The Forrest City times., 1904-04-15
ONE CENT APPROPRIATION.
Incident Which Shows the Govern
meEt's Watchfulness Over the
Little Things.


which has neither been reduced by the
economists OF the house nor increased by
the more liberal senator's is found on the
seventeenth line of page 80 in the
printed bill: For contingent, bureau
OF medicine and surgery. one cent"
Only the bare statement is there con-
tanned. but search of the records re-
Veais the history of this item. one of the
smallest. beyond doubt, to which para
graph of a public bill was ever devoted.
says the New York Post In May. of 1901.
the Southern Pacific railroad carried
some goods by freight for the bureau
presided over by the surgeons general.
For this is charged 500 As it was
bond-aided road. however, its relations
win the government were such that it
was not entitled to cash payment. Only
a fraction of one per cent of the bills
oil such a road are paid in cash. the re-
mainder being credited to its account in
the treasury. 1t so happened that in this
case the credit was S52S and the cash
one cent. Together with a number of
other freight bills OF various bureaus ag-
gregating several thousand dollars. the
account passed the auditor for the navy
department. On the discovery that
there were no contingent funds avail
able from which the cash payment could
be made, the secretary of the treasury
transmitted the separate items to the
house of representatives among his es-
Inmates.
Curiously enough. another govern
| ment obligation of single cent
has also recently passed through
the hands of the auditor of the
navy department The course which
| IL followed shows anew that the
government is just as careful when its
transactions are on the scale of the
| small boy in candy store as when it is
buying canal zones. On April /, 1903.
| Pay Director |. G. Hobbs made a requisi-
! tion for large quantity of ethyl ether, to
| be used in the manufacture of smoke
less powder. A chemical company of
| Hoboken. for reasons which do not ap-
pear in the papers made a singularly
generous offer of 1892 pounds for one
cent. Two days later Pay Director
Hobbs solemnly made this entry: Il
certify that after public competition
| purchased the above article at the prices
above charged amounting in all to one
cent To this transaction the paymas-
ter general gave his approval by fixing
| his signature An officer of the navy
| certified in turn that he inspected the
ether and found it to conform with the
| specifications. The general storekeeper
al Newport signed his name to a certiff-
| ate that3t the ether was received The
commandant of the naval station ap-
| proved this by signing his name. Ad-
miral O'Neil, chief of the bureau of ord
nance. wrote his name across the papers,
thus adding his assurance that the gov
eminent was not being cheated. In all
| there were nine signatures on the papers
relating merely to the establishment of
the claim. These included the signs
manual of two bureau chiefs, one of them
rear admiral
| The paper, which finally reaches the
payment is drawn. bears merely the
| full signature of the deputy auditor and
| five sets of Initials, those of the clerks
| the claim was successfully audited by"
revised by" entered by, ''sched-
| uled by" and 'indexed by" What such
| a miniature autograph album costs the
government would be an interesting cal
| culation.
President Cleveland, a few days after
he turned his Office over to his successor,
received a warrant for one cent. The
president is paid II times a year, his
monthly salary being 81 1866 2-3 To
bringthe total out even, his warrant, after
the decimal point is sometimes made
out for Sc and sometimes 81 cents. On
the final month of Mr. Cleveland's term
| he should have had the odd cent. but in
| the desire to get the account settled
promptly. the treasury department made
| out a warrant for the same sum as the
previous month. Thus, out of the $500
| 600 TO which the president is entitled dur
| ing his term one cent was left in the
| treasury. and to square the account had
| to be sent TO him on a special warrant.
| 1t is said that he never cashed it. but