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Show UNCLE SAM TO CUT CORNERS. Everyone agrees that the federal government is costing too much, yet no one is willing to "take his feet out of the trough," as President Presi-dent Roosevelt once poetically expressed it. There is a universal demand de-mand that expenses be pared down; economy is extolled as a good thing but all hands are so altruistic that they insist on passing this good thing along to the other fellow. All parties stand "for the old flag," and an appropriation. So far not a single candidate has stood up and said: "Economize on me ; I will take a reduced salary and give up that appropriation I was after." Governor Harmon of Ohio makes a really affecting plea for a vigorous tightening of the national purse strings, yet his party has on its program many measures which call for greatly increased expenditures expen-ditures by the federal government. In Wisconsin, for instance, the Democratic platform even demands de-mands the passage of the "dollar a day" pension bill, which the G. A, R. encampment itself turned down because it would levy a new toll of several hundred millions on the treasury. In one state it is one thing, and in another another. They all want something, and they expect "federal aid" to carry it through. Even the south, with its vaunted devotion to states1 rights, is howling howl-ing for government aid to good roads a scheme so federalists that it must make Jefferson peevish 4n his grave to hear it advocated by "Jeffersonian" Democrats. The president has just appointed Frederick A. Cleveland, an expert ex-pert on systematizing and accounting, to head the new "bureau of economy," which is to go over Uncle Sam's business and books and see where the leaks are. But this investigation, like all government investigations, is hampered at the start by hard conditions. It is forbidden for-bidden to poke its nose into some of the darkest corners, and we doubt that it will find out very much. The government service at present is, for example, loaded down with a large number of superannuated and inefficient clerks. Most of these have been there a lifetime, but have saved no money, and they can't be turned out; they have lived all their lives easily on government pap, and it would be cruelty to withhold their sustenance suste-nance at this late day. Civil service reform has given the nation this bequest. Under the old spoils system clerks had no time to grow old in the public service, for the next administration usually kicked them out and put in new candidates. But under our present system it is practically impossible to get rid of a clerk until he is too decrepit to amble to his desk and draw his pay. Imagine how much work you could get out of an office force made up to a large extent of people who were way below par in efficiency ef-ficiency and over whom you had no control. The poor clerks thus bring down the standard for the good ones, and the whole service suffers. President Taft feels that a civil pension system is the only thing that will solve this vexed problem of disposing of worn out clerks, and the public service must continue to be thus burdened until congress con-gress will make some such provision for them. When it was noised around that there were to be "economies," thousands of government clerks thought they saw their jobs gone at last, but the president has given them the tip that they need have no fear, as the investigation will not reach them. It is easy to talk economy in government, but very difficult to introduce it in practice, for the economizer at once runs up against conditions which he cannot override. |
