The Birmingham age-herald., 1905-06-29
A WORD ABOUT
 EXPERTS REPORT
nY sEYMouR RANsoM.

| countants were employed to examine the books of all departments in the city gov i ernment and to report at the earliest practicable moment the results of their investigations to the City Council. These two accountants. having finished their work, have submitted their report 10 the finance committee. The more essential features of this report have been pub lished in the newspapers. In considera- ton of the service done, the finance com mittee has recommended that the two accountants be paid an aggregate of sl29O, the one receiving $2O, and the other S1O, day for work that engaged the at tention of both throughout period of forty-three days.
 Now that this report is made public, what is the upshot, it may be asked, of the examination of the citys books, that has been made by these two expert &C., countants, and what is the significance, if any, of the conclusions reached, and the recommendations made, by these two gentlemen? Do the disclosures" some- what elaborately set out. as they are, in this report of the two experts, re- garding the financial administration of the city, furnish a basis for reasonable anxiety on the part of the citizens of Birmingham? Is the record one to which taxpayers may point with pride,' or is 1t one that needs to be viewed with alarm?"
 Answers to these questions, as we'll as to all other similar questions, will be deter mined in large measure by the tenn perament and point of view of him to whom they may be ad- dressed. The hypercrtical, severe ly technical and acutey quixotic citizen will not find it difficult to descern in the report Of these expert accountants evidence sufficient to condemn almost | everyone that has had to do with the 1 city government in the last six years If public opinion be shaped and reflected by these classes alone. the heads of all our citizens might be expected to be bow ed in humiliation by reason of the report made by the two expert accountants. Hap pily, however, public opinion is not moulded exclusively either by the Don l Quixotes of municipal reform or by the expert accountants" conscientious though he may be, who like the mountain writh- ingly 1abors only to bring forth a mouse Reasoning human beings who are aeeus- toned to view situations steadily and to view them whole, will decline to be swept out of their heads and off their feet by any evidence which, however plausible 1t may be, is not absolutely convincing. Careful examination of the report of the expert accountants will, we believe, sat- isfy every reasoning mind that while it is doubtless interesting and worth the expenditure of the amount of money requisite for its compilation, yet it con tans, with few exceptions. little if any thing upon which formidable indictment might be drawn against the recent ad- ministration of municipal affairs.
 
 It Is no exaggeration to state that the word expert is regarded with distrust- fitness in the professional and business world. There are three kinds of errors. D once said an eminent New York lawyer, the error, the grave error, and the error of the medical expert" A Philadelphia law yer has recently offered to amend this
 
 of errors the error of the hand writing expert" The satrical touch in these re- marks of the lawyers is not intended to impugn the integrity of the expert ,' whether handwriting or medical It is really compliment to the experts at tainments. It means that he knows his subject so intimately. and can split hairs so finely, and indulge in so many ab- struse, intangible and indefinable sub tleties that nobody, not even a New York or Philadelphia lawyer, can follow him intelligently The expert, the truth is lives in world quite apart from his fel- | lows. His eye wears an invisible micro scopic glass. All his mental processes tend to segregate him from his fellow men and to make of him a man queer, singular, unique. He has standards of h,s own to which he usually lives up, and be insists that all other men be rnled by these standards of his. Against this the world protests, and protests rightly, for | society, a whole. is composed, not of | experts or of casuists but of men and women who live normal lives and are satisfied with the normally accurate and l the normally good in all things that re- late to human life.
 This natural insistance upon normal conditions applies to politics as well as to other affairs. Perfection in government is, of course, desirable, yet seldom if ever attainable The whole problem of human government resolves itself into a com promise between conditions as they are and conditions as they should be-be- tween the lis" and the ought to be-" | The people of Birmingham are not angels, but men and women with the frailties, mperfections and shortcomings of their kind. A city government set up by a popular electorate may be expected to be representative of the failings as well as of the excellencies of those who bring 1t into being By this we do not mean that the better forces of society need to strike hands with the baser-that the school schould sympathze with the saloon or the pulpit with the brothel-but rather that all citizens when they are inclined to become critical should >take a common sense view of the situation, and see to it that their conclusions are reached through their brains or reason and not through their nerves or emotion.
 The "experts" have done work that needed to be done, and they have done it faithfully and intelligently. Though not empowered to make recommendations, the