The Administration: Stretching the Limbs

When a Man has Married a Wife, he finds out whether

Her knees & elbows are only glewed together.

—William Blake

The states and cities, indissolubly wedded to the Great Society, have discovered to their chagrin that most of its distributive mechanisms—its knees and elbows—are glued together by a welter of rigid and overlapping legislation.

Never has federal money been more available to communities—and seldom has the source been harder to crack. Five separate agencies subsidize sewage treatment, three programs cater to the needs of deaf children, 30 aid training for teachers. Confusion...