Show where your taxes go how uncle sam spends your money in conducting your business by EDWARD G loeri author washington close ups banks and P F nanc al systems etc contributor political and econom c art cles to lead ng per od cals and a wr ter of recognized I 1 author ty on the nat onal government i a desme a s methods 1 coper fht western newspaper paper un on v OUT OF DATE MACHINE A committee made up of tl it ree mem bers of the senate and three members ef of the house Is now considering the ft bole problem of the organization of the execute executive lye departments of the gov eminent with a v ew to f finding out how to reorganize them so as to in creise their eth efficiency elency and decrease e heir their cost of operation it Is about time the great executive depart ments of the government have not been reorganized or greatly modern iced since alexander ham iton lion 8 S day represent aley resen ithe e reavis of nebra ki ha Is one of the members of this joint congressional committee that Is mak ing t tl e present inv estimation he ile put the resolution through the house that brought about the appointment of the committee he ile Is a part of the na lional government machine and he ought to kno know what whit he is talking about nien wl en he that while the gov of the united states Is the worlds biggest business it is likewise the wor words d s worst managed business that lb au an indictment and a state ment of fact that will stand tle tt e closest scrutiny and the most unsparing analysis but I 1 sten ten to mr remits why should the interior department run an insane as asylum lum and a college for negroes and a school for the deaf how did it get that wa mai why should one personnel in the pension bureau in the interior department be caring tor for the disabled soldiers of the civil war and the spanish american war while bile another personnel in the bureau of war risk insurance of the tica ury is caring for the veterans of if tte e orld war mar why this hodgepodge f totally unrelated purposes which Is fe suiting in end ess duplication an I 1 appalling ex expense pene r will mill let mr mcavis go on without further interruption As a member of the h use he has his share of the ability for tl e conditions he describes there are 39 separate governmental agencies handling engineering architect archi tec tural and public works functions all 0 f a related kind there Is no good reason why all these agencies should not be co ardi bated in one department and about 38 of the useless organ lations done away with there are 26 government agencies engaged in surveying and mapping there are 27 separate and distinct agencies engaged in public building operations there are 16 agendas agen clos authorized to build roads there are 19 engaged in hydraulic construction there are tire 16 doing work vork on rivers there are re 10 engaged in public land functions there are re I 15 doing chemical hel investigation connected conneL ted with public work operations there are 22 doing engineering and re search my of these agencies hale hano been in 1 active tor for a number of year yearn but they are re keeping up their personnel n antici pation of work in the future we could save a year in ny rry n y judgment by doing sway away with useless bureaus and duplication of activities some of the duplication is are didieu lous and absurd for instance ice the gov see seeks to p the wild an main 1 in the national parka if f r brown badiak bear has twin cubs one brown and ons on 1 black as often happen and one should shoot the brown cub f 16 must make hit his with one department but if 11 he h shoots its full bro cpr the black cub he must settle ditl another department if you were to shoot a ox in alaska your S settlement ett lement would be ith the department of f agriculture whilo if you trapped the same fox you must frake your settlement with the of comm commerce erce the government issued last year through its see sene rl ri bureaus and depart ments 16 cookbooks the last one that vr wr 1 3 Is issued aed was published by the board of vocational eda education cation this Is a board organized by th the congress con greis qs for the purpose of rehab I 1 tat jig ng crippled soldiers of the orld Y war ar fo to prevent as tar far as possible their becoming derelicts in life it may be of in erest to state that while hile the government nas lias been issuing 16 cookbooks and consuming vast quantities ol 01 print paper in trese and similar useless pubic 1300 country town newspapers have ave suspended in t e last three months because they could not secure print paper mr bealis and a great many others I 1 ave sensed the feeling in the conn coun try and in congress tl it at the time has come to put an end to all this sort of 0 t ing he gives reasons for his bell f ole of the reasons Is that the people annd de nand that their taxation be reduced I 1 lr r many years we have been collecting ale revenues of this government through systems of indirect taxation the reve lues have been collected through tl rough a pro tariff and by excise taxation on intoxicating liquors indirect taxation of this kind prevents the people from really ing fully just who Is paying the expenses of the government there was a time when the expenses of the government amounted to only 12 cents per capita per year today the annual per capita ex ea pense exceeds 40 this tremendous ex pense has made it necessary to resort to direct taxation and the people have sud denly become painfully aware of who pays the expense expenses of the government I 1 am very certain that the elimination of duplications and overlapping in the de apartments part ments will result in the saving of millions of dollars there Is no reason why it should not be done there Is every reason in the presence of the strife and turmoil that prevail in this country and of the unrest occasioned by the high cost of the necessaries of life that the rovern government ment should be put upon a eane same efficient and economical basis NN hoeNer ho eer by public clamor or other means can induce congress and the executive departments to organize the routine business of the national gov eminent will mill have performed a great public service note that I 1 say or and not reorganize for in no proper sense has the federal busi busl ness ever been organized CHANCE TO FIND OUT juet just now a belated effort is under way to find out some of the facts abolt government go business and gov ern tient employment the bureau of tv te budget has been and Is it ti operation under the direction of chhrles G dames roth h uses of congress are work ing aa en on aho problem of fi cation of government positions and salaries sal irles the veterans bureau his been or and has taken over oer o er the bureau of war mar risk insurance that part 0 of f the public health service which had to do with veterans Net erans and all of the work of the federal board for voca noca lional education except that part which had to do with the treatment of persons injured in tl it e industries there Is also the inquiry being made by tl e joint committee on the re organization of the administrative branch of the government of tl ti e two house of congress of which I 1 have spoken walter P F brown of ohio 1 chairman of this committee represent rep reent ing president harding the bemb members er S of the committee are on the part of the senate senators smoot of utah harrison of M ippi and wads worth of new york the members on U e part of the house are depre senta tives reavis of nebraska temple of pennsylvania and moore of virginia the job of this joint comm atee is to make a survey of the tra tive services of the government for the purpose of securing all pertinent facts regard ng their po powers ers and duties their distribution among the several executive departments and the over lapping and duplication of author ty in reporting the resolution from the judiciary committee to the house the n embers were n ere told it Is a matter ot of common knowledge that mill ons ot of dollars are wasted by the government by the almost endless duplication ot of activities there has been no fundamental change in the adminis actie ties since the organization was s devised by alexander hamilton and tl ti e result Is that activities entirely out of harmony with the functions of depart ments have grown with the passing years until the government of the un ted led states has ha become not only the biggest bus ness in the world but the world worlds s worst man aged business the purpose of the resolution Is to ascertain so tar far as poss ble the extent ol 01 the overlapping and cupl cation ot of ac tivi ties with the view that numerous commissions and bureaus may be el ml mi bated and a great saving effected in the cove ove ri mental expenditures the commit lee tee feels that no more constructive leg a lation Is possible under existing condl eions than the legislation proposed by the resolution with the present condi tion of th nation a finances and the bur dens the people suffer because ot of erces eve 8 ve taxation any legislative measure looking to real economy should commend itself to the syn pathetic attention of the house and we feel that the passage of this resolution and the work of the corn cora cittee wh th ch w 11 be done under its au will result in the saving of mil ions 1 ons annually it can be pre licked with NN ith consides consi dei able assurance that nothing will voll come of this proposed voyage 0 o age of discovery un less w A e tl e shareholders in the enter prise raa ma etain an active it lively vely sus tallied ii 0 terest in it one thing Is al maas tine of the house of depre ser lt it Is representative ft if we me breathe warmly upon it it glows it if we me are indifferent it becomes cold this isn t the first time that a plan has been set in motion to find out ing about how the government governments s business is conducted the earliest inquiry into the ad metho Is of the executive departments w m as made by the cockrell commission in 1887 six years later in 1893 a joint commission of which representative dockery wis chairman was appointed to examine the status of the laws organizing the depart ments president roosevelt in 1901 named an interdepartmental committee of which C H keep heep assistant secretary of the treasury was chairman to consider department methods prest dent taft in turn in 1910 named a R commission com on economy and efficiency of which frederick cleveland cleneland was chairman broadly and generally g nothing cime of these enterprises you and 1 I commonly and vaguely ing u OY known as the public were not nt in fei tei ested and nether was vas congress that ended it but just now at this moment we vie hive line the best chance we ever had to find out about our common business ani an I 1 how to improve jt and lessen its cost to us II 11 e burden of supporting it Is beav er than ever before you will mill perhaps notice all through gli these articles irti cles that the information supplied n e about the general facts of government employment and govern ment business are in terms of estimates and approximations this Is 19 one of the defects of government organization it Is so 0 large and so formless ind its parts so unrelated latel that exact and precise information about the whole Is virtually junob tamable it is of the greatest urgency ani an need that the people shall know about tl ti air government but they will find it difficult to learn until the go eminent knows about itself |