Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1904-12-17
WASTE IN PRINTING
Great Extravaganza in Gov
eminent Publications.
PRESIDENTS COMMENT
ATTITUDE OF THE LATE SAMUEL
J. RANDALL RECALLED.
Close Scrutiny of Public Expenses by
the Great Pennsylvanian-Fr
ship Ceased at Doors of Congress.

printing and binding government publica-
items recalls very wildly to my mind the
severe condemnation by another eminent
public man of this same extravaganza
mean Samuel j. Randall, the great chair
man of the committee on appropriations,
said Col Richard r. Mcmahon of West Viz
ginia. deputy controller of the treasury dur
ing the first Cleveland administration. Il
well remember that this subject was one of
the things which tried Mr.. Randall's tenn
per whenever he referred to IT. He came
into my office in the Treasury Department
one day, having in his hand bundle of re-
ports made by different bureau officers.
Mcmahon ne said, L spent an hour last
night trying to find something in these
things. They have neither head nor TAIL
nor sense-nothing practical useful in
them. They are samples of the tons of UNI
mitigated trash sent to the public printer.
One man says his office examined about
million Of vouchers involving fourteen mill
lions of dollars, wrote three thousand let
ters and did other wonderful things. And
then he winds up with the usual, the
chronic, appeal for an increase of clerical
force, or his bureau will go to destruction.
Now, If this man had only stated in a bust
ness way that he had one hundred clerks;
that there were so many divisions in mis-
office: that such a division had so many
people; that at the beginning of the fiscal
year SO many accounts were on hand In
could tell pretty well what each one did
OF the great mass of printing ordered by
Congress Randall used to say that 1t was
horrible, except in the sense that it helps
the printers
Mr. Randall was particularly severe In
denouncing the recklessness of the Interior
Department at that time in regard to print
ing what he termed windy discussions, dis
sertations and treatises on subjects of no
more practical utility than report on the
moon,
this subject l recall that Public Printer
Benedict once told me that the printing and
binding called for by one particular de-
partment alone In one year would have con-
sumed the entire appropriation made by
Congress for all government printing for
that year. He instanced the case of one
Individual in the Interior Department who
sent in a report on some such subject as
the indefinite eXpansibility of matter
Benedict said that after getting the fourth
revise of the proof the man cut 1t all TO
pieces and added about twenty pages OF
new matter. Then the public printer got
hot called on the Secretary, and that sort
Of business was stopped by an order from
the Secretary which was made general IN
the department"
MI. Randalls Thoroughness.
You knew Mr.. Randall very will, did you
not?"
Yes, very well. He was very dear to
me- While l was in the treasury he often
sent for me to talk over departmental mat
te-s generally. In the little library of his
modest home on Capitol Hill the great
Pennsylvania would discuss this, that and
the other subject He had small slips or
paper on which he would figure, and then
put the slips away for future reference. III
there was anything that made him madder
than anything else, it was what he de-
nounced as "a contemplate swindle under
the guise of law and roundabout robbery
of the public treasury the purchase of de-
partment carriages and horses for private
use in the face of the law, which provided
for horses and mail wagons. Mr.. Randall
asked me how it was done, and when l
told him that the carriages were styled
mail wagons on the purchase vouchers,
his eyes blazed. The federal horse and car
riagc for private use in taking Mrs. Jen-
kins to the theater or to market, or to
sociables, with driver in livery-some poor
fellow paid as a laborer-ddn't appeal TO
Samuel Jackson Randall. He inserted in
the appropriation bill of that year a few
words which he thought would stop the
abuse, viz, the words TO be used for Off
cial purposes only after the words for
horses and mail wagons, but the practice
continued, and the Lands amendment has
not stopped 1t, by any means
"One day, when Mr.. Randall had added
up the estimates for carpets and station
cry for the fiscal year, he said: Why that
amount would have run Andrew Jackson's
administration And there was, and has
always been great recklessness as to these
two items. The stationery used in our
Office, after Il system of accountability had
been inaugurated was 80 per cent less than
1t had been.
1.-The government official who went before
Randall for an increase of salary got cold
comfort If not a plain rebuke. He did,
however, favor increases in meritorious
cases.
Rebuke of Bureau Officer.
chairman rebuked a certain bureau off,
Ger one night when some of us were sum-
moned before his committee to explain
our estimates 1t fell to nv lot to renre-