Show r jill I 1 of do ta IV 4 22 4 N the bureau of supplies and account of the united states navy at washington some surprising changes have been made in the past year in methods of doing business the bureau Is the business office of the navy also it Is the butcher the baker the banker tho the tailor and the grocer of the navy it pays out some tl a year it saves jacks money for him and the savings bank it operates has deposits aggregating it operates two great clothing factories one at brooklyn and the other at charleston a C in another aspect it Is one of the biggest purchasing agencies in the country so remarkable have been its achievements in the twelvemonth that many requests have come to it recently from business establishments public and private for information as to its new methods the spirit behind the change Is that of a boyish looking wide eyed ever smiling officer who just forty live five years old and he does riot not look it bol holds ds the rank and draws the pay of a rear admiral he being paymaster general of the navy and chief 0 of the bureau rear admiral samuel mcgowan he I 1 Is to outsiders mr mcgowan Is the form of address addres he insists upon within the bureau but in the navy generally by all ranks and all grades he Is dubbed behind his back of course sammy mcgowan in the 14 months he has been paymaster general he be has made over his bureau what Is more he has secured the hearty and enthusiastic support of the entire force that thal to anyone who knows how bow any government organization Is wedded to precedent Is amazing somewhat given to the making of epigrams in his instructions oral and written admiral mcgowan has uttered two that give a hint of the predominating ideas behind his reforms make it bureau with a small email b and navy nary with a big N Is one and remember that the stores exist tor for the fleet not the fleet tor for the stores the paymaster general and his bureau of supplies and accounts have their offices in the great pile known as the state war and navy building on pennsylvania avenue flanking the white house on the west when the building was erected some forty years ago it was the largest office building in the world each corridor in it has the appearance of a battalion of barrooms bar rooms tor for each of the many corridor doors has its middle two thirds masked by a shutter door the rooms are all intercommunicating the paymaster generals office Is the end one in a suite of five rooms across the hall are seven more rooms in the navy annex building in a street near by are some more offices of the bureau when paymaster general mcgowan took over the job he inaugurated at once a cleanup clean up ud campaign down from the walls came the dusty old pictures bookcases and file cases went out current and absolutely necessary bureau flies files went into one room in A a set of steel vertical containers tor for general purposes and in the purchasing end across the hall they likewise were reduced private libraries also went out upstairs the navy department maintains a splendid naval library and this Is available for all purposes abolish roll top desks was the word where here flattop flat top desks we available the department carpenters took off the roll tops since then standard etan dard office furniture has been adopted for the entire bureau all intercommunicating doors in the suites were taken off tha th hinges walls were painted fa a light colors then the chief of each room or division chief was required to put his desk in the middle of the room with his force grouped about him now the paymaster general can stand in his bla room and look down the line aud and see exactly what Is going on but that exactly the point the object Is not to keep an eye on the people so much as it Is to convey the idea of unity the division chief who sequestered in his bis own little nest might inight be tempted to write a letter to the chief next door do it under these conditions lie he says say bill how about so and so or goes over and discusses it at close range stationery in use was as reduced to the fewest possible simple kinds on a shelf handy to the paymaster generals hands bands Is a book some 14 inches long by 18 inches wide in it is all the information that once occupied a big file room this information pertains to the present duty ditty ani and availability tor for sea or shore duty as the case may be of all of the officers ma maklan kirill up P the pay corps the pages of the book aro are faced with transparent celluloid when a pay officer Is sent on a cruise his name and the essential date are inscribed on a typewritten slip and inserted at the tag bottom of the section devoted to pay officers on sea duty place by place the slip moves up automatically and in this way ono one may observe at a glance who Is due tor for shore duty and who tor for sea duty as under the law for or every two years of shore fibers duty a officer must take three years ot of sea duty and thus with all records no effort has been spared to reduce them all to the simplest and most graphic form the messenger force was reorganized and a squad told off to act as express tries messengers this insures speed in the movement of papers from desk to desk and to the secre office no paper remains more than 15 minutes awaiting transmission one of the very verj first things paymaster general I 1 p bazz ar mcgowan did was to put a stop to promiscuous letter etter writing the true bureaucrat dearly loves to write letters he thinks he Is at his best when he Is writing letters for or the chief to sign division heads dictating many of the letters which take the bureau chiefs signature it grail grad lies flea the soul of the bureaucrat to grow arrogant and sarcastic in such dictation nothing of that sort Is tolerated by admiral mcgowan lie he insisted that letter writing be reduced to a minimum and that nothing unkind or contentious be put into a letter especially to another ordinate coordinate co bureau after his first general remarks on the subject he followed it up with an Intra bureau order Intra bureau orders being one of his methods of reaching the personnel of his bis organization cut but the striking changes in the service have been worked in the detail of the machinery first of accounting and then of supplying aboard each one of uncle sams fighting craft Is a pay officer the ships business manager each ship has a base or homo home station at some navy yard at each navy yard Is a storehouse presided over by a pay officer it Is the business of this storehouse to provide for the ships attached to it then there are fuel stations coal and oll oil also under jurisdiction of the pay corps for the pay corps buys everything Avery thing save arms and ammini tion needed by the ships and their personnel at present there are in the custody of the storekeepers general supplies worth ex elusive of fuel worth of clothing ani worth of provisions the problem Is not alone to supply immediate needs but to be ba ready to supply emergency needs just as an army moves on its belly so Is a navy department on its supplies when a portion of the fleet was dispatched the other day to til santo domingo it required a lot of things not ordinarily carried it got away promptly because those particular things were forthcoming without delay always the bureau Is in the market buying in huge quantities on bids and under rigid specifications tor for delly delivery ry at the most advantageous points two simple record books contain all the data on current bids which have been opened and these are always open to public inspection but the characteristic of the purchasing system Is the simple and graphic methods used in keeping information up to date on existing stocks of fuel and supplies and on current prices much of this information to Is i induced educed to charts on sectional paper thus a simple chart tells in figures and lines up to within 12 hours the exact quantity of coal and fuel on hand at any supply station and another gives the same information as to the amount on board any ship it if the navy the selection of 0 the time for or re stocking thus la Is almost automatically suggested A small card tiling filing case contains a remarkable 40 exhibition hibi tion of 0 prices current charted on cards are the market price movements for seven years week by week of important staples for example the butter card shows a well defined curve tor for each ot of the seven years indicating the weeks when butter Is high and when low As these curves closely parallel a glance at it shows when Is 5 the most advantage advant advantageous ag bous tibe tor for buying butter in quantity and storing it so harthe has the method of securing and charting this information become that it requires little labor and its cost by comparison with the results achieved in as in intelligent buying Is remarkably low other charts corrected dally daily keep the bureau informed as to the amount ot of stocks on hand band in every detail not only at the storehouses but on the ships as well since the navy through its extensive wireless system Is in constant communication muni cation with every ship afloat the task of 0 keeping up these charts Is not so difficult as it seems seema or the bunch of cards in slicing making up a ships company also is producible on the instant machines have reduced the amount of 0 work in the accounting section more than 50 per cent there are refinements of 0 cost keeping in a military establishment that are not known in a private establishment for or all expenditures mu must at conform to some specific item of an appropriation bill and appropriations for or the naval establishment lish ment ara are found in three different appropriation acts roughly speaking separate accounts account s must be kept properly to meet the me requirements of the law and to furnish the information as to costs gross and detailed needed imagine a ledger with accounts account st 1 here the cards and mechanism have come in to the extent that halt half the number of men needed 15 months ago are now required to do the work in addition a great deal of new work has been taken on the use of new card punching machines Is responsible tor for tho the larger economies the machine Is so arranged that it sorts the punched cards arranges them in proper groups ascertains the totals of 0 the figures andl sated by the pun punched ched holes and prints on a sheet the results it Is accounting reduced to mechanism of course the usual machines such as adding machines and the like are part of the equipment in fact the whole trend of the reforms in this section has been to reduce everything to a mechanical basis the result is great economics in operation increased efficiency increased accuracy anti and in fit creased speed to the casual observer the striking thing Is the th disappearance of books few indeed are the books in sight remark remarkably abl y slim the bles bies in other words the accountancy system has been reduced to the simplest damens dimensions ions ask any man officer or civilian in the establishment lish ment how the whole organization has been made over in such a time and he instantly will tell you that sammy INIc mcgowan Gowan did it and then he will grow confidential and tell you what he esteems is the secret of the whole accomplish merit ment the spirit that Alc mcgowan Gowan has put into his entire force bedont we dont tolerate grou grouches ebes your informant will say we all belong to the dont worry club and mcgowan Is its president another thing this paymaster general has done Is to establish in washington with the approval of the secretary of the navy a school tor for navy nav pay officers these officers are appointed from civil life on a competitive examination they go into the service equipped with a good academic education but with no knowledge of the navy and its needs hence the new service school which has in this years class 15 young officers who are being trained in their new profession admiral mcgowan himself Is a product of civilian training when he be secured his appoint ment mant in the pay corps in 1894 he was a south carolina newspaper man who had worked his way through college and law school by running a brick yard and serving as a ticket agent at a railway station maybe there he be got the training which has made him a great business executive the fact act that he has spent most of 0 his naval career at sea accounts for or his insistence that the fleet and not the bureau Is the thing ever to be kept in mind when he left the atlantic fleet to go ashore as paymaster general his commanding officer admiral badger said of him he has made the pay department of the fleet a smoothly working military machine that Is the ideal he be holds up to his bis bureau and corps make it a smooth running military machine |