MAIN
336.73
Tl24e
Economy and Efficiency
in Government
WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT, LL.D.
"Government accounting fearful and wonderful."
"The government goes on without knowing its
condition, because there is no limit to the taxable
resources of the people."
"Politicians are interested only on the side of the
ledger, expenditures: If we have not got the money
we can have another tax."
"Mouths of European Chancellors of the Ex¬
chequer would water if they had taxables the
United States has."
"We are likely to reach the end of our rope in
taxing."
"Congress thinks country so rich that saving is
not necessary."
"After a while there will be a temporary kind
of bankruptcy and then we will wake up !"
"If we are going into the paternal business, into
the operation of enterprises that have heretofore
been carried on through private enterprise, we will
bankrupt the government."
THE COMMERCIAL CLUB OF CHICAGO
The Commercial Club Organized 1877
The Merchants Club Organized 1896
United 1907
Economy and Efficiency
in Government
WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT, LL.D.
From the proceedings of the Two Hundred and Thirty-Seventh
Meeting of The Commercial Club of Chicago,
at The Blackstone, Friday evening,
November twentieth, 1914
Anrîê6c
3 3 fe, n 3
ECONOMY AND EFFICIENCY IN
GOVERNMENT
By William Howard Taft
Gentlemen of the Commercial Club: I feel it a great
privilege to be with you once again. I am an honorary
member of the Commercial Club of Cincinnati, and there¬
fore I feel as if I were an associate member of the Com¬
mercial Club of Chicago. The truth is, as I look back
over a good many years, I can remember most pleasant
experiences in meeting you, gentlemen who form the bus¬
iness activities of the great cities of Chicago, St. Louis,
Boston and Cincinnati, if you will allow me to include
Cincinnati among the great cities, and I am glad to say that
I number among those clubs many intimate friends. I
(J feel as if I could claim your gratitude, at least that of a
part of your members, for a very delightful trip to Panama;
for I claim that I originated the idea in this city, and being
Secretary of War was able to push it along until we got you
down there, and then secured from you a report that was
most useful to those of us who were in Washington then and
) responsible for the carrying on of the canal work.
4 There is only one incident comes back to me that in
Í your enthusiasm over the canal, when you heard that Mr.
•* Stevens was going to leave you sent a protest and a request
^hat we refuse to accept his resignation. And then we
"»-appointed Goethals, and Goethals has put through the
^anal. Stevens had done great work, but Goethals has
Y done greater work, and they are both entitled to credit.
'^But I remember how with much hesitation we took the
step which we had under the circumstances to take. You
did not know all the circumstances or the condition of mind
of Mr. Stevens that lead to his voluntary resignation and
made it useless for us to press him to continue. But that
3
4
THE COMMERCIAL CLUB OF CHICAGO
work has gone on and I never see it that I do not think of
the Commercial Clubs.
This subject I am to speak on tonight brings to mind
the Commercial Club, As I left New York I traveled
awhile with Mr. Norton, or just before I left New York,
Charles D. Norton. He was my secretary when I was
President. He was a member of this club, which in his
present position he seems to like to remember as the mil¬
lionaires' club. He said to give his good wishes to his as¬
sociates of the millionaires' club. When a man becomes
vice-president of the First National Bank of New York
I think he gets so used to that atmosphere that he cannot
think of his associates in any other way. But Norton is a
remarkable man, and he was very much interested in the
subject of municipal research, the bureaus of municipal
research, and this matter of economy and eflSciency.
I had had much interest in it in the Philippines, but
he was able to give me very much more definite knowledge
than I had had of the methods pursued by the municipal
bureaus of research, and it was at his instance that I took
the action that led to the organization of the Commission
of Economy and EflSciency.
Now the question of reducing the expenses of the gov¬
ernment is not so easy a one as the public generally think,
and I venture to say unless you have had special experience
in governmental matters, it is very much more diflScult
than in the case of business men managing great institutions
where they have their board of directors who have a desire
to cut down expenses, and a motive for doing so, because
it aflfects the dividends. It is very much more difficult
in the case of the government where there is not any divi¬
dend that is declared for anyone and where the people
that have to pay the piper are so lacking in general knowl¬
edge of the details that their views do not have to be very
much consulted. They have to be referred to pleasantly in
platforms, such as we have heard here tonight, and then the
matter is dismissed until the next platforms are to be drawn.
ECONOMY AND EFFICIENCY IN GOVERNMENT 5
How are you going to reduce expenses? By just a
horizontal reduction of every appropriation bill? Cut
every appropriation bill down twenty per cent? That would
so interfere with the operations of the government that we
would get into a great deal worse condition if we did that
than we are in today, bad as that is.
We have got to know where the extravagance is and
find out also where there is such niggardly treatment of
bureaus and departments that to secure efficiency they
should have increased appropriations.
Now how are you going to exercise such discrimination?
Do you think a head of a department, even if he has been
in two or three years, or the President, knows enough to do
that intelligently? If so, you are mistaken.
I went at the subject once with an axe. I just notified
the head of every department that those appropriations
had to be reduced. The estimates had to be cut down.
I would not permit the Secretary of the Treasury to send
them in or the heads of the department to send them to the
Secretary of the Treasury until those appropriations were
cut down, so that they were cut down fifty million dollars.
I said: "I will deal with Congress truthfully. I will
tell them exactly how little we can get on with." And so we
did. And that year we did reduce the appropriation, and
I think it is the only instance there is in the history of the
last twenty-five or thirty years, except during the years
immediately following the enormous appropriations of the
Civil or Spanish Wars, when there was a reduction in
estimates from one year to the next. Ordinarily there is a
normal percentage of increase in the annual appropriations,
due to the normal growth of the country. You cannot help
that. But this was a reduction.
Well, what was the result? In the first place. Congress
took the statement that we made in the same way that it
takes every statement of an estimate. They think it is a
good, healthy method with appropriations in which they
are not particularly interested, to reduce them about
6
THE COMMERCIAL CLUB OF CHICAGO
twenty per cent below the estimate, and thus it becomes the
general understanding that the heads of departments and of
bureaus shall make their estimates twenty per cent more, so
that when the reduction comes it will come to what they
really think they need. But they treated my truthful
statement that way, and so the appropriations were re¬
duced, and when the next year came the cuts had so in¬
terfered with the operation of many of the departments that
we had to have deficiency bills and the appropriations were
increased. This is a lesson as to what can be done by an
earnest desire to do something without the exact knowledge
of how to do it.
Now this government is a growth; it is a growth of one
hundred years. When we needed a room on the house
we put it on, and we put it just where it was most convenient
to put it. We put it where it suited the poUtical convenience
of the particular Congress to put it; and as a consequence, it
is very poor architecture, symmetrical when begim in
Hamilton's time, but now having no form at all.
There had been, or was until we brought it in, no general
statement of what the government activities are, no book
to which you could refer to find out what the present
organization of the government is. That is the first step
that has to be taken in order to reach a reasonable method
of retrenchment, and it is a very laborious work.
In the Phihppines we organized the government and
carried it on for four or five years in that way, adding de¬
partments as the government grew and as we thought we
needed them. Then at the end of five years we appointed
a committee to go into the organization as it was and with
full power to reorganize it and cut down and change salaries
and classify positions, to avoid duphcations and see if we
could not reduce the expenses.
Well, that was a young government. It was not a
large government, and we were able to accomphsh our pur¬
pose in that regard. But that is what we have to do in the
United States Government, an enormous government, be-
ECONOMY AND EFFICIENCY IN GOVERNMENT 7
fore we can effect economy and bring about the greater
efficiency that we seek.
Now I want to invite your attention to what we did do.
In the first place the commission was formed under an ap¬
propriation of a lump sum to enable the President to devise
some method for improvement in the public service and for
economy and efficiency. I appointed Mr. Cleveland, who
had been for ten years engaged with bureaus of municipal
research; Professor Goodnow, who is now president of the
Johns Hopkins University and who before that was an ex¬
pert in the matter of preparation of municipal legislation and
was professor of political science at Columbia University;
Professor Willoughby, who had been the treasurer and
auditor of the Porto Rican government; Mr. Warwick, who
had been the deputy comptroller of the treasury and also
the auditor of the Panama Commission; Mr. Chance, who
had for twenty years been a clerk and was the auditor of the
Post Office Department, and at one time private secretary
of Mr. Root; and Mr. Chase, who was the Public Accountant.
That commission had men on it who had served in all
executive parts of the government. They understood
government control, and they also understood accounts, and
they understood the structure of government and the means
of bringing about economy.
The first thing they did was to investigate and try to
find out what our government was from the standpoint of
governmental activity, and it was a very great labor. It
has not been printed. We did not have money enough to
print the result of their findings in this regard. Congress
did not see fit to print it. The report traced all the govern¬
ment activities clear down to the smallest unit, and they did
that for what? They did it because they could not analyze
the work they had to do until they knew the whole field and
had it before them.
After they did that, they proceeded to an analysis of
the functions, and they found duplications, to which I
shall refer; they found overlaps, though not as completely
8
THE COMMERCIAL CLUB OF CHICAGO
and fully as they would have found had they had more time.
I shall give you something of what they did find in the matter
of duplieations. They found that there were seven de¬
partments dealing with the subject of facilities for transpor¬
tation; that there were four departments and three com¬
missions for the regulation of commerce and banking; that
there were two departments and the Library of Congress
dealing with copyrights and patents; that there were five
departments dealing with agriculture, forestry, fisheries,
and the care of the public domain, and that there were five
departments having to do with the promotion and protection
of the public health. There were six departments dealing
with the care and education of defective delinquents and
dependents.
That is enough for illustration, but it does not cover
the duplications. Then they proceeded to make a report
as methods of economy in special bureaus, just for the pur¬
pose of giving to Congress samples. That was my direction
to them, to show Congress something definite, "show them
something you have discovered in order that we may say
to them, 'Here is something that can be saved, and it is an
illustration of what we can do if you will only give us
money and give us the opportunity.' "
So they recommended the union of the fife saving
service, of the deep sea rescue work, and of the lighthouse
service, showing that it would save a million dollars an¬
nually. They advised that the revenue marine be a part
of the navy, which would save annually several hundred
thousand dollars.
They have a revenue marine which is a navy in itself
and they have a school for the training of the revenue men,
revenue naval officers. It is a very nice school. My
friend MacVeagh delighted to go down there and deliver
commencement addresses to those young men who were
coming on. They pointed out that we could do this revenue
business, so far as it involves the sea, through the navy, and
not interfere with the real efficiency of the revenue service.
ECONOMY AND EFFICIENCY IN GOVERNMENT 9
I shall not go into the health instrumentality, the dupli¬
cation of laboratories, and the possibility of a concentration
and saving in that regard. I am only going over this merely
for the purpose of illustration, the main purpose for which we
used these reports with Congress and did not succeed. I
hope I shall succeed better with you.
They examined the question of dealing with the carrying
of public documents to be published in the City of Washing¬
ton. By concentration in one department for that distribu¬
tion- near where they were to be delivered to the railroads
they pointed out that they could save $250,000 annually.
In the mere matter of using window envelopes there
could be saved $250,000 in the government service in
Washington. By copying by photography they could save
$100,000. In recovering the stock of cancelled paper
money we could save $100,000. In handling the cor¬
respondence in the office of the War Department we could
save $400,000 a year.
Now, I want to refer to that. That saving was chiefly
in the Adjutant General's office. We supposed and had
always been led to suppose that the Adjutant General's office
was the best run office in the United States; and it was in one
respect. ■ But from the standpoint of economy it was any¬
thing but that. They pursued methods that were twenty-
five years old, as the commission reported.
I want to give you the meat in the cocoanut. General
Ainsworth was a very able man. He found that members
of Congress were very anxious to get returns promptly with
reference to the war service of their constituents who were
looking for special pensions, and he concluded that efficiency
in that direction was something that he ought to cultivate.
He said that he would bring about a condition (and he
kept his word) in which any request as to the military
record of any man that had been in the army could be
looked up in those records — they are very voluminous —
and sent to the Congressman who requested it by the next
morning's mail after the request was secured.
10
THE COMMERCIAL CLUB OF CHICAGO
Well, he had a reputation in Congress that was worth
having when you want to get appropriations, I can teU you,
and he was able to get legislation such as he wished. He
secured legislation by which on the statute books it was
provided that no clerk in the Adjutant General's office
could be used in any other part of the War Department.
Well, now, what did the investigation show in that
department with reference to economy and efficiency? It
showed, in the first place, that as compared with other
offices there were employed seven times as many clerks
in that office as there were in other offices with similar
volume of work; it showed that the cost of mailing was
something like ten times per thousand letters what it was
in other offices; and the consequence was that of course the
cost ran up in order to bring about that efficiency which the
members of Congress desired. I think that for those
special pensions they might have waited just as long as
other persons connected with the government were waiting
for their claims and for the disposition of other matters of
equal interest.
In the five offices of the War Department that the com¬
mission had time to examine they foimd that by changing
the method and reducing some of the speed with which
those letters could be answered in the Adjutant General's
office, they could reduce the expenses, without affecting the
efficiency, $400,000 a year.
Then there was another reform—a reduction in cost and
an increase in efficiency by a change in the method of
appointments. I know, and you know if you have had any
interest in political matters, that there are quite a number
of pleasant official berths in each city and congressional
district in which the occupant represents the United States;
that those offices are filled by persons appointed by the
President and confirmed by the Senate; that the fact that
they are confirmed by the Senate prevents the President
from putting them in the classified service. I do not mean to
reflect on the heads of those offices, but substantially it
ECONOMY AND EFFICIENCY IN GOVERNMENT 11
comes down to this: I was myself a collector of internal
revenue once, and therefore I can speak with confidence on
the subject. If the heads of those oflSices were all taken
abroad to be newspaper observers of the war the offices
would run quite as well, if not better, through the ad¬
ministration of the assistants in those offices than with the
political chiefs that they now have.
I am not telling you something that is theory. I know
that if the political motive for continuing the system by
which they are confirmed by the Senate, and thus excluded
from the classified service, was changed, so that the officers
might have some sort of permanent tenure and twenty per
■cent were added to the salaries of the assistants who are
now there, the offices would be run better and the saving
to the government would be four million five hundred
thousand dollars a year.
If Congress would not divide the salaries as they do now
in the appropriation, so many clerks of the first class at so
much per year, so many clerks of the second class at so much
per year, and so on, but if heads of departments were given
the amounts in lump sum for the salaries in the various
bureaus, and then the sums were cut down twenty per
cent from the present totals, leaving to the head of the de¬
partment to classify and reclassify the clerks and imposing
on him the obligation to do the work that is now done, the
work could be better done and two million dollars could be
saved to the government.
But these economies met objections. They meet ob¬
jections when you are engaged in a movement of this sort
of two kinds. In the first place, they meet the objection
or the inertia of the departments themselves. These things
are recommended by an outside commission. To obviate
this difficulty as far as possible we always appointed co¬
operating committees in the departments themselves with
the idea of giving to the department a pride in developing
in itself economy. And I am bound to say that in some
■ departments most effective work to bring about a good
12 THE COMMERCIAL CLUB OF CHICAGO
many economies was done. The head of a department
acquires an attitude from his own department. He is
closer to his own clerks. They have been there for decades;
they are good men, but they have got used to doing things in
a certain way and they cannot think that any departure
from that way will not involve dangers, even if they cannot
point them out. I don't know of anything that gratifies
the head of a department so much as to be able to catch
an outside commission in a recommendation that he is able
to show is ridiculous.
If the work were continued, I think the whole personnel
could be inspired by pride in performance and progress in
economy and efläciency. This was the result in the Philip¬
pines. The civil servants there were anxious to show in the
returns the effective work that was done by .their respective
departments; but the great obstruction is the jealousy and
the inertia on the part of Congress.
Of course, we have to standardize supplies, everything
used in the department. You business men will hardly
believe the absurdities that obtain with reference to the
useless and extravagant variety of supplies used in the dif¬
ferent departments when they all ought to be standardized.
That, of course, would work for economy in purchase.
And the system of accounting—the government account¬
ing is fearful and wonderful. It was greatly facilitated in
its intelligible character under Mr. MacVeagh, so far as he
could go, but he could not go very far. If you don't know
how you stand, how are you going to improve your condition.?
If you don't have a statement of a balance that you can
depend upon, how long could you gent'emen that are running
banks get on.? We do, and the government goes on, be¬
cause the government must live, and there is no limit up to
this time of the taxable resources of the people.
We politicians are interested in only one side of the
ledger, that is, the expenditures. If we have not got the
money, we can have another tax, whether it be a war tax
or not.
ECONOMY AND EFFICIENCY IN GOVERNMENT 13
You will see before I get through that this is no partisan
speech. Men may be Republicans and men may be Dem¬
ocrats, and men "might have been" Progressives. But
they are all alike. You know that well-known axiom that
men differ but husbands are all alike. Politicians differ
but Congressmen are all alike when it comes to appropria¬
tions for home.
You have heard that story perhaps on Mr. Holman, that
famous Democratic Congressman who came from the
south of Indiana and was chairman of the appropriations
committee and was very severe in cutting out appropriations
and diminishing them. He was known as the Watch Dog of
the Treasury. Some one succeeded in getting into an
appropriation bill for the Rivers and Harbors a tidy sum
to improve the Ohio River down at Aurora, which was
in Brother Holman's district. It was not really the navi¬
gability of the Ohio that he was looking for. He wished
to dam up the big Miami River that had flooded his district.
This was really a state or county duty, not one of the
Federal Government. It was a little difficult under Hol¬
man's construction of the constitution to get that into a
federal appropriation. Those whom he had defeated in
other bills kept watching that large appropriation for the
Ohio River at Aurora to see what he would do with it.
When it came up, some fellow whom he had disappointed
arose and inquired whether this met the approval of the
chairman of the Appropriations Committee. Holman got
up to say that it was according to the constitution and it
was the improvement of the Ohio, and his opponent invited
attention to the real purpose of it and then he ended his
speech by saying:
" 'Tis sweet to hear the honest watchdog's deep mouthed
welcome as we draw near home."
One of the things that is absolutely needed in Washington
is to have a central bureau directly responsible to the
President, which ought to include the auditor's department
— the commission recommended that six auditors be re-
14
THE COMMERCIAL CLUB OF CHICAGO
duced to one — and the comptroller's department, and a
bureau which could watch from the standpoint of economy
and efficiency all the doings of every department and
compare them in parallel columns.
If the work was standardized in all of the departments,
then it would be easily possible to find out in which de¬
partment the same kind of work costs too much and possi¬
bly in some department costs too little. The trouble is
now we have no basis or means of comparison, and if you
cannot intelligently compare, then you cannot know any¬
thing with reference to the proper standard of efficiency
and economy.
Finally, the greatest improvement that we ought to
have is a budget which Congress shall have the benefit of
when it comes to make appropriations.
All these things to which I have referred may be made
the basis of the budget, and the executive with the power
that Congress ought to give him can rearrange the civil
service in the departments, can eliminate the duplications
and the overlaps, can adopt those different methods of
economy, illustrations of which I have given you, and then
upon the executive ought to be placed the responsibility
each year Congress meets of stating the account for the next
year; that is, what should be the expenditures for the next
year and how the necessary income should be raised.
Now, they do this in every other country; that is,
every other country that has a government that is respect¬
able. Of course, in England the legislative and executive
are united in the Premier and the government. The
Chancellor of the Exchequer prepares the budget after
conferring with all the heads of the departments and re¬
ceiving the approval of the cabinet. The Chancellor of the
Exchequer presents it to Parliament in his budget speech.
It was the budget speeches of Mr. Gladstone that laid the
basis for his fame as a great statesman.
There is not any reason why we should not have that
in our Congress today. Well, how is the budget considered
ECONOMY AND EFFICIENCY IN GOVERNMENT 15
today in Congress** There are requests for appropriations
for transportation facilities before seven of the committees
and granted in eight different bills. Requests for provison
for public health before three different committees and
granted in four different bills, besides $3,000,000 annually
voted through other various committees for the same thing.
There are requests having to do with commerce and
banking of three different committees and granted in four
different bills.
The General Appropriations Committee has some sense
of responsibility. But it has not knowledge of the means
of raising the revenue that the Ways and Means Committee
has. Those two committees are separated. Seven other
different committees in addition to the General Appropria¬
tions Committee prepare appropriation bills that the General
Committee has no control over, and if there is an objection
by any member of the General Appropriations Committee
it is charged to jealousy and finds little support.
Did you ever hear of such a hydra-headed monster
in the matter of appropriating money as that method neces¬
sarily shows itself to be?
Now, we have a different form of government from
England, but it seems to me there is not any reason why
the responsibility for a budget may not be placed on the
executive. Congress can give the President the responsibil¬
ity of getting up in the cabinet a budget and to the cabinet
the power to go upon the floor in both houses and can give
specifically to the Secretary of the Treasury the duty to
present the budget exactly as the Chancellor of the Ex¬
chequer does the budget to the House of Commons. Of
course, they cannot give cabinet oflScers a vote, but they
can give him all the other privileges of membership. They
do that with a delegate from a territory; why not with the
heads of departments? Then the representative of the
executive can come forward and say: "This is our plan.
This presents the minimum of expense and the maximum of
eflBciency, and we ask that Congress approve this." Then, of
16 THE COMMERCIAL CLUB OF CHICAGO
course, Congress can do what it chooses, but the budget is
before them. They will thus secure an intelligible basis
for action. The President through his representatives will
have to meet the responsibility. It will effect a unified
effort by the executive department to show to the legislative
department how much it will take to run the government
and where the money can be found to do it. Congress can
then look to the executive as responsible for the budget that
he presents, and if they depart from that they must accept
the responsibility.
In the House of Commons they have a standing rule,
and have had it since 1771, that no item shall go into the
appropriation bill that is not first approved by the Crown.
Now, I don't suppose that Congress would be willing' to
make any such rule with reference to our executive, but
this is an indication of how they hold matters in leash in
Parliament.
It has not been necessary for us to be careful, because
we have had such tax resources that their very suggestion
would make the mouth of any Chancellor of the Exchequer
in Europe water. But we are likely to reach the end of our
rope in that regard, and we are likely rapidly to come to a
point where we must have some regard to our resources in
determining what our expenditures shall be.
My economy commission made one hundred and ten
different reports. Its most important report was its report
giving the method of government and its activities, with
all branches down to the last twig and the last unit.
One other report, quite voluminous, was a proposed
budget for the year 1913, just before I went out of oflSce.
They had announced what they were going to do and that
awakened the hostihty of the appropriations committee
in the House, and they said they did not care to have a
budget presented. They did not want the clerks of the
government to be worked in presenting anything other
than the old fashioned estimate which the statutes had
provided for, to be furnished to the Secretary of the Treas-
ECONOMY AND EFFICIENCY IN GOVERNMENT 17
ury and by him forwarded. They put a clause in one of the
appropriation acts forbidding any clerk or other member of
the departments from doing any work in preparing such a
budget.
Well, I notified the clerks that they were under me;
they were not under Congress; that it was my constitutional
duty to prepare an account of estimates of expenses and
receipts, and when I wanted it in my way I had the author¬
ity to take it from them, and they were government em¬
ployes, and that Congress could not limit my activity in
that regard nor theirs.
So, although Congress did not want this budget prepared
as it ought to have been, it was prepared and sent in.
That was my testamentary devise to the next Congress, and
it is there, peacefully sleeping.
There were thirty-six reports with recommendations
for executive action and there were thirty-one executive
orders carrying out that action.
I think the commission cost the government a little
more than $250,000, and we saved by their recommenda¬
tions something like two or three million dollars. That was
a profitable arrangement, but the spirit of economy in
looking for methods of economy was so great that the
House would not appropriate any more, and it was with
great diflBculty that they would print the report that had
been made. I put it in a presidential message, and they had
to print the presidential message, so we got the report
printed. And now I observe that as Mr. Underwood is
being translated from the House to the Senate he leaves
some advice to the House, and that is that they need a
budget. While the lamp holds out to burn, any one may
return ; and I am delighted to find that with the responsibil¬
ity that he has felt as leader of the House he begins to see
the necessity for a budget.
This work is not a vote-getting measure; it does not
help a party particularly. You can go out and say you
want to save $50,000,000, or that the other people have
18 THE COMMERCIAL CLUB OF CHICAGO
been grossly extravagant, and it shocks your nature—
your nature as a politician that anyone else should be
expending it. But it does not affect the votes very much,
and men who go in for this saving must go in for the pure
love of promoting good government. That is one reason
why it rarely claims the serious attention of Congress. We
are so rich that it is not necessary, they think. Sometimes,
therefore, I feel a bit discouraged, but I am an optimist.
After awhile there will be a kind of temporary bankruptcy,
and then somebody will wake up.
During the last ten years we have had plans of various
kinds to increase the paternalism in our government, and
I have no doubt that to a certain extent that is justified.
But if we are going into the paternal business, if we are
going into the operation of enterprises that have heretofore
been carried on through private management, we wül
bankrupt the government, imless we find some economical
and efficient way of doing that work.
It is one of the easiest things in the world, in order to
uplift one's fellow men, to prepare a bill and vote to con¬
stitute a commission. There is something marvelous about
a commission. It is just like the doctor who was hell on
fits; if he could only get-his patient into one he could cure
him.
I don't know how many commissions they have had in
Wisconsin, and as the commissions increased in number,
so did the taxes. They have a commission for which they
voted one himdred thousand dollars in California to abolish
poverty. It is no joke; it is true. The expenses of the
government are increased enormously for the purpose of
gratifying the general desire to help your neighbor out of
another neighbor's pocket. The object is good, is to help
one's fellow man. But that may lead us too far. It has
done so in the state government and it is likely to do so in
the national government unless we have a thorough re¬
organization and system of accounting and a system by
which the executive who has charge of the government shall
ECONOMY AND EFFICIENCY IN GOVERNMENT 19
know what is being done under him and shall be able to put
his finger on the parts of the machine that are not working
right, on the parts in which economy is not shown, and then
bring them up to standard. When he has that power,
which Congress ought to give him, with a central bureau, so
that he by executive reorganization can do something and
be made responsible for the doing. Congress will be in an
attitude where it can help him.
I speak with a great deal of earnestness and sincerity in
this matter, for I gave a great deal of attention to it when I
was in ofluice. I felt that money was going out that ought not
to go out. It was said that three hundred million dollars
might be saved. Well, I think that was an unfortunate
statement that Mr. Aldrich made on the floor of the Senate.
I do not think he had made any calculation, and I do not
think he could have made any calculation, because nobody
knew the facts in such a way as to make it. The estimate
of the committee was that from ten to fifty per cent of the
expenses might be saved. Well, ten to fifty is a very wide
range. Three hundred million dollars out of one billion
dollars is a great deal. If Mr. Aldrich meant to abolish the
pension list and to abolish a great many other things like
river and harbor bills and public building bills it might be
possible. This he could do, running the government as a
business concern, but not as a political organization. Well,
government is not a business concern; it is a government
concern and it has a great many obligations that a business
concern does not have. But there are certain business
principles that may be very well put in force in its manage¬
ment.
The commission's recommendations in regard to the
specific matters that they investigated would have saved
some eight million dollars, and they had only scratched
the surface, as they say.
Now, I submit it to you, my friends, that Congress ought
to organize again such a commission, ought to give them a
generous appropriation of two hundred and fifty thousand
20
THE COMMERCIAL CLUB OF CHICAGO
dollars a year, and then ought to take up and discuss seriously
and earnestly in order to solve this difficult problem these
recommendations instead of consigning them to the pigeon¬
holes where dust accumulates on them.
Those reports, however, are still useful. Some time
they can be taken up. They will have to be added to as the
government itself has been added to. But they are a work
that constitutes a permanent addition to the instrumentality
for helping the government on to a decent, honest basis of
economy and efficiency.