The Management of Purpose by Lewis Anthony Dexter

Author:Lewis Anthony Dexter [Dexter, Lewis Anthony]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Political Science, General, History & Theory
ISBN: 9781351479769
Google: fqw0DwAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 36705317
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2009-07-31T00:00:00+00:00

When a congressman was not much influenced by his district

Representative Warburton (R., DE, 1953–5) provided a particularly clear example of the way in which a congressman may select the kind of communications he hears. In answer to a question from me, he said to his secretary, “Am I right? We haven’t received mail from more than five people on this tariff business.” I looked somewhat astounded and she replied, “Yes, except of course for the pressure groups.” The congressman had instructed her to segregate all recognized pressure-group mail. And he added, quite offhandedly, that he would discount “because of his self-interest,” one out of the five people who had written him about the tariff. His attitude may, in part at least, explain why the chemical companies and other industries in the state had never given him “any particular specifications” on the tariff. It certainly clarifies his assertion that his approach to the problem of communications had “choked off” pressure-group mail.

Such an approach is relatively easy in Delaware11 where DuPont, because of its tremendous size and consciousness of its own vulnerability, has developed a practice and to some extent a doctrine of self-restraint. In a sense, Congressman Warburton’s procedure12 was made much easier because of the effect upon DuPont of the munitions investigations of twenty years ago and its subsequent earnest effort never, never, never to get into that sort of trouble again. Thus it could happen when a prominent Delaware Democrat was asked why DuPont had not put on a campaign in regard to tariff matters (if, as it was reported, DuPont was hostile to the Reciprocal Trade Extension Act) that he said in a genuinely shocked voice, “Oh, the company would never allow that, two or three letters at the most.”

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.