the foundation is frequently a supplier of influence. The private association, as a grouping of individual citizens, is principally a supplier of influence, but because of the multiple role of some associations, it can also supply cerebral substance and money.22 And the government, whose principal product is the combination of authority and money, also functions in a multiple role, and because of its direct participation in research is a significant cerebral supplier. Their multiple roles as suppliers of resources determine the distribution of individual actors in institutional bases. Thus, professional/intellectuals, with the widest spread, are based in all four. Private influentials operate from bases in foundations and private associations. And public officials are, naturally, based in government institutions. The American population policy process is thus visualized as a pattern of multiple roles played by its institutional and individual actors. The roles are linked by a network of multiple relationships among the actors. And the resources which the actors distribute are subject to multiple handling. The process transpires in a setting comprised of open channels of communication among the actors, easy access to one another, and, where general agreement on objectives and methods evolves, a compact structure through which to translate them into policy outputs. Of the three groups of individual actors, the professional/intellectuals wield the greatest influence in policy making because of their presence in all four institutional bases and their access to all categories of resources. Let us now speculate about this policy process in terms of the qualitative issues raised at the beginning of this paper. In proceeding with the analysis, we will be concerned with how the emerging policy process facilitates opportunities for both broad participation and the expression of conflict. We attempt to evaluate these opportunities by focusing on two aspects of the policy process: (1) structural characteristics, such such as the configuration of its principal actors; and (2) behavioral characteristics, for example, what the principal actors do and say. Our analysis is selective, not comprehensive; accordingly, the output will be suggestive, not definitive. THE POPULATION HEARINGS Because of the mass objectives envisioned by the Tydings Bill, the hearings on it provided an opportunity to hear from a broad spectrum of the American public. And since the legislation embodied the individualized family planning formula, the hearings presented an occasion to evaluate this approach. The record of the hearings in both the Senate and House reflects neither broad representation of the mass public. nor a full presentation of the divergent evaluations of the legislative substance.23 The record of testimony reflects a consensus, indeed near unanimity, on the desirability of the legislation. Of 52 statements presented at the Senate hearings, for example, 48 favored the legislative package. And of these, there were only six statements on behalf of the immediate beneficiaries of the legislation-the constituency of females to whom publicly subsidized family planning services would be made available. Of these six, only a single witness could be identified who had first-hand experience as a user of publicly subsidized services.24 The bulk of the supporting testimony came from individuals and institutions that play key roles in the population field. The four statements against the legislation found fault not with the family planning concept, but rather with the propriety of government intervention in this area.25 Especially conspicuous in the record was the absence of anybody who, while supporting government intervention, questioned the family planning concept as an adequate vehicle for dealing with American population growth. Among the more prominent spokesmen for this position are Hardin, Ehrlich, Blake, and Davis,26 Perhaps it is unrealistic to expect the family planning/population control debate to surface in hearings structured to propel a piece of family planning legislation through Congress.27 Nevertheless, a public dialogue on whether the Federal Government should commit itself to a family planning approach might have been more informative, if not effective, had it included the conflicting evaluations of this approach which were already being debated in professional and scientific forums. The inference to be drawn from the Tydings Bill hearings is that, though congressional hearings are formally open to all comers, they are subject to manipulation by coalitions of interested groups, congressmen, and private citizens; thus an agenda can be structured to exclude conflicting positions, and so Participation and Conflict in Making American reduce the potential for controversy in policy formation.28 Equally significant, along with limitations imposed on the scope of the discourse, are the limitations on participation in the discourse as structured. The primary beneficiaries of publicly supported family planning services are the medically indigent. Presumably, this group has something of importance to say about the matter. But the record of the Tydings Bill hearings suggests that they were given no more than symbolic access to a public forum in which they might have addressed themselves to the issues. The absence of spokesmen for inner-city community action groups, welfare recipients, and black and other minority women is notable. It would be naive to expect leaders of these groups to clamor to testify. Many are effectively outside the political system and are not even aware that they might speak in hearings. The relative invisibility of the population problem to this group has already been cited. This issue has not been accorded great priority by poor and minority groups besieged by more obvious pressing problems, especially since many of these people regard the entire population program with apprehension or hostility. There is no evidence that spokesmen of these constituencies were systematically excluded from testifying. However, the organizers of the hearings might have considered soliciting contributions from these groups for pragmatic as well as representational reasons. Not only are these the groups predominantly affected by the legislation, but the outcome of family planning legislation was vulnerable to attack by some of these groups. Primarily, the legislation was criticized on three counts. First, minority leaders had expressed suspicion that the Congress was concerned about curtailing the birth of their babies, but seemed apathetic about the welfare of babies and children already alive. The question these leaders asked was: "Why are they getting so interested in our fertility when they are not interested in anything else?" For example, in speaking of young black militants, Douglas E. Stewart writes: In the communities where they live there is also In 1968, an OEO family planning center in Pittsburgh was forced to close when blacks threatened to bomb it. In conjunction with this episode, Dr. Charles Greenlee, Health Committee Chairman of the Pittsburgh Chapter of the NAACP, wrote that, "since Congress won't pass a Rat Control Bill, it's become popular to kill Black babies by birth control."30 Another black leader threatened riots and firebombing "if anyone tries to operate a birth control project in the area.”31 Secondly, minority spokesmen have viewed family planning as a means of limiting their political power by restricting their numerical increase. Cesar Chavez, addressing himself to the position that people are power, stated that "our only solution is to make the minority much less a minority and make the race progress and multiply."32 Reacting to a Presidential message on family planning, a Florida NAACP spokesman declared: I do not think that the present plan is in the Finally, these suspicions were exacerbated by wariness of black and other minority groups about legislation primarily sponsored by upper-class spokesmen, but directed at ghetto residents. For example, the reaction of one black militant to the institution of family planning legislation was: ... the super-rich, through Ford and Rockefel- The failure to provide a public forum for the expression of these concerns, however faulty and mistaken, could perpetuate both the hostility and its root cause. If these reservations and problems had been voiced effectively during the course of the hearings, possible modifications to the family planning strategy might have been identified and considered. These options could have included: (1) incorporation of family planning into other social and health delivery reforms, instead of formulation as a discrete measure; (2) provisions for community participation in the planning, funding, and administration of the programs. Whatever the merit of these options, they are relevant to the concerns of the affected mass public, and might have been raised if this affected public had enjoyed more effective participation in the policy-making process. The 91st Congress also heard testimony on Presi dent Nixon's recommendation for the establishment of a |