The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1903-07-31
PRINTING OFFICE AFFAIRS
May BE Subjected to an Examination
at Washington.

at Washington.
Washington. July 30.-The attention
that has been directed towards the
government printing office by the agi-
tation over the case of Assistant Fore
| man Miller may lead to a thorough in
vestigation of the way in which that
great establishment has been managed
for many years past. If such an in
vestigaion is made it will probably re-
veal financial losses to the government,
through wasteful extravaganza and
failure to require the same amount of
work that would be expected of men
In private employ. There is reason to
believe that the losses sustained by the
government as a result of graft in
the Postofice Department have been
insignificant in comparison with the
amounts lost as result of the UNI
necessarily high cost of work in the
government printing Office.
There is reason to believe that the
labor unions to which the employees in
the various branches of the government
printing Office belong must be held re-
sponsible for a large part of this
wasteful expenditure. A hint of this
has already come out in the Miller
case. The basis of the objection of the
union to Miller seems to have been
that he endeaVored to bring the cost
of binding in the government printing
office down to somewhere near the cost
of similar work in private establish
ments. The influence of the unions in
keeping up the cost of work in the
government printing Office is also
CD, INxTf haf
the introduction of type-setting ma
chimes of any kind up To the present
time though much of the work could
undoubtedly be done by machines as
we'll as similar work is done in private
establishments. The men who control
the unions in the government printing
office seem to be under the influence
of ideas which the most progressive
labor leaders have long abandoned
They do not seem to realize that the
ultimate effect of the introduction of
labor saving devices has inevitably
been to so increase the amount of
work done as to benefit the workmen
J An illustration of the way in which
things are managed in the government
printing office is afforded by the ex-
perience of former Director of the Cen
sus Merriam in connection with the
binding of the volumes of the census
ed out of the government printing Of
| fee bookbindery is inexcusably bad
| The binding of the volumes of the re-
port of the eleventh census was even
worse than the average turned out by
| that establishment. Mr.. Merriam
wanted better work done in the twelfth
census than had been done ten years
| before. His first idea was to have it
done by contract and he requested a
| reputable New York establishment,
employing only union labor and paying
the highest wages, to get him up a
| dummy volume as sample and sub
NIT an estimate for doing the census
office work. He found that under the
| law the work could not be done out
side of the government printing office.
| He then gave the sample to the gov
eminent printing Office bindery as an
| illustration of the kind Of work that
| he wanted.
The result was that the binding of
| the volumes of the report of the twelfth
| census is far superior to the work
done on the previous census and Is
| better than the average work turned
out by the government printing office
bindery. 1t did not, however, come up
to the sample furnished by the New
York house and the cost of the work
as done in the government printing
| office was about $50 per cent. greater
than il would have been If the con-
tract had been let to the New York
establishment. The experience of the
census office in this matter is not ex-
ceptional. There are other offices Of
the government that have at times
secured estimates from outside estab-
| Ishments and have found them to be
| far below the cost of the work done
in the government bindery. In one
instance in which comparison of cost
was made it was found that the gov
eminent was paying about 40 cents per
volume for binding practically identi-
! cal with work being done in Chicago
establishment at a cost of about .
cents per volume.