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The Commoner.
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VOLUME 13, NUMBER 2J
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V3 T 5
The High Cost of Government
Why Your Tax Dollar Buys Only Seventy Cents' Worth of
Service: How to Get More for It
The Commoner.
ISSUED WEEKLY
Entered at tho Postofflco At Lincoln, Nebraska,
ixh Bccond-claBB matter.
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THE COMMONER, Lincoln, Neb.
THE WOOL GROWERS SET RIGHT
Those pooplo who have been misled by re
publican papers and persuaded to believe that
free wool means injustice to tho wool grower
will bo interested and instructed by reading a
lottor written by "a lifo long sheepman" and
printed in the St. Louis Republic. This letter
ought to be reproduced in every newspaper in
Amorica. It is tho frank statement of a prac
tical and experienced man:
To the Editor of tho Republic: Have been
reading an article in your paper entitled, "And
Now for Schedule K." It is a strong and just
indictment of the tariff on wool, with tho excep
tion of one paragraph, in which you say, "But
the duty of 42 per cent on wool enables the
shepherds, like Senator Warren, to get fine
prices for their fleece. In this paragraph you
do a great and, I am sure, an unintentional
wrong to tho flock masters of the United States.
They have never, so for as I know, received any
protection from tho tariff; it has all gone into
the pockets of the manufacturers. I am a life
long sheepman. 1 know whereof I speak, to my
cost. Last fall I was visited about shearing
time by a gentleman, who had been for years
interested in New Zealand and Argentine -wools.
I asked him to sample and grade my clip and
say what it would bring on the London market.
After a careful examination, he Baid it would
bring at present about 25 A, adding that he
had never seen better wool, even in New Zea
land. As I get London quotations and am a fair
judge of wool I knew his estimate was about
right. But I sold this "highly protected" wool
for 17 A, and it was the top prlco paid in
this country. Tho proof of tho pudding 1b in
tho eating. When Cleveland was elected I
owned 1,600 sheep and was making a good liv
ing for my family. Three years later I was
working for $15 a month for such of my im
poverished neighbors as still kept their busi
ness up. But it was not the want of protection,
that killed the wool business and decimated
tho flocks, for tho depression in business was
general and widespread, and was caused, in my
opinion, by a scarcity of ready money, caused
by so much of tho circulating medium being
absorbed by the enormous bond issues, necessi
tated by the wiping out of tho revenue. Nothing
like this will result from tho present democratic
policy, which has my hearty approval, although.
I have on hand more sheep than when the Clove
land administration ruined mo and every one I
know, for tho ruin was by no means confined to
tho sheep business in this state. Cattlo were
selling at $14 per head before election and I
saw them sell for $2.50 on credit, two years
later. I must say wo had a succession of dry
years at that time, but, although that mado bad
matter worse for us, tho depression was general
in tho United States. I have only to add that
I am not now and liavo never been afllliated
with any political party, having always been an
Independent. So this is business, not politics.
Tularoso, Tex. DAVID ROSE.
R. E. Coulson in the "System" magazine.
Reproduced by courtesy of the "System" pub
Ushers "Thousands of persons know something of
tho business of the government, but no man
living comprehends fully what the government
of tho United States includes, how it is organized
or what are its activities. The government has
never been described in such a manner as to lay
the foundations needed for technical judgment,
or in such detail as to permit the consideration
of its many problems in their relations to each
other.
"A vast administrative mechanism has been
built up, not according to a carefully thought
out plan, but step by step as exigencies present
themselves. The result is a scheme of organi
zation in which little conscious effort has been
made to integrate the parts into a systematic
whole, so that the duty to be performed will be
most advantageously assigned7 unnecessary
work prevented, and duplications and overlap
ping eliminated.
"How work shall be performed, what shall be
the business practices and procedure followed,
where responsibility shall be located, have been
determined as specific problems have come up
and not in response to an organized effort. As
a result, the widest diversity of law, regula
tion and practice is in evidence. Only
In exceptional cases have succesBfurefforts been
made to stjindardize practice and procedure,
thus to obtain increased economy and efficiency."
Reading this summary by the economy and
efficiency commission of tho conditions behind
the Niagara of lost motion and wasted effort at
Washington, every business man will sense the
possibilities of saving millions of tax dollars for
the building of new services contributing to the
public good. Because th functions carried on
by the government parallel nearly all the func
tions of everyday business, the man of vision
will see an opportunity to work out principles
of business practice which may bo applied in
every office, factory and store. For every tax
dollar saved at Washington, such standards
might save one hundred dollars for the business
men of the country.
Tho vast totals of government operations, if
analyzed and classified, might easily make pos
sible tho securing of averages which would form
a' basis for the establishment of business stand
ards. Just as the department of agriculture
issues bulletins to farmers, so th department
of commerce might issuo bulletins to business
men, taking up both individual cases of busi
ness success and broad principles of business
policy based on the working out of methods in
the business mechanism of the government.
Sections of this gigantic task were undertaken
by the commission. They found the adminis
trative machinery and business methods of tho
government expanded haphazardly with th
growth of the country, yet clinging with curious
persistency to ways that have been abandoned
and devices that have been scrapped in efficient
private enterprise. This in face of the fact that
the government spends more than on billion
dollars a year, handles over five billion dollars
in monetary transactions very year, and mixes
in many millions of acts of business every year
from selling a one-cent postage stamp in an
Alaskan wilderness to buying a ten-million dol
lar battleship on the Atlantic coast.
In approaching th task of re-organizing this
administrative machine, th commission took
tho same point of view that any business man
may take, and many of its reports are as sug
gestive of ideas for the average business as the
bulletins of th department of agriculture aro
suggestive for the farmer. Th commission
found the work dividing Into two Jobs for im
mediate approach. On of th tasks was stu
pendousso big it would take years perhaps
a generation to complete. This job a de
tailed study of th -whole mechanism of the
government, a listing of all its activities and a
consideration of all its parts, was begun Th
foundation studies of tho commission will un
doubtedly form th basis for whatever work a
like body may attempt on tho same task in tho
future. A second job into which work was
separated was a straight-away "getting down to
brass tacks." They massed and directed experU
at certain points, showed the waste in efficiency
at those points and put to the front written
specific recommendations of methods which
would Btop the waste and cut down the ineffi
ciency. Not , all departments were found -wasteful
Sorting out th broadly recognizable inefficient
work djsclosed certain efficient departments
Here the possibilities of the commission's work
in correlating inter-departmental functions Is
evident.
Just as in the analysis of any business, cer
tain departments and functions will be found
working efficiently, so, in the government, what
may be called approximate laboratory standards
have been worked out in certain lepartments.
Take the reclamation service. Of this service!
the chairman of the commission says: "The
best cost accounts kept by an operative servico
in the government are to be found in the recla
mation service. There they tell every month
the horse-day cost of every corral, and the man
day cost of each mess; the cement-yard cost of
every lining of every tunnel; the gasoline cost
of every motorcycle, and so on."
If the entire government had a plan and
methods such as obtained in the reclamation
service or in any efficient private business, cer
tain curious situations would not arise so fre
quently. As an instance, the combined state
ment of receipts and disbursements of the gov
ernment for the fiscal year ending June 30th,
1910, a report required by law and purporting
to give an analysis of th expenditures of the
government as a whole, was commented upon
by the president as follows: "This shows that
the expenditures for salaries for the year 1910
was 132 millions out of 950 millions. As a
matter of fact, the expenditures for personal
services during that year were more nearly 400
millions, as we have just learned by the inquiry
now in progress." That is to say, the economy
and efficiency commission demonstrated that
the government has yet to learn the essential
lesson of how to keep a pay roll.
Though th commission hoisted a high ban
ner and flung a tremendous project on the plan
board of the government, it nevertheless made
a straight line for definite, immediate, paying
results. Th possibility of the publication of
detailed cost analyses in different manufactur
ing enterprises is suggested by one of the in
vestigations into the cost of handling the gov
ernment's publications.
A remarkable sweep-out of wastes, duplica
tions and inefficiencies, saving $242,713 a year,
was shown to bo practicable in the distribution
of government publications. After the govern
ment printing office finished printing and bind
ing an edition, the books were wrapped, packed
and hauled to the department which had ordered
the printing. Th department as it received
orders for th books, then packed and hauled
them to the post office. Th comment was made,
"If two factories were competing against eacn
other and one of them did as much extra pacK
ing and hauling as th government does wlta
its publications, that factory would go nj
bankruptcy, provided its rival cut out the lost
motion." , ...
Th possibilities of detailed investigation inw
different functions were suggested in the aruw
on tho analysis of th handling of correspond
dene In last month's "System." In all its wow
th commission followed a plan of attacK w
suggests a method of approach to the proPJJ
of th individual business and again fZ
th possibility of presenting tested methods m
every business man. .. nf i
Th working principle assumed was taw g
constructive proposal or change of metnu u -be
recommended should bo founded on a
knowredg of tho fivo factors: the adminwi
tlv problem, th -work beforo each deparwu"
bureau or division head; tho organization
equipment provided for dealing with ywv
lem; th methodg of procedure fjnpwyeu
those in charge of work; tho results od"
and finally an inYestigation by .SSfSreseB
perts as to what is the matter with the pj
organization, equipment, method an.aAr(1utant
By thia method of approach, the "J