in fact, cause a large and sudden increase in the numbers attending colleges and universities with an eye to a government job after graduation. I should like to discuss the kind of education which should be offered such students after the war, whether or not they are veterans. My comments are directed primarily toward undergraduate instruction. The advanced work on administrative theory and problems carried on by graduate faculties and candidates for the Ph.D. is a separate subject.Basically, the problem of education for the public service involves two questions. First, what are the most important demands which the public service makes upon the individual? Second, how can the universities contribute most to developing the qualities needed to meet these demands?The demands which the public service makes upon the individual are many and varied. They cannot all be anticipated in advance; and if they could be, there would not be time in the university to give specific training for meeting all of them. Thus some determination must be made as to the kind of demands that are most important. Such a determination was, in fact, being made before the war by university faculties teaching public administration and political science. Students preparing for the public service were being asked to spend an increasing amount of time in the study of techniques, procedures, and skills currently in use in governmental practice. Most prominent among these were personnel management, budgetary and fiscal administration, accounting, statistics, government procurement practice, office management, and similar subjects.

The question of training for administrative posts in the Public Service gives rise to certain questions regarding administration in general, and public administration in particular. What do we mean by administration? Does public administration differ from private administration? What qualities are necessary to make a good public administrator? Can training aid in the development of these qualities? If so, what form should it take? And how can it best be given?"Administration" has been defined as "the performance of the executive duties of an institute or business"; and "public administration" as "the activities of the executive departments in the conduct of government." "Executive duties" as related to public administration have again been defined as "pertaining to the execution of the country's laws," and for the purpose of this discussion, we can perhaps agree that the public administration which we have in mind consists of the carrying out of the law in the various departments of government.Are there fundamental differences between this form of administration and that which prevails in private business? There are at least certain distinctive elements in each. In industry the profit motive is a much more important factor than it is in government. Similarly the question of remuneration bulks more largely in private industry than it does in public administration. While the old conception of a post in the Public Service as "a job for life and a pension afterward" may have passed away, the financial rewards at present attached to administrative positions in the Public Service are not such as to render the public administrator subject to what Seneca speaks of as the most fertile source of human sorrow, namely, great possessions. A public servant, on the other hand, must be much more responsive to public opinion than his counterpart in industry. He must not only carry out a policy but must sense whether or not that policy meets with public approval. He is subject at all times to public criticism and to investigations as to his acts, and this factor has a determining effect upon his methods of administration to a greater degree than exists in industry.

AbstractMachines yearn for return to [good old days] when they capitalzed on public apathy to gain complete control.

In any appraisal of our national government and its ability to shoulder postwar domestic burdens, the rôle of the U. S. Civil Service Commission deserves scrutiny. "Good personnel administration is good public administration," Herbert Emmerich argues conclusively, and the influence which the Civil Service Commission exerts throughout the entire field of federal personnel administration has reached a peak during the past few years never before approached. In what directions and with what success has this influence been wielded? To what extent have the wartime developments pointed the way to permanent gains? What is the probable rôle, what the desirable one, of the Commission in the next few years? These seem to me to be questions upon which we need all the informed points of view we can marshal.