What makes America tick! John Merriman Gaus, professor of Government, fresh from the University of Wisconsin, thinks that in a fundamental way it is the "flexibility" which permits men of every partisan, tie to, cut across dogmatic lines and tackle common problems together. It is the co-operative planning process distinctive to free governments. To public administration expert Gaus the great intangible in United States success rests with "bringing people into practical community problems where they'll forget formal ideologies and get down to some real thinking."

The bright new figure at Littauer this Fall has remained close to the University picture since before the Twenties: first as a graduate student working under Frederick Jackson Turner and as late as 1943 in the Norton Regional Planning chair. He gives the several centers of study in public administration their due but likes to feel that here "more than any other place . . . there is a genuine reflection in the student body of the different parts of the country." This is perfect grist for the mill of a man whose special approach to American government emphasizes the interplay of sectional differences. Gaus earries on his specific researches on civil service and the power-man conjunction within a frame of thinking that is almost a credo. The hall mark is distinguished service. But "politics" will win unless the air of above-board teamwork replaces friction on the base level of political operations--and unless countrywide appreciation of our common cause builds inter-regional harmony.

Fiftyish Gaus looks out on the panorama of men living with one another through deep brown eyes backed by a mind that is a compound of the soft-boiled romantic and the methodical social scientist. One moment his fancy turns to roaming Chicago's like front and standing back to scan story-packed skyline. The next he is advising a governmental agency on nuances of procedural policy. Here lies perhaps the key portion of his career. In his years at Madison he guided the Wisconsin Executive Council through its pioneer efforts to relieve the excessive burden on the legislature by drawing upon the ability of private citizens. From its inception during the NRA until early in the war he served on the staff of the National Resources Commission. Our of his activities on the national scene Gaus has developed fast friendships with such fellow-planners as David E. Lilienthal.

Next term Gaus will add a pet trial offering in "American Development" to his present course in administration--Gov 36--and his seminar on the planning process." Such a partnership between the colorful general sweep of his field and the down-to-earth mechanisms within it typifies his outlook. For nation-forming inherently requires planning, he insists with a sideswipe at "the fluffy talk of the last 15 years which had to be sloughed off for the sake of something really important at the core." The jig isn't up: "this way they won't label me a planner and I can get my work done." People got awfully excited about a word. Gaus is a scholar alive with excitement about the thing happening.