LETTERS TO THE COLONEL A MESSAGE FROM STEPHEN A. OSBORN, PRESIDENT NEW YORK TO PHILADELPHIA COACH RUN THIRD ANNUAL STONY BROOK DRIVING MEET WHIP-STOCK MAKING WAS PENNSYLVANIA INDUSTRY RAIN RELENTS IN TIME FOR MARATHON, by Charles IV. Kellogg THE MASTEN SHAY, by Ivan Crowell . ........ . ......... . CARRIAGES ADD TO NEW ORLEANS HORSE SHOW .. . .. .. .. . ALL ROADS LEAD TO COLORADO SPRINGS, by Charles IV. Kellogg. 1973 DRIVING EVENTS ... . .... .. ... .. . ..... .. . . . POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE, by Lida Fleitman Bloodgood . . . THE PIERCE A. MILLER HORSE AND BUGGY COLLECTION HACKNEYS AND MORGANS WIN AT MILLBROOK ........ . TRIBUTE TO COL. DOWNING . ......... . .. .. ... .. . DRAFT HORSE EXTRAVAGANZA IN THE NORTHWEST, by Glenda Polinder. IN TANDEM HITCHING LEAD BARS ARE BEST, by Charles IV. Kellogg . A LIFT FOR AN IRISH BRIDE'S WEDDING DAY MR. WILLIAMS' PATENTED "PRESERVER" UPHOLSTERY FIRM IN CARRIAGE SETTING AN INSTANCE OF HUMAN WEAKNESS

The party whips are essential components of the U.S. legislative system, responsible for marshalling party votes and keeping House and Senate party members in line. In The Whips, C. Lawrence Evans offers a comprehensive exploration of coalition building and legislative strategy in the U.S. House and Senate, ranging from the relatively bipartisan, committee-dominated chambers of the 1950s to the highly polarized congresses of the 2000s. In addition to roll call votes and personal interviews with lawmakers and staff, Evans examines the personal papers of dozens of former leaders of the House and Senate, especially former whips. These records allowed Evans to create a database of nearly 1,500 internal leadership polls on hundreds of significant bills across five decades of recent congressional history. The result is a rich and sweeping understanding of congressional party leaders at work. Since the whips provide valuable political intelligence, they are essential to understanding how coalitions are forged and deals are made on Capitol Hill.

Government is under enormous pressure to change. Call it reinventing, reengineering, or plain old change, but the mandate remains the same: produce more with less, and satisfy the customer while doing it. Yet, successful reform must involve more than exhortation and slogans. Paul Light argues that a failure to pay attention to the thickening of government over the past half century may doom any reinventing effort. The federal government has never had so many leaders. There are more layers of management between the top and bottom of government, with more administrative units and occupants at each layer. Bill Clinton is further from the frontlines of government than any president in American history. If the past decades are any indication, he will exit a presidency that is even thicker. Light presents a revealing look at how thick the bureaucracy really is, how and why thickening occurs, what difference it might make, and what can be done to both reverse the process and keep the thickening from growing back. Light shows how the management layers between the top and bottom of government—between air traffic controllers and the Secretary of Transportation, food inspectors and the Secretary of Agriculture, and so on—have steadily increased. In 1960, for example, John F. Kennedy's senior-most appointments came in four layers: secretary, under secretary, assistant secretary, and deputy assistant secretary. By 1992, the number of layers had tripled. In the meantime, the number of occupants at each layer grew geometrically; the number of assistant secretaries jumped from 81 to 212. A government of managers means the president has very little direct access or control over what happens far below, a basic problem of accountability. Information gets distorted on the way up, and guidance gets lost on the way down. Thickening often creates so many bureaucratic baffles that no one can be held accountable for any decision; mid-level workers may have so many bosses that they effectively have none. Light concludes that practically nothing by way of quality management, service-government, or employee involvement can work with these towering government agencies. But practically nothing will fail if a radical "down- layering" is undertaken now.

Whips of one sort or another have been around for centuries where the predominant material used in their construction was leather. Not so now, before the handling and use of leather left whip making in the domain of those skilled with such materials but the humble nylon Paracord now enables anyone with the will and determination to make their own robust, strong whip at a fraction of the price of a leather one. If you are such a person, then read within these pages and learn how to make one, or all three of the whips covered in this manual.