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 Table of Contents

List of Tables, Figures, and Photos viii

Preface to the Fifth Edition xi
What’s Ahead xiii

1 Introducing the Policy Process 1

2 Elements of the Policy-Making System 32
3 The Contexts of Public Policy Making 75
4 Official Actors and Their Roles in Public Policy 113
5 Unofficial Actors and Their Roles in Public Policy 162
6 Agenda Setting, Groups, and Power 205
7 Policies and Policy Types 247
8 Decision Making and Policy Analysis 282
9 Policy Design and Policy Tools 306
10 Policy Implementation, Failure, and Learning 342
11 Science and Theory in the Study of Public Policy 373

Index415

vii
 List of Tables, Figures,
and Photos

Tables
1.1 Defining “Public Policy” 4
1.2 A Public Policy Morphology 10
1.3 Selected Disciplines That Study Public Policy 11
3.1 Elements of American Political Stability 92
3.2 Separation (and Sharing) of Powers 98
4.1 Measuring Legislative Activity: Bills, Amendments, Joint Resolutions, and
Concurrent Resolutions in the 105th, 113th, and 115th Congresses 117
4.2 Committees in the 115th Congress 124
6.1 Types of Causal Theories with Examples 228
7.1 Levels of Policy Codification 250
7.2 Actors, Stability, and Visibility of Various Policy Types 260
7.3 Wilson’s Cost-Benefit Policy Typology 267
8.1 Three Views on the Appropriate Role of the Policy Analyst 293
8.2 Rational-Comprehensive Decision-Making and Bounded Rationality 298
9.1 Elements of Policy Design 308
9.2 Types of Policy Tools or Instruments 328
9.3 Characteristics of Policy Instruments 334
10.1 Explanations for Policy Failure 356
11.1 Anecdotes and Evidence 379

Figures
2.1 The Stages Model of the Policy Process 34
2.2 A Systems Model of Politics and Policy 36

viii
 List of Tables, Figures, and Photos

2.3 U.S. Population, 1900–2017 39

2.4 U.S. Annual Population Growth Rate, 1900–2017 39
2.5 U.S. Population by Age Groups, 1980–2017 40
2.6 Proportion of Population by Select Ethnic or Racial Group, 2000–2017 41
2.7 U.S. Labor Force Participation by Gender and Marital Status, 1960–2017 42
2.8 U.S. Median Family Income by Household Type, 1949–2016 43
2.9 Proportionate U.S. Answers to “Most Important Problem” Question, 1947–2017 48
2.10 Percentage Agreeing America Is “Moving in the Right Direction,” 1995–2018 50
2.11 Percentage of Eligible Electorate Voting, 1789–2018 51
2.12 Average Presidential Approval Ratings, Harry S. Truman to Donald J. Trump 52
2.13 U.S. Presidential and Congressional Approval Ratings, 1974–2017 53
2.14 U.S. Gross Domestic Product, Constant (2017) Dollars, 1929–2017 55
2.15 Federal Budget Deficits and Surpluses, Billions of Constant (2009) Dollars,
1960–201856
2.16 Federal Budget Deficits and Debt as a Percentage of Gross Domestic Product,
1940–202057
2.17 Monthly Unemployment Rate, January 1948–January 2018 58
2.18 Household Income Distribution in the United States, 1967–2017 59
2.19 Comparative Income Distribution (Gini Coefficient) 61
4.1 The Legislative and Regulatory Process 122
4.2 Overall Federal Outlays, Current and Constant Dollars, 1940–2022 139
4.3 Federal Government Outlays as Percentage of GDP, 1940–2022 140
4.4 Federal Government Outlays per Capita, Constant Dollars, 1940–2017 141
4.5 Total Number of State and Local Government Employees, 1982–2015 141
4.6 Comparative Growth of Federal Budget Outlays and Federal Employment,
1981–2018143
5.1 Percentage of Voting Age Electorate Participating in Presidential and Midterm
Elections, 1980–2018 164
5.2 Number of U.S. Newspapers by Day and Time of Publication, 1945–2016 181
5.3 Newspaper Circulation, Daily and Sunday, 1940–2016 182
5.4 Evening Television News Ratings, 1980–2012 184
5.5 Trends in U.S. Home Internet Adoption, 2000–2018 188
6.1 Levels of the Agenda 212
11.1 Kingdon’s Streams Metaphor 386
11.2 The Advocacy Coalition Framework 389
11.3 A Framework for Institutional Analysis 398
11.4 Research Approach in the Narrative Policy Framework 403

ix
List of Tables, Figures, and Photos

Photos
1.1 Depending on the current state of politics, government sometimes changes
what it does and what it does not do. 5
3.1 Photographs such as this one, which became known as “Migrant Mother,” by
photographers working for New Deal agencies, both reflected the need for
New Deal programs and provided political support for a continued and strong
federal government role in relief. 85
3.2 The Social Security Act was a New Deal program that helped protect retirees
from poverty. 86
3.3 This sign, at a bus station in Rome, Georgia, is emblematic of the forms of
discrimination against African Americans that prevailed under Jim Crow laws. 101
3.4 1963 March on Washington. A view of over 200,000 marchers along the Capitol
Mall, August 28, 1963. 103
4.1 The U.S. Capitol building. Why has this building come to symbolize the whole
of the U.S. government? 118
5.1 Individuals in the United States may protest actions of government, industries,
or other people. From what you see here, do these individuals belong to any
formally organized or informal interest groups? What is being expressed with
their signs? 175
6.1 E-Scooter share programs are becoming increasingly popular in many U.S. cities.  208
7.1 A storefront displaying a sign indicating that Supplemental Nutrition Assistance
Program, or S.N.A.P., benefits are accepted there. This is an example of a
“redistributive” policy and, as such, is accompanied by fierce political debates
over these policies’ desirability. Why do you think this is so? 265
9.1 A Transportation Security Administration agent performing a scan on a
passenger. Do you think our system of aviation security was designed through
careful policy analysis? Or as a result of persuasive appeals to “do something”
after the September 11 attacks? Or both, or other reasons? 319

x
 Preface to the
Fifth Edition

In a prior edition of this book, I wrote that “it has long been said that one never really gets to
know a subject until one has to teach it.” If this is true, it’s doubly true that one really learns a
subject when one writes a book about it. Indeed, I’ve learned a great deal about my field in the
course of revising this book, particularly while adding new material based on what I’ve learned in
my own research, and that I’ve learned from my colleagues. Like the prior editions, I have writ-
ten this book to be a starting point in what I hope you will find to be an interesting and fruitful
lifetime of thinking about and engaging in public policy making.
What struck me in rewriting this book is how similar this book is to other books in the
public policy field, and how it’s different. The main point of difference is this: the audience for
this book is students with some background in the study of politics, as well as students with
little or no background in the study of politics, particularly American politics. This aspect of
the book is based in the original motivation for writing this textbook. In the late 1990s and
early 2000s, I was part of the University at Albany’s (SUNY) master’s program in Biodiversity
and Conservation Policy. The program included a required course in politics and policy with an
emphasis on policies relating to environmental conservation. For many students, this course
was initially quite daunting, because most students who study the sciences do not study poli-
tics and policy extensively. Of course, these students were very bright and motivated, but they
found the complexity (or what my students called its “messiness”) and seemingly random com-
plexity of the policy process confusing. There are few “laws” of political behavior that work the
same way as the “laws” of physical phenomena.
My goal in writing this book is to provide an overview of the policy process that acknowledges
this complexity while showing how policy scholars have developed ways that we can think systemat-
ically about a seemingly chaotic process.This systematic thinking doesn’t approach the precision of,
say, a fundamental law of physics. But it helps us to focus on the important variables in policy making,
and, in particular for my students, it helped them to understand their role in this process.
There are many fine books on the public policy process, many of which introduce policy
theory, but which focus more on the actual content of public policy. One of my goals in writing

xi
Preface to the Fifth Edition

this book was to fill in the gap between the end of the theoretical sections of these books—
which are often quite thin, and which sometimes do not account for current scholarship in the
field—and the case studies that are staples in these textbooks. Striking the right balance in the
classroom between the theoretical and the substantive or “practical” is a challenge throughout
the social sciences, and I hope this book helps teachers balance these two important aspects
of the public policy curriculum. Indeed, one of the things I hope to stress is that there’s no real
separation between “theory” and “practice” or the so-called real world. Our theories are funda-
mentally about explaining what happens in the real world, not simply conjectures with no basis
in actual policy making. I have included examples in the book, based on my research or on inter-
esting things I’ve learned about from my colleagues, in the newspapers, or en route to learning
about something else. Such serendipitous discoveries make the study of public policy fresh and
fascinating, and I hope I’ve conveyed some of that excitement in this book.
Another motivation for this book was my interest in providing a primer in public policy for
advanced undergraduates or graduate students in courses and programs that are not primarily
about public policy, but in which an understanding of public policy is particularly useful. Such
courses include, among others, courses on engineering and public policy, science and technology
policy, social welfare policy or, indeed, any field in which government acts, and where students
would benefit from a readable but theoretically informed treatment of the policy process.
I also hope people who are returning to policy studies or are seeking to teach themselves
about the process will find this book useful. Returning students, and those who are pursuing
graduate studies after some years of professional experience, will find that policy studies grow
and change quite quickly. This book is intended to help students, whether they are studying in a
formal educational institution or on their own, to become current with some important ideas
in the study of policy. I urge all readers to think of this book as a beginning or a supplement, and
certainly not the final word on public policy.
Readers of this book will find that this book focuses primarily on policy making in the
United States. Many students will find that this book recapitulates concepts learned in introduc-
tory American politics courses.This is intentional, as this book was designed to provide students
who do not have extensive backgrounds in American politics with a single volume overview of
the policy process. While many of the theories that are introduced in this book can be applied
in other political systems and contexts, my expertise is in policy making in the United States.
Some of the examples contained in this book do draw on experiences from other countries, and
I hope that readers of this book from outside the United States are able to gain some insight
into the policy process in the United States, and to consider how what scholars working in the
United States are developing theories and ideas that have broader applications to other coun-
tries and systems.

xii
 What’s Ahead

This book starts with an overview of the idea of policy studies as both an academic discipline
and an “applied” science. I review my thinking on what makes policy studies an appropriate
endeavor for systematic or scientific study, even when the subject of study seems to be so irra-
tional and even when we are the subject of the discipline itself!
Chapter 2 is an update of key social, economic, and demographic trends that influence and
will influence policy making for some time to come. Most students of political science and of
public policy have a broad sense of the ideas and trends reflected in the graphs contained in
Chapter 2, but I think there will be some surprises and interesting insights as well. This chapter
has been updated to the most current data available at the time of its writing in late 2018.
Chapter 3 focuses on the historical and structural features of American politics that influ-
ence public policy; this chapter contrasts with Chapter 2 in that it describes a more stable
set of external variables that shape public policy. This division between dynamic and changing
environmental variables reflects Paul Sabatier’s thinking in his Advocacy Coalition Framework
(described in greater detail) in the policy process. This discussion is particularly important, as
most political scientists and policy scholars acknowledge the importance of the structure and
rules under which policy making is conducted. Students are often taught—or at least are allowed
to conclude—that the rules and structure are neutral, and that anyone who wants to play the
game can get involved in politics and “make a difference” in their community.
By contrast, I argue that the founders of our constitutional order purposefully designed
our system to favor commercial interests and property holders and to make it hard for mass
publics to mobilize and seek a share of the wealth. For those interested in policy change, the
structure is troubling, for it suggests that mass movements and participatory democracy are not
likely to carry the day in policy debates. But, as highlighted throughout this book, there are cir-
cumstances under which policy can change, and sometimes policy changes quite rapidly. Indeed,
one of the most fascinating aspects of politics comes in understanding when, against the odds,
policy change based on mass mobilization is possible. And, of course, not all change is welcome,
and liberals and conservatives alike have engaged in attempts—often aided by the structure of

xiii
What’s Ahead

our system—to slow down policy change. I draw no normative conclusion here—we can simply
observe that the system is resistant to change to the frustration of some and the relief of others.
The various institutions and people that make public policy are described in Chapters 4 and
5. Chapter 4 describes the official or institutional actors in the process—the legislative, execu-
tive, and judiciary. Chapter 5 continues this discussion with the unofficial actors, such as interest
groups and media, and then outlines the ways in which we think about how all the actors come
together—in “iron triangles,” sub-governments, and issue networks—to debate and negotiate
policy alternatives. Much of this sort of material, particularly in Chapter 4, will be familiar, at least
in form, to students of American politics. My goal here is not simply to enumerate the various
political institutions but, instead, to explain why these institutions matter in making the public
policies that govern our lives.
Groups, power, and agenda setting are reviewed in Chapter 6. This is discussed at some
length, as agenda setting is among the most important stages of the policy process (and, not
coincidentally, it is the “stage” of the policy process in which much of my own research has been
focused). It is at this stage that groups exercise political power to achieve their goals, either by
promoting change or blocking it. The use of power in politics is subtle and complex, particularly
in our political system. Understanding of what power is, how it is acquired, and how it is used
to prevent issues from gaining attention is a key to understanding why any political system
does some things while not doing others, even in the face of obvious needs or logic that would
seem to compel a “superior” course of action. Again, this question of power is challenging, and
raises important questions about fairness, equity, and democratic governance, which are import-
ant considerations in any policy context.
Chapter 7 then describes several different ways one can categorize the substance of pol-
icies to better understand the political process behind making these policies. Like so much in
public policy studies, these descriptions of policy types are not final, but they are useful as a way
of stimulating thinking about what governments do, and what we ask governments to do.
Chapters 8, 9, and 10 were newly organized in the Fourth Edition, and this new organiza-
tion appears to have appealed to many students and instructors. Chapter 8 considers the rela-
tionship between the study of the policy process and the profession of the policy analyst. Many
students in the courses for which this book is assigned aspire to be policy analysts. I hope this
discussion is helpful in locating their role as analysts within the broader public policy process
while stimulating interest in reading more extensive books that are typically assigned in pol-
icy analysis courses. Chapter 8 helps explain how policy analysis and policy process studies
have common roots in work by, in particular, Harold Lasswell, but I also hope to highlight that
studies of the policy process differ in important ways from the study of policy analysis as a
professional practice.
Chapter 9 is devoted to a discussion of policy design and policy tools. While this subject is
inextricably related to the success or failure of policy implementation, the discussion of policy

xiv
 What’s Ahead

implementation, failure, and learning is contained in its own chapter (Chapter 10). Policy imple-
mentation is a well-studied aspect of the policy process, which considers the oft-forgotten work
that must come after the excitement of policy enactment has passed. Implementation—putting
a program into effect—is often as difficult and contentious as policy design and enactment, and
in some cases is more difficult to manage. Because of the difficulties inherent in policy design
and implementation, many people will claim that policies have failed to meet their goals. I have
updated Chapter 10 with additional references and a discussion of the current state of imple-
mentation studies, which, to preview, is a lot more vibrant and active than what many scholars—
including myself—have believed about implementation. I then link implementation to ideas of
policy failure by outlining the various ways in which any policy can be said to be a failure. The
complexity of policy making, with interconnectedness of policy impacts but disjointed policy
design, makes real or claimed failure almost inevitable based on how one defines failure, which
makes policy implementation that much more daunting.
Chapter 11 puts all these elements of policy making together by considering modern theo-
ries of the policy process. By exploring theories and thinking of the policy process as a “system,”
the inputs to and outputs from the political system are summarized and discussed in terms
of their relationship to the political system, or what is often called “the black box” in systems
models. The second half of the chapter discusses five of the most commonly used frameworks
for studying the policy process. Five different approaches or frameworks are introduced, and the
descriptions of these approaches has been substantially expanded so as to introduce students to
these approaches. My hope is that this whets your appetite for further study of these approaches,
which are fascinating and which have remarkable similarities and important differences.

Public Policy in the Early Twenty-First Century

When the First Edition of this book was written, the Clinton administration was coming to
an end. Eight years of relatively robust economic growth was continuing, the Internet boom
seemed, to some, an unlimited engine of growth and innovation, and Americans felt reasonably
secure at home and abroad. The end of the Cold War gave Americans the luxury to once again
turn inward, for the first time since the dark days just before World War II. This is not to say
that the nation had no policy problems, including the state of the economy. But, by and large,
the nation was at peace, and was prosperous broadly (even as wealth become more unevenly
distributed), and contentment was reasonably high.
This sense of contentment was replaced by an initial sense of fear, then by long-term unease,
after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. For weeks and months after September 11, it
seemed to all of us that everything had changed. Americans were less concerned about domes-
tic politics. We were confronted with the possibility of catastrophic terrorism of the sort that

xv
What’s Ahead

could kill millions of people. As time passed, concerns about terrorism eased somewhat, but not
to their levels before September 11.
In any case, concerns about terrorism were replaced by deep concern with the state of the
national economy. The costs of the “bailout” of financial institutions, and of automakers GM and
Chrysler, helped cause the federal budget deficit to balloon to near-record levels. The growth
in the federal budget deficit slowed until after the election of Donald Trump as president in
2016. The major tax reform (or tax cut, depending on your position) enacted in 2017 yielded
decreased federal revenue and ballooning budget deficits.
It is a testament to the capacity and resilience of the American political and policy system
that some issues remain important even in the face of challenges like the financial crisis, ter-
rorism, environmental disasters, and the outcome of one of the most contentious elections in
American history. Because we are a large, generally wealthy, and powerful nation founded on a
set of principles that people hold dear—democracy, constitutional government, the rule of law,
and liberty, to name a few—these political controversies will persist in American politics, not
because we enjoy arguing (although some of us do enter politics for this reason!) but because
many people passionately care about these issues, and believe just as passionately that their
ideas are the ones that will work best. This passion has been evident in elections since at least
2008. And these passions help set policy-making goals for people who get involved in the policy
process. This book is about how these passions are translated into actions by government.

***

In the nearly 20 years since I first began writing this book, I have been privileged to hear from
many colleagues, students, and friends about how they used this book. I greatly value their
comments and suggestions.The First Edition would not have been possible without the extraor-
dinary help and support of Scott Barclay, Brian Davis, Mark Donovan, Ben Fordham, Jennifer
Krausnick, Regina Lawrence, Peter May, Henrik Minassians, Bob Nakamura, and Beryl Radin.
In the Second Edition, I acknowledged the debt I still owe to my students in my undergrad-
uate course, Introduction to Public Policy, and in my graduate courses in Politics and Policy and
Biodiversity and Conservation Policy at the University at Albany. And my friend and colleague
Sarah Anderson at Albany was a helpful and patient reader and critic. At Albany, two teaching
assistants, Paul Alexander and Michael Deegan, created the core of the definitions of the key
terms and the discussion questions.
Since joining the faculty at North Carolina State, I have revised this book three times,
with the assistance of advanced graduate students and undergraduates. The foundation for this
edition was laid, in the Fourth Edition, by an outstanding group of Ph.D. students at NC State—
Susan Camilleri, Annie Izod, Emily McCartha, and Meg Warnement—who, at various times,
took on the tedious work of updating citations, graphs and charts, and the other things that

xvi
 What’s Ahead

have improved this edition. For the current edition of this book, graduate students Zach Lewis
and Katy Schwaeble tackled the many updates that were required. Our graduate student Brad
­Johnson—an expert on the public participation process in public policy—contributed much of
the case study on net neutrality in Chapter 7. Any errors or omissions are, of course, mine, and
there would be many more were it not for the fantastic students I’ve worked with over the
years. I also owe a particular debt to Kristin O’Donovan, of Wayne State University, and Rob
DeLeo, of Bentley University, both of whom provided me with extensive comments and ideas
that I was able to use to improve this book.To all those friends and colleagues whose help I have
failed to acknowledge, I thank you all for your support, ideas, and friendship.
One thing hasn’t changed: I still dedicate this book to my wife Molly, and my kids Oskar and
Ike, for their love, patience, and tolerance of dad taking over the one really good computer in
the house during writing time. The boys are now starting to come of that age when politics and
government seems more relevant and immediate to them. I hope that, in writing this book, I can
inspire them and members of their generation, as well as the generations that came before and
will come after, to take an active interest in politics, government, and the maintenance of the
democratic institutions on which our system depends.

xvii
 Introducing the Policy
1 Process

CHAPTER AT A GLANCE

CC Overview

CC What Is Public Policy?

CC The Policy Process and Policy Studies

CC The Place of Policy Studies in the Social Sciences

CC Politics in the Policy Process

CC What Makes Public Policy Public?

CC Why Do We Study Public Policy?

CC Evidence and Argument in the Policy Process

CC Case Study: Does the DARE Program Work?

CC Conclusion

CC Key Terms

CC Questions for Discussion, Reflection, and Research

CC Additional Reading

CC References

1
Introducing the Policy Process

Overview
This book is about how public policy is made in the United States. My goal in writing this book
is to introduce you to the way in which social scientists have developed theories of how public
policies are designed, enacted, and implemented. In particular, this book is about the public pol-
icy process, drawing on current research on how policy is made. This focus on policy process
theory sets this book apart from those textbooks on public policy that tend to summarize the
substance of public policy, such as “environmental policy” or “energy policy” or “health policy.”
Other public policy textbooks approach public policy from an economic perspective—as a form
of policy analysis, which can be rather different from analysis based in politics (Stone 2012) (I
take this topic up in Chapter 8). Many of these books develop new theories of the policy process,
but often those theories are unique to these textbooks, and are unfamiliar to those of us who
study policy making as a political activity.
This book focuses on approaches to the policy process that are currently being developed,
applied, tested, and refined by an active, interdisciplinary community of scholars from around the
world. I am very privileged to be a member of this community, and one of my goals in this book
is to invite you to join this diverse and lively community of scholars, and to help you to navigate
the wealth of ideas being generated in contemporary policy research.
This book describes how policy is shaped by and, in turn, shapes the social, institutional,
political, economic context in which public policy is made. Much of this description will be
familiar to anyone who has studied political science and, in particular, American politics. The
difference between this book and an introductory American politics textbook is that I am inter-
ested in how groups, institutions, and structures influence public policy making, starting with the
assumption that the proponents of new policies firmly believe that there are real problems that
require government attention, and that their preferred solutions are the best way to address
these problems.
Understanding the policy process in the way I outline in this book may help you to make
sense of how and why government makes decisions about what to do. For example, why
does the U.S. government allow some people to deduct mortgage interest from their income
taxes? Why don’t other countries, like Canada, offer similar incentives to buy houses? Why
don’t renters get similar tax breaks, or why don’t landlords get tax breaks that might reduce
rents? Would such tax breaks reduce rents? Why doesn’t the United States have a single-payer,
comprehensive health insurance system like many other countries? Why is the idea of creating
such a system so passionately resisted by some people? Why does the United States regulate
gun ownership far less stringently than do other nations? Of course, we could reframe the
question: why do other countries have stricter gun laws? What is it about different countries’
constitutions, cultures, politics, and institutions that make them differ from one another? In

2
 Introducing the Policy Process

particular, what is it about the United States that makes it similar to other countries, as well
as different?
Other questions reveal puzzlement over the constitutional structure, and how that struc-
ture influences public policy. Why is the federal government so deeply involved in crime and
education policy when the U.S. constitutional system places the primary responsibility for these
programs in the state and local governments? Why would some states and the federal govern-
ment permit the use of capital punishment for certain crimes, while other states have stopped
using capital punishment? Another class of questions relates to the policy tools governments
employ to achieve certain goals. Is regulation of consumer product safety better for public safety,
or would greater reliance on the market and better information for consumers work better to
promote public safety? Do lower taxes on the wealthy spur greater investment in job creation,
or do lower taxes simply starve government of the funds to provide what we might argue are
essential public services, such as education or law enforcement? These are questions that moti-
vate many people of all ideological and political persuasions to better the public policy process
and its role in identifying, defining, and seeking solutions to public problems.
We ask these kinds of questions because we assume people want to be problem solvers, and
many people think that government should either help to solve problems or, where they believe
that government causes more problems than it solves, people want government to get out of
the way. People, therefore, study the policy process to better understand why government does
what it does, but people also study the process to learn how to create the policies they want
government to pursue. People participate in policy making because they perceive that there are
problems for which government, at some level, can provide solutions. Others participate, in turn,
because they believe that those problems may not exist at all, or, if they do exist, they are best
handled by markets, or by families, or by nonprofit organizations, or churches, or any number of
other means. We study public policy because we want to understand these problems. But, more
to the point of this book, we study the public policy process to better understand how people
and groups define problems, how they seek solutions to those problems, and how they persuade
other people that their ideas are superior to those promoted by other people and groups. The
ultimate goal for many policy scholars, as I will explore in more depth in the final chapter of this
book, is to help us to understand the conditions under which policies change.

What Is Public Policy?

In any field, the definition of key terms and ideas is very important, but even the simplest terms
can be defined rather differently by different scholars. There are many possible ways to define
“public policy.” For many people, defining what we mean by public policy helps them define their

3
Introducing the Policy Process

own role in policy making, as well as that of the organization they work for. As I was writing
this chapter for the First Edition of this book, a member of the policy analysis office of a New
York State agency called me. The agency was engaging in a strategic planning initiative; to do so,
it needed to establish its mission—its very reason for existence. Because this agency influences
taxation, spending, and government performance assessment—that is, public policy in the broad
sense—the caller was particularly interested in defining the term public policy, because it was
clear to her that her agency did indeed make public policy, but how could they be sure without
a good definition of the idea? She wanted a definition so that her agency could know better how
public policy relates to its work. The analyst ran through a list of the classic public policy texts,
and asked if these were good sources of a definition of public policy. She was puzzled because it
was hard to know which definition was the “right” one.
She was asking for a definition of “public policy” so that her agency could more readily
distinguish what is and what is not public policy, so as to focus its efforts on its public policy func-
tions. I shared with her Thomas Dye’s argument that the search for a definition of public policy
can degenerate into a word game that, eventually, does little to improve our understanding of the
idea. I suggested to the caller that she review the definitions outlined in Table 1.1, which shows
some examples of the definitions of public policy that one could draw from, and some strengths
and weaknesses of these definitions.

TABLE 1.1
Defining “Public Policy”

Definition Author
“The term public policy always refers to the actions of Clarke E. Cochran et al.a
government and the intentions that determine those actions.”
“Public policy is the outcome of the struggle in government over Clarke E. Cochran et al.
who gets what.”
“Whatever governments choose to do or not to do.” Thomas Dyeb
“Public policy consists of political decisions for implementing Charles L. Cochran and Eloise
programs to achieve societal goals.” F. Malonec
“Stated most simply, public policy is the sum of government B. Guy Petersd
activities, whether acting directly or through agents, as it has an
influence on the life of citizens.”

a Clarke E. Cochran et al., American Public Policy: An Introduction. 10th edn (Boston, MA: Cengage Wadsworth, 2010).
b Thomas R. Dye, Understanding Public Policy. 14th edn (Boston, MA: Pearson, 2013).
c Charles L. Cochran and Eloise F. Malone, Public Policy: Perspectives and Choices. 4th edn (Boulder, CO: Lynne
Rienner Publishers, 2010).
d B. Guy Peters, American Public Policy: Promise and Performance. 8th edn (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 2010).

4
 Introducing the Policy Process

No single definition may ever be developed, but we can see these key attributes of public
policy:

CC Public policy is made in response to some sort of problem and that deserves some sort of
government response.
CC Public policy is made in the “public interest,” a term enclosed in quotation marks because
not everyone will agree on the public interest.
CC Policy is interpreted and implemented by public and private actors who have different moti-
vations, and therefore will bring different interpretations of problems and solutions.
CC Public policy is oriented toward a goal or desired state, such as reducing the incidence or
severity of some sort of a problem.
CC Policy is ultimately made by governments (Howlett, Ramesh, and Perl 2009, 5), even if the
ideas come from outside government or through the interaction of government and non-
governmental actors.

PHOTO 1.1
Depending on the current state of politics, government sometimes changes what it does and what it does
not do.
Source: Shutterstock.

5
Introducing the Policy Process

While reaching a consensus on one definition of public policy has proved difficult, all the
variants of the definition suggest that public policy making is public—it affects a greater variety
of people and interests than do private decisions. This is why government and the policies made
by government are sometimes so controversial, frustrating and, at the same time, very important.
I define a policy as a statement by government—at whatever level, in whatever form—of
what it intends to do about a public problem. For example, a law that says that those caught
driving while intoxicated will go to jail or lose their driving privileges is a statement of gov-
ernmental policy to punish drunk drivers. The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) is a
statement of government policy about how the federal government will make decisions that
affect the natural environment.The First Amendment is itself a statement of public policy, which
specifies that Congress cannot abridge religious, speech, or press freedoms, by stating, “Con-
gress shall make no law . . .” The First Amendment is, therefore, a statement about where the
federal government will make no policy; of course, the interpretation of whether some policy
that is actually made somehow violates the First Amendment poses very difficult legal and
political decisions. These decisions are usually made by the courts. For example, the Court’s
decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 558 U.S. 310 (2010), is a statement of
policy that claims to implement the free speech provisions of the First Amendment to the
Constitution, by stating that the federal government cannot regulate the independent political
speech of nonprofit organizations.

policy A statement by government of what it intends to do, such as a law, regulation,

ruling, decision, order, or a combination of these. The lack of such statements may also
be an implicit statement of a policy not to do something.

Because many scholars also define public policy as what government chooses not to do, we can
say that the lack of a definitive statement of policy may be evidence of an implicit policy decision,
which is quite different from a clear and explicit statement of policy, or from a vague and broad
statement of policy. The United States government has never declared, as a legal or constitu-
tional matter, rights to education, or healthcare, or decent housing, or a living wage; therefore,
we can assume that the implicit policy is that there is no right to these things, while some other
nations do express these as rights. By not making them rights, our government puts these sorts
of government or private services in a different category than, for example, the right to worship
or to have a jury trial. While we might pass policies to address the problems that arise when
dealing with these policy matters, we generally do not treat them as matters of right. In the
United States, one cannot claim that the failure of the federal government to provide education,
healthcare, or many other things violates a right stated or implied by the Constitution, although
people do make arguments based on rights to attempt to enact favorable policies (on the issue
of rights as policies, see Stone 2012, Chapter 15).

6
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
swept up the chips and patched the fence and whitewashed it. By
this time Mr. Carson had the fever, too. He started to clear off the
land, all the family helping him. All summer long they worked, early
and late, cutting out the briars and underbrush, burning broom sage,
building fences, and by fall you wouldn’t have known it for the same
place. They worked for a number of other people, too, and made a
little money, besides taking seed corn and a pair of little pigs and
other things they needed in payment.
“Well, it took a lot of money for a monument like Andy’s was to be,
but the Carsons worked and saved for it. It seemed as if they had set
a new standard for themselves and were trying hard to live up to
Andy’s monument.
“They painted the house and repaired and whitewashed the
outbuildings and put a paling fence around the front yard. They got
lace curtains and a store carpet for their best room, and when Father
got us a piano, Mrs. Carson bought our organ for a trifle. They got
new clothes and dishes and tablecloths, and every Sunday they all
came to meeting and asked folks home with them to dinner just as
anybody else did.
“Dave Orbison was courting Maggie, and Willie was ready to go to
the academy. He wanted an education and came to our house every
week to get Truman to help him with his studies or to borrow books.
If it hadn’t been for the monument, people would have forgotten that
the Carsons had ever been considered lazy or shiftless.
“But Mrs. Carson was always talking about the monument. She
had never had Andy’s funeral sermon preached, and she planned to
have it preached the Sunday after the monument was set up.
“And at the end of three years they had enough money, but for
some reason they didn’t get the monument. Everybody wondered
about it. Weeks went by, and still no news of the monument. Willie
often came to our house, but he never mentioned it. Then one day
Mrs. Carson came. She had a horse now, and she looked longer and
thinner than ever in her black calico riding skirt.
 “Mother was fitting a dress on me—a red wool delaine for Sundays
—but Mrs. Carson dropped into a chair without even glancing at it.
“‘Mrs. Purviance,’ she began immediately, ‘I want your honest
opinion about something. For over three years now we’ve been
saving for Andy’s monument, and until a few weeks ago I never had
a thought but that that was the right thing to do with the money. But
one night I got to thinking that here was Willie wanting an education,
and Maggie getting ready to be married and no money to help her
set up housekeeping, and Lissy longing for music lessons, and I
couldn’t sleep for thinking. And, Mrs. Purviance, I haven’t had a
minute’s peace since. That’s why I haven’t ordered the monument. I
can’t make up my mind to it. It’ll be a long time before we can help
Willie much if we spend the monument money. It looks as if he ought
to have his chance. And of course the money won’t help Andy any,
but I had set my heart on a fine monument for him. I don’t know what
to do,” and she started to cry.

“Mrs. Carson,” said Mother, “you have given Andy a better

monument than you can ever set up in the cemetery”

“‘Mrs. Carson,’ Mother said gently, and there were tears in her
eyes, too, ‘if you want to know what I really think, I’ll tell you. I think
that as far as honoring Andy is concerned you and your family have
already given him a much better monument than any you can ever
set up in the cemetery.’
“Mother ran a pin straight into me and I jumped, and Mother said
she was done with me for a while. I went out, and that was the last I
heard of the monument until the Sunday Andy’s funeral sermon was
to be preached.
“There had been so much talk about the monument and the long
put-off funeral sermon that there was an unusually large crowd at the
church that day.
“And some of them were disappointed, for when the service was
over and we filed out, the Carsons first, past the flower-decked
graves to the corner where Andy was buried, there was Andy’s grave
adorned with only a plain little head stone. But grouped around it
stood his family, and the way that family had improved in the three
years since Andy’s death—well, as my mother said, that was a pretty
fine monument for Andy, don’t you think so?
“And now don’t forget your ‘apple a day,’ and good night to
everybody.”
 MEMORY VERSES
Grandma had been reading aloud from Pink’s Sunday-school
paper and when she finished she said:
“We didn’t have anything like this when I was a little girl. We didn’t
even have any Sunday school. The nearest thing to Sunday school
was when we recited our memory verses on meeting day. Every
week we learned so many verses from the Bible, and on meeting
day the preacher heard us recite them.
“I remember one year—it was Reverend Bard’s second year—that
in order to get the children to take more interest in learning the
verses, the preacher offered a Testament to the one who could say
the most verses by a certain time. We were all eager to get the
Testament, and we did study harder than usual.
“The contest was to take place on Sunday afternoon. There was to
be preaching in the morning, dinner on the grounds, and in the
afternoon a prayer meeting and the memory-verse contest. There
would be a large crowd, and anyone who wanted to could try for the
Testament. Even the smallest children would say what verses they
knew.
“Charlie was always hunting for the shortest verses, and he hadn’t
learned very many of any kind till toward the last. Then he learned
five or six a day and carried a Bible around in his pocket wherever
he went and studied every spare minute.
“I had been getting my verses regularly every week and I had a
good memory. So I wasn’t much afraid of anyone beating me except
Charlie or Annie Brierly or maybe Betty Bard, the preacher’s
granddaughter. Betty knew a lot of verses, but at the last minute she
was likely to get to thinking of something else and forget them.
“On Saturday Betty and Annie came to see me, and Betty said that
Lissy Carson was going to try for the Testament, too. The Carsons
hadn’t been coming to meeting very long, but Betty, when she had
been there to call with her grandfather a few days before, said Lissy
knew fifty-one verses.
“‘And I think she ought to have the Testament,’ announced Betty.
‘Grandfather said it would encourage the whole family. If you two
girls and Charlie and I let her say more verses than we do, she
would get it.’
“‘But if we knew more verses and just let her get the Testament on
purpose,’ put in Annie, ‘it wouldn’t be right, would it?’
“‘But see how hard she’s trying,’ argued Betty. ‘The Carsons have
nothing but the big family Bible, and Lissy has to stand by the table
and learn her verses out of it. If she works so hard and doesn’t get
anything, she might think there’s no use in trying.’
“Annie looked stubborn.
“‘My Father said he would give me a dollar if I get the Testament,’
she said, ‘and I mean to try for it. You can do as you like, Betty, but I
will say all the verses I know.’
“‘I should hate to have Lissy get ahead of me,’ I explained, ‘when
I’ve always gone to meeting and she hasn’t and I am in the fifth
reader and she is only in the third. It would look as if she was so
much smarter than I am and Mother hates to have us thought a bit
backward.’
“At these arguments Betty herself looked uncertain.
“‘Well, maybe you’re right,’ she remarked. ‘I know it would
disappoint Grandfather if I only said a few verses, for he says I
should be an example to the other children.’ Then she saw Charlie
picking up some early apples in the orchard. ‘Let’s see what Charlie
says,’ she cried, and was off across the road with Annie and me
following.
“When we had explained the matter to Charlie, he looked at us
scornfully. ‘I never saw such sillies,’ he said. ‘If you girls pull out,
though, it will make it that much easier for the rest of us. I’m for the
Testament.’ Then he pretended he was reading from a book he held
in his hand, ‘Presented to Charles Purviance by his pastor for
excellence—.’ Betty started after him, and then Annie and I chased
him, too, and we got to playing ‘tag’ and forgot all about Lissy and
the Testament.
“Sunday was a beautiful day, bright and sunshiny. From miles
around people came to attend the all-day service. There were many
strangers. With the Orbisons came Mr. Orbison’s sister and her
granddaughter, a little girl about my age named Mary Lou, who was
visiting away from California. Mary Lou wore a silk dress and lace
mitts and a hat with long velvet streamers and she carried a pink
parasol.

Mary Lou wore a silk dress and lace mitts and carried a pink
parasol

“Tables had been set up in the grove across from the church, and
at noon, after the morning sermon, dinner was served. There was
fried chicken and boiled ham and pickles and pie and cake and
everything good you could think of, and the people had all they could
eat.
“After dinner Mrs. Orbison brought Mary Lou over to where Annie
and Betty and I were sitting and left her to get acquainted, so she
said. But Mary Lou didn’t want to get acquainted with us. She just
wanted to talk about herself. She told us that she had three silk
dresses and eleven dolls and a string of red beads and a pony not
much larger than a dog and ever so many other things.
“‘Don’t you have a silk dress for Sunday?’ she asked, looking at
my blue sprigged lawn, which until then I had thought very nice.
“‘No,’ I replied. And I added crossly, ‘My mother says it’s not what
you’ve got that counts but what you are,’ though I’m free to confess I
didn’t get much consolation from this thought, then.
“Pretty soon we went into the church, and after a prayer and some
songs the smaller children began to go up one by one to say their
verses. Brother Bard kept count and as they finished each verse he
would call out the number of it.
“After a while he came to Lissy Carson, and every one was
surprised when she kept on until at last she had recited sixty-one
verses, two more than anyone else had given so far.
“I looked at Betty, but she sat with downcast eyes and flushed
cheeks. Annie looked scared, and I couldn’t see Charlie. Then Betty
was called on and she said fifty-eight verses and quit.
“‘Are you sure that is all, Betty?’ her grandfather said in a puzzled
tone.
“‘Yes, sir,’ Betty replied and took her seat.
“I came next and I had made up my mind by then that I wouldn’t
keep Lissy from getting the Testament, so I recited fifty-nine verses. I
can still see the amazement in Mother’s face when I sat down.
“Annie Brierly gave fifty-nine and Charlie sixty, though of course,
like Betty and me, they each knew many more verses than that.
Lissy would get the Testament, and I was glad of it when I saw her
sitting there so proud and happy. Why didn’t Reverend Bard give it to
her at once and be done with it? Whatever was he waiting for? Then
I saw. Mary Lou, the strange little girl, was tripping up front in all her
finery as self-possessed as you please.
 “And what do you think? She said sixty-three verses and got the
Testament!
“Well, you can imagine how Annie and Betty and Charlie and I felt,
though Charlie wouldn’t talk about it even to me. He never admitted
but what he’d said all the verses he knew, though I knew better.
Hadn’t I heard him at home reciting chapter after chapter when he
thought no one was listening?
“We girls went around behind the church to talk it over, and Annie
cried a little, and Betty stamped her foot and said she wasn’t an
example any more and she wished Mary Lou would tear her parasol
and lose her mitts and get caught in a rain and spoil her hat. And we
all got to laughing and forgot our disappointment.
“And now it’s bedtime for three little children I know.”
 THE COURTING OF POLLY ANN
One evening when Bobby and Alice and Pink came to Grandma’s
room they found her sitting before the fire rocking gently to and fro
and looking thoughtfully at something she held in her hand. When
they had drawn up their stools and sat down, she handed the object
to them and they passed it from one to the other, examining it
eagerly.
It was a button—a pearl button of a peculiar shape, fancifully
carved. The holes were filled with silk thread, attaching to the button
a bit of faded flannel as if it had been forcibly torn from a garment.
“I found that button today,” Grandma began, “when I was looking
for something else, in a little box in the bottom of my trunk. I had
forgotten I had it. It came off my brother Stanley’s fancy waistcoat,
and the way of it was this:
“Stanley had been away at school all year, and when he came
home he had some stylish new clothes—among other things a pair
of lavender trousers and a waistcoat to match and a ruffled shirt and
some gay silk cravats.
“Every Sunday he dressed up as fine as could be, and all the girls
were nice to him. But he didn’t pay any attention to any of them
except Polly Ann Nesbit, who was the prettiest girl in all the country
round about. Some people called Polly Ann’s hair red, but it wasn’t. It
was a deep rich auburn, and she had brown eyes and a fair creamy
skin. Besides being pretty she was sweet-tempered, though lively
and gay.
“Polly Ann had so many beaux that when she was sixteen every
one thought she would be married before the year was out, and her
father—Polly Ann was his only child—said that he wouldn’t give Polly
Ann to any man. He needn’t have worried, for Polly Ann was so hard
to please that she was still unwed at twenty when Stanley came
home from school. By that time her father was telling every one how
much land he meant to give Polly Ann when she married.
“Stanley hadn’t been home very long until he, like all the other
boys, was crazy about Polly Ann, and she favored him more than
any of the others. Stanley went to see her every week and escorted
her home from parties and singings and took her to ride on Sunday
afternoons in his new top buggy. Father suspected he would be
wanting to get married, and told him he could have the wheat field on
what we called the upper place, to put in a winter crop for himself.
“Then one night at a party at Orbison’s Stanley wore his new
lavender waistcoat. Polly Ann wagered the other girls that she could
have a button off the waistcoat for her button string, and they
wagered her she couldn’t.
“That night when Stanley asked Polly Ann if he might see her
home she said he could if he would give her a button off his
waistcoat. It must have been hard for Stanley, for he knew he could
never wear the waistcoat again if he did as she asked and that he
couldn’t go with Polly Ann any more if he refused. He had no knife
and he wouldn’t borrow one, so he just wrenched a button off and
gave it to Polly Ann.
“When the girls went upstairs to put on their wraps, Polly Ann
showed the button to them and they had lots of fun about it. The next
morning Aggie told Stanley what Polly Ann had done and how every
one was laughing at him.
“Stanley was at breakfast. There was no one in the kitchen but
Stanley and Aggie and me, and they didn’t pay any attention to me. I
remember how red Stanley’s face got when Aggie told him, and his
chin, which had a dimple, seemed suddenly to get square like
Father’s. I thought to myself that Polly Ann Nesbit had better look
out, for, as Father often told us, ‘he who laughs last, laughs best.’
Stanley did get even with Polly Ann, though not in the way we
thought he would.
“Before he went to work that morning he wrote her a letter and
paid Charlie a quarter for taking it to her. Charlie told me that Polly
Ann was in the front yard by herself when he gave her the letter and
when she read it she just laughed and laughed, but that she put it in
her pocket for safekeeping.
“Stanley was as nice as ever to her when they met, but he didn’t
go to see her any more or take her buggy riding on Sunday
afternoons. He took Mother or me instead, and I thought it very nice.
Stanley went right ahead ploughing up his wheat field just as if
nothing had happened, and when he got through with that he began
to fix up a little cottage where brother Joe had lived for two years
after he was married.
 Polly Ann was in the front yard when Charlie gave her the letter

“He built a new kitchen, at the side instead of at the back where
most people built their kitchens, so his wife could see the road when
she was working, he said. And he added a front porch with railings
and a seat at each end and painted the house white and set out rose
bushes and honeysuckle vines and began to buy the furniture.
“Of course it caused a great deal of talk, and every one wondered
whom Stanley was going to marry. The girls would laugh about
Stanley’s house and say they wouldn’t marry a man who wouldn’t let
them furnish their own house. And often they would tease Polly Ann,
but she would only toss her head and say nothing.
“And all the time Stanley worked away, singing and whistling as
happy as could be. When any one questioned him, he would say he
meant to keep bachelor’s hall, or that he hadn’t decided what he
would do, or that he planned to marry the sweetest girl he knew.
Belle and Aggie were wild to know what girl he meant. They tried in
every way to find out, but they couldn’t.
“Stanley often talked in his sleep, and they would listen to hear
whether he mentioned a girl’s name, but they could never
understand what he said. Some one told the girls to tie a string
around Stanley’s great toe and when he talked to pull the string
gently and he would repeat clearly what he had just said.
“One night Belle and Aggie did this, but instead of a string they
used a piece of red yarn. When they were pulling it, it snapped in
two, and Stanley woke up and found the yarn on his toe and jumped
out of bed and chased the girls squealing and giggling into their
room, and Father came out to see what was the matter.
“But finally the house was done, even to the last shining pan, and
Mother had given Stanley so many quilts and blankets and things
that Charlie grumbled and said there would be nothing left for the
rest of us.
“One afternoon I was up at the cottage with Stanley planting some
of Mother’s wonderful yellow chrysanthemums by the garden fence.
Stanley was building a lattice at the end of the porch for a climbing
rose which he had only just set out, when the front gate clicked and
there, coming up the path, was Polly Ann Nesbit. Her cheeks were
rosy and she was laughing.
 “‘I’ve brought it myself, Stanley,’ she cried gaily. ‘You said in your
letter to send you the button when I was ready to marry you, but I’ve
brought it instead. Do you—do you still want it?’ and she held out
this little button, the very one Stanley had pulled off his lavender
waistcoat to please her.
“I looked at Stanley, so straight and tall and handsome though he
was in his everyday clothes, to see what he would do.
“‘Do I want it?’ he cried starting toward her. ‘Why, Polly Ann, I’ve
just been longing for that button. I never wanted anything so much in
my life. I was only afraid you wouldn’t give it to me.’ He put his arms
around her and they went in to look at the house. When they had
gone in, I saw this little button lying on the path almost at my feet,
and I picked it up and skipped home to tell Mother and the girls that
Stanley was going to marry Polly Ann after all.
“And now, ‘’night, ’night,’ and pleasant dreams.”
 EARNING A VIOLIN
“And you don’t like to practice!” Grandma exclaimed in surprise
when Bobby told her why he did not like to take violin lessons. “But
you’ll have to practice, you know, or you will never learn to play. I
knew a boy once, who dearly liked to practice. I think I’ll tell you
about him. It was my brother Charlie. Charlie had wanted a violin
ever since he was just a little bit of a fellow and had first heard old
Mr. Potter play on his violin.
“Mr. Potter was a traveling tailor who went around the country
making and mending men’s clothing. He carried his goods from
place to place in pack saddles, and he always brought his violin
along.
“In the evenings he would play, and we all loved to hear him. He
played beautifully. All Charlie and I had ever heard before were
things like ‘Pop goes the Weasel,’ or ‘Turkey in the Straw.’ There
was such a difference between these tunes and what Mr. Potter
played that the first time Charlie heard him play—‘Annie Laurie,’ I
think it was—he walked up to him and said very solemnly, ‘I like a
violin better than a fiddle,’ and everybody laughed.
“Years before, Mr. Potter had had a thriving trade, but when I knew
him he did not get much to do because store suits for men had
become common. Mother always found some work for him, though,
and in his spare time he gave violin lessons.
“He was in our neighborhood several weeks each spring, and one
winter Charlie determined to have a violin and be ready to take
lessons when he came next time.
“So right away he began to save money for a violin. But there
wasn’t much Charlie could do to earn money, and it looked as
though he would never get enough for a violin, let alone enough for
an instruction book and lessons. But he did get the violin, and this is
how it came about.
“It was one of the coldest winters anyone remembered in years. A
deep snow lay on the ground for weeks and weeks, and the roads
were frozen hard and as smooth as glass.
“There was a sawmill about eight miles down the road from our
house, and every day we could see men passing on their way to the
mill with logs. Big iron hooks called ‘dogs’ would be driven into the
logs and fastened to a heavy chain which would be hitched to a
single-tree, and the log would be dragged over the smooth road by
one horse. It was an easy way to get logs to the mill, and every one
was hurrying to haul as many as possible before the thaw came.

“I like a violin better than a fiddle,” said Charlie to Mr. Potter

“Father had cut one big walnut log when he had been called to
serve on jury duty and had gone to Clayville to attend court. Before
he went, Charlie asked him what he would do with that one log and
Father told Charlie he could have it. Charlie could hardly believe his
ears and he asked Father whether he really meant that he could
have the money for the log if he could get it to the mill. Father said
that was what he meant, but afterward he told Mother he never
dreamed Charlie would try to do it.
“But from the first Charlie intended to move that walnut log to the
mill. He thought of nothing else. He made plan after plan. He found
out from the storekeeper that the man who owned the sawmill came
to the store Saturday afternoons to buy supplies for the next week.
So when Charlie and I went to the store for Mother on the next
Saturday we sat by the stove to warm ourselves and wait for the
sawmill man. When he came, Charlie asked him whether he would
buy the walnut log.
“‘Well, that depends,’ said the man, looking Charlie over good-
naturedly. ‘I’m not anxious to lay in any more logs than we’ve
bargained for. We’re going to move Wednesday.’ Then when he saw
the disappointment on Charlie’s face he asked, ‘Pretty good log, is
it?’
“‘Oh, yes, sir,’ said Charlie eagerly. ‘My father said when he cut it
that it was first grade—woods-grown, ten or twelve feet long.’
“‘Well, if that’s the case, I reckon I could use it,’ said the man. ‘Be
sure to have it in by Tuesday, though.’
“We went home by way of Mr. Brierly’s, and Charlie got permission
to borrow his logging chain and ‘dogs,’ as they were called. We
stopped to look at the log, and Charlie declared he could get it to the
mill without any trouble. He could have, too, if it hadn’t been for the
thaw.
“Sunday was the longest day Charlie ever put in. Sometimes he
would get discouraged and think he couldn’t do it at all. Then the
next minute he would be talking about the kind of violin he would get
with the money the log would bring. Father had come home for over
Sunday and he would help him get started, the older boys being
away from home.
“Sunday, after dinner, the weather turned slightly warmer, and by
four o’clock a gentle rain was falling. When Charlie got up long
before daylight Monday morning, Mother told him that it had rained
hard all night. He fed the horse and ate his breakfast, and Father
helped him drive the hooks or dogs into the log. Then Charlie was
off.
“He got the log as far as Sugar Creek without any trouble, and
there what a sight met his eyes! Sugar Creek was out of bank, and
the shallow stream, easily forded the year round, was like an angry,
rushing little river filled with cakes of ice. To ford it was clearly
impossible till the ice went out, and even then the current would be
rapid and dangerous. There was nothing to do but wait, and Charlie
unhitched the horse and came back home. It was still raining and
thawing and it didn’t get any better all that day. The next morning,
though, the creek was clear of ice, which was some advantage.
“I went with Charlie and sat on the log, feeling very helpless while
he walked up and down the creek bank trying to think of some way
to get the log across. The current was so strong that, though the
horse could swim it, he could not swim and drag the heavy log along.
“Charlie examined the foot-log carefully and found that it had not
been moved by the high water, being chained at each bank to a big
tree. Then he made his plan. He fastened some strong rope he had
brought along to the chain which went around the walnut log.
Holding the other end of the rope, he got on the horse and made him
swim to the opposite bank. Then he fastened the rope at that side to
the single-tree and urged the horse up the bank.
“The horse tugged and pulled and finally the log moved slowly
down into the water. Now came the test of Charlie’s plan. If the foot-
log proved strong enough to withstand the jar it would get when the
walnut log hit it, everything would be all right; but if the foot-log gave
way, Charlie would have to cut the rope quickly to keep the horse
from being drawn back into the water, and the walnut log would float
down stream and be lost.
“I almost held my breath when the walnut log, sucked rapidly down
the stream by the swift current, struck the foot-log. I shut my eyes
tight and did not open them until I heard Charlie shouting for joy. The
foot-log hadn’t budged! Because of the high water Charlie thought it
would be easy for the horse to pull the log out on the ground, but the
log stuck on something under the water. Charlie couldn’t raise the
log up, and he had to let it slide back into the water. It slid back
several times before it finally came out on the road.
“It was nearly noon and Charlie was wet to the waist, so he went
back home to change his clothes and get a fresh horse. After dinner
he started out again. He got to the mill all right and sold the log, and
when he reached home late that night he had money enough for a
violin.
“When Father heard about it, he was so proud of him that he
doubled the money. So Charlie had more than enough for his
lessons and his instruction book, too.”
“And did he really like to practice?” asked Bobby unbelievingly.
“Yes, indeed, and he came to be a fine violinist and owned a violin
that cost a great deal of money, but he always kept that first one, too.
“There! Mother’s calling you to bed.”
 AT THE FAIR
“We’re going to the fair tomorrow, Grandma. It’s childrens’ day,”
announced Bobby one evening when he and Alice and Pink came to
Grandma’s room for their usual evening call and story.
“Are you going, Grandma?” inquired Pink.
“Why, I may go. I don’t know yet. Do you like to go to the fair?”
“Yeh, boy!” interrupted Bobby eagerly. “And this year they’re going
to give a pony away. I wish I’d get that pony.”
“That would be nice,” agreed Grandma. “I think I’ll tell you tonight
about the time we took our horse, Prince, to the fair at Clayville. I
had been to the fair several times before, and I always loved to go.
To get up early in the morning, and dress and eat breakfast and start
before daylight with a big basket of dinner tucked away in the back of
the surrey; to take the long pleasant drive through the cool of the
morning and at last go through the gates into the fair grounds and
see all the people and hear the noise of the sideshow barkers and
the bands and the balloon whistles and the lowing of cattle, uneasy
because of their strange quarters, was every bit of it a joy to me—
usually.
“But this particular year it wasn’t a pleasure to look forward to the
fair at all, even though there was to be a balloon ascension. For
when we went to the fair Father was going to take Prince along and
sell him to a horse dealer. Father had raised Prince, and we all loved
him, especially Charlie and I. He was nine years old, but he still
looked like a colt. His coat was brown and glossy, and he was as
playful and active as he had ever been. When he had been a colt,
the older children had petted him and fed him sugar. Charlie and I
had taken it up when they left off, so that he had always been used
to children and loved them.