Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-12-03
MILES OF RED TAPE
Funny Things Found by the
Keep Commission.
COST OF SAFEGUARDS
SUPERVISION MORE EXPENSIVE
THAN OFFICIAL ACTION.
Need of Simple, Modern System of
Auditing Accounts Like That of
Big Corporation.
COST OF SAFEGUARDS
BY WILLIAM f. CURTIS.

BY WILLIAM f. CURTIS.
Written for The Star and the Chicago Record
Herald.
The Keep commission, which has been
investigating the methods of transactng
business in the different executive depart
ments of the government, with view TO
promoting economy, simplicity and eff1-
cheney has discovered some very funny
things Some of the departments are SO
tangled up in red tape that it often costs
several times as much money as bill
amounts to to get 1t audited and paid. The
same so-callei safeguards to protect the
disbursement of government funds are ap-
piled to an expenditure of % cents and a
contract of 100000 and often it is i'm
possible to settle account because the
laws or regulation bearing upon 1t cannot
he complied with. 1t Is often the case also
that contracts entered into with private
citizens or corporations for the performance
of government work are completed before
the papers are approved by the highest per-
son in authority Some contracts and ex-
pendtures have to be approved by any
where from three to dozen persons, in
Guiding a member of the Cabinet. All ex-
penditures for the Panama canal have to
sets of auditors before they be paid,
and this duplication costs large sum of
money In the reclamation service every
contract has to be approved by the Secre
tary of the Interior, no matter how insig-
nifiCant II may be, and everything has to
be done by contract after advertising for
proposals for thirty days. When bids
opened they have to so through a mill.
They have to be examined and approved
by several people and finally receive the
formal sanction # the Secretary Of the
terror. who knows nothing whatever about
the matter referred to and has no time to
find out.
II Secretary Hitchcock should perform all
the duties required of him by the laws and
regulations in this single branch of his de-
partment alone he would not be able to
think or act or hear about anything that
related to the rest of the responsibilities
which lie upon his shoulders.
Copies of Contracts Filed.
The Keep commission. for example. were
surprised to discover that section 3T44 of
the Revised Statutes requires the Secreta-
ries of War, Navy and Interior-but of no
other department under the government
Ito cause and require every contract made
by them severally on behalf of the gov
eminent or by their officers under them TO
be reduced to writing and to be signed by
the contracting parties, with the names a
me end thereof, copy of which shall re
filed by the officer making and signing the
contract in the returns office of the DEPART
ment of the Interior as soon after the con-
tract Is made as possible and within thirty
Gays, together with all the bids offered and
proposals to him made by persons to Obtain
the same and with copy of any advertise
nent ne may have published inviting such
DDS offers and proposals; all of which
copies and papers in relation to each con-
tract shall be attached together by a rih-
Don and seal and marked by numbers in
IfNrr
papers composing the whole return
The returns office is room in the base
,HeIIt oI lhe interior Department building
III charge OF Mr.. w. Bertrand Acker Three
or tour clerks are kept busy receiving and
putting together with ribbons the naDars
described in the above statute and fling
them away and making indexes that nobody
ever refers TO and scarcely anybody knows
ABOUT. MS has been going on for half a
century. II has cost the government hun
ureds of thousands of dollars and vet no
body ever goes there and not one ont of
ten thousand employees of the government
Is aware that ii exists. Although the Sec
rotary of War, the Secretary of the Navy
and the Secretary of the Interior are com
manded by Congress to file copies of all
their contracts there, doubt If any one of
them ever heard of the place and thew
would not know what you meant if YOU
referred to it. The other branches of the
government are not required to contribute
to that waste basket. The privilege is linn
In some cases six copies of all papers con-
tracts must be made: One for the con-
tractor, one for the officer Immediately in
charge, one for the head of his bureau, one
FOR the head of his department a fifth for
the auditor of the treasury and a sixth for
the return office. At least four of them are
no better than waste paper.
Irregular Purchases.
Everything has to be done by contract
and the no
lowest bidder after due advertisement Any
official who expends money or gives an or
der or incurs financial responsibility with
ont observing that regulation is hunting for
trouble
Some years ago a corporal of the United
States army was sent from military post
in the west in charge of an insane soldier
who had been committed by a medical
board TO st. Elizabeth Hospital in Wash
ington The crazy man jumped out of the
window of the railway car and was killed
The mangled remains picked up
placed in a coffin and buried in the nearest
town. because they were in such condition
that they could not be sent anywhere The
entire expense was about $50, but the cor
poral was compelled to pay the bill out of
his own pocket because he had not pro-
cured coffin from the man with whom the
government had a contract to furnish such
things. nine hundred or a thousand miles
away. There was also some trouble about
recovering his travelling expenses because
he and the insane man did not arrive at
their destination and there report them
selves TO the official to whom their orders
were addressed and receive his acknowl-
edgment.
Capt. Collins OF the army was out on
scouting expedition once and lost a soldier.
He ordered coffin and buried the man at
the nearest town. Thirty dollars was de-
Quoted from his pay because his duty was
performed in what the auditors called an
irregular manner" The soldier was dead
all right. and there was no doubt about
his burial, and nobody questioned that Capt
Collins had paid the undertaken; but the
whole thing was Irregular" He had not
advertised for bids either for furnishing
the coffin or digging the grave and he had
not obtained an emergency order for doing
the act from his superior officer.
Cost More Than the Contract.
The geological survey has eighteen horses
which it uses up in Montana during tn,
summer. Last winter II arranged to pas
ture them for s2T a month with a half
breed ON an Indian reservation who had
been taking care of government stock fol-
several winters and had kept them in goot
condition. He was the only man the sur
vey people had ever found, after many
years OF experience, upon whom they could
rely. But the department refused to ap
prove the agreement, because IL was in