people believe this merely means that the southern states want the right to deny rights to the Negro. The homosexual is in constant battle with governmental agencies, such as the police, and vice squad, the Post Office, the military, and the civil service, for denials of rights and jobs due to his homosexuality. Homosexuals maintain, as does Goldwater, that the state has no business directing their private lives, although it is not known that Goldwater would apply his beliefs to homosexuals.

While Professor Robson does not supply headline making answers or claims for the problem, he does do what is necessary in finding solutions and changes. What the Professor has done is to first state, in simple, clear, unbiased terms, the problem. He has put the problem in its historical context and taken it out of its immediate emotional involvements.

In the first section of the work, based upon three lectures given by Professor Robson at Louisiana State University's 1963 Edward Douglass White Lecture Series, the background of the governments' growth, comparing different countries, and the growing interference of governments in the everyday lives of their citizens are discussed. Robson points out that bureaucracy is here to stay because it is meeting the needs of the people. The problem is to keep government submissive to the needs of the people. Professor Charles S. Hyneman in his book, Bureaucracy in A Democracy, points out that bureaucracies judged by the way they use their power, not by size and cost; that all who possess power must exercise power within limits acceptable to the nation as a whole; that misdirected use of power will follow if proper controls are not placed upon the government administration; that it is the elective officials who must supply this control. Robson suggests that police review boards could be useful since

are

the citizen sometimes feels helpless before the power of the police or other governmental agencies.

The second part of the book concerns the communication between the citizen and governmental agencies and also communication between the agencies. The great need is for the citizen to understand the government. Prof. Robson observes, however, that in Washington there are over 3,000 information officers merely giving out publicity on different agencies, while there are only half that number of reporters. He mentions that some reporters rely exclusively upon these "hand-out, canned" news statements and do not check their accuracy. He feels that in war time it may be allowable to use distorted reports to keep information secret, but he adds that too many agencies at other times merely cover up blunders and seek to persuade the public to a particular point of view with their canned statements. The Public Health Departments have sometimes done this when reporting on V.D. and the homosexual. In general, to maintain and encourage the citizen's faith in the government, there must be less of the idea of the government being "they" and the citizen being lonely "me."

The final section of the book concerns itself with the citizen's attitude toward politics. We see that all too many citizens take no active part in voting, etc., and merely rely on who and what the government is from what they see on tv. Prof. Robson concludes that if the citizen expects to have more control over the government, he must bestir himself enough to elect good leaders. As he says, "It has been well said that great statesmen, like great poets, speak to one another from peak to peak. Mankind cannot do without great statesmen, least of all in this dangerous, excitable, crisis-laden age in which we live."

William Edward Glover

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