The League of Wisconsin Municipalities has conducted a survey of thirty cities to determine whether damage to concrete through the use of chlorides for ice-control purposes was widespread last winter, and whether any preventive measures have been developed, according to the American Municipal Association.

The 30 responding cities all said they used chlorides in some form to control ice, and half reported some damage to concrete from chlorides. Seven of the cities reported no damage to air-entrained concrete but said there had been damage to concrete not so treated. Only three municipalities reported damage to air-entrained concrete, and one city indicated that there had been damage to both types.

Air-entrained concrete, a recent development, differs from ordinary concrete in containing billions of microscopic air cells per cubic foot. These cells relieve internal pressure in concrete by forming tiny chambers for expansion of water when it freezes. Air-entrained concrete is made by grinding small amounts of soaplike, resinous or fatty materials along with normal cement clinker.

Twenty-one of the reporting cities stated that now or in the future they will require that all concrete used for public pavement be air-entrained.

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Civil Service Assembly, celebrating its golden anniversary, will move into its second half-century under a new name, Public Personnel Association. The title will be effective Jan. 1, 1957.

Kenneth Warner, director of the organization, points out that the first "assembly" was attended by 60 civil service commissioners, while this year more than 1,000 personnel officials will celebrate the fiftieth anniversary. Instead of 20 agency members exchanging occasional ideas, today more than 450 personnel and civil service agencies maintain a network of communications. These agencies provide personnel services to about 4,000,000 public employees.

Mr. Warner goes on to state: "Personnel management now reflects a content broad enough to deal with every facet of human relations—it deals with man before he works, when he is at work, and after he has quit work."

The Assembly established headquarters at the public administration center known as 1313 in Chicago in 1935. At that time a grant from the Spelman Fund, a branch of the Rockefeller Foundation, enabled it to staff its new offices and to expand its program. In the same year, the monthly News Letter was launched. Previous publications had been limited to annual conference proceedings and pamphlets issued from time to time. The current publications program, greatly expanded, includes such titles as "Public Relations for Government Employees," "Personality Tests—Uses and Limitations," and "The Work of Civil Service Commissions."

Around 1937 there was a period of great expansion for the merit system. Collaborating with the National Civil Service Reform League and the National Municipal League, the Assembly at that time drafted a model state civil service law which has had considerable influence on state civil service legislation.

To keep the organization's activities up to date, more than a dozen new committees were activated in 1955 and 1956. They are concerned with organizational matters as well as with such areas as standardized tests, teaching civics, and establishing relations with other agencies concerned with personnel administration.

A committee was also named to develop guidelines for the operation of public personnel agencies in disaster preparedness programs, a reminder of the atomic age undreamed of when the Assembly was founded.