Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1908-02-24
RECORD FOR HONESTY
Proud Boast of the Internal
Revenue. Bureau.
.CHlEF CLERKS STATEMENT
Mississippi Saloons to Be Abolished
December 81.
TWO MORE STATES TO GO DRY
Growth of the Temperance Sentiment
in Indiana-The Potent Effect
of RESPONSIVENESS.
CHIEF CLERKS STATEMENT
TWO MORE STATES TO GO DRY
By WILLIAM r. CURTIS.


Written for The Star AMI the Chicago Record
Herald.
Several weeks ago | wrote letter con-
corning the extraordinary honesty of the
post office service and the economy with
which it is managed. which caused Mr.
Giovannol. chief clerk of the internal
revenue bureau. to call attention to the
similar record on the part of the en-
| plnyes of that service. who. he properly
contends. are collecting the internal taxes
| of the United States at a lower cost and
with Il greater degree of honesty than is
! shown in the conduct of any private
concern or the management of any cor
| poration in the world
within the last ten fiscal years" said
| Mr.. Giovannoli. the collections of the
internal revenue bureau have aggregated
s.. 0dj6 0i at an average annual eX-
! pense of Isl per cent for the cost of col
| lection. The smallest sum for any year
collected within the period was in 1898,
! following the hard times'-SlI0.S 66, $40
! The largest annual collection during tn.
/ ten years was in 1901 when the receipts
/ under the war revenue act reached their
! flood tide. That fiscal year the total col
lections were s3O6,S71 ,669. and the cost of
collection was 1.55 per cent. This would
| indicate rather good economy in the adj
ministration of a bureau which in It's
operations extends from Maine to Hawai-
Not a Dollar Lost by Dishonesty.
The Internal revenue service, in its OF
| flee and field force of employees. has in
round numbers 1000 persons, and the
| fact that the defalcations by persons
handling the money in this service do
not average more than one year speaks
! we'll not only for the individual honesty
| of employees but for the efficiency of the
methods employed by the bureau. Within
the ten years specified the government
! did not lose dollar by reason of the
! dishonesty of any clerk or deputy collec-
tor. and within that period there were
not exceeding ten persons found guilty of
| embeZzlement. The stealing, where it
did occur. was done by deputy collectors
intrusted with the duty of selling stamps.
and as such officers are under bond to
| the collectors the surety companies were
| called upon to make good the shortage
and did so. Even then the sum total OF
the amounts misappropriated for the ten
years would probably not exceed $500.
| "One of the largest defalca tons and
one of the most ingenious thefts occurred
during the life of the war revenue act
| when documentary stamps. running in
value from the fraction of q cent to 81 900
were placed in the hands of deputy col
lectorS. These stamps as a rule, were
| printed in large sheets with some five
HunQreQ SneetS 10 the bundle. In one Of
| the eastern collection districts the deputy
collector handling documentary stamps be-
| gan extracting f1fty-dollar stamps from the
center of the bundles until he had made
away with some $500 worth. and then
his populations were discovered. Several
different revenue agents had examined the
| office without detecting the shortaga.
| although it was their duty to count all
| of the stamps on hand. The agents. en-
| ploying the usual method of counting the
| packages of stamps by manipulating one
corner of 1T and without lifting the whole
sheet. were not aware of the fact that
| there was a hole in the middle of the
| bundle and that several hundred dollars
| worth of stamps were missing thcrefrom.
| The deputy collectors bond was good for
/ the loss sustained and the officer escaped
| imprisonment because of technical de-
| feet in the statute.
Hundreds of thousands of dollars
! year are lost by reason of frauds against
! the revenue. but neither the government
nor the bonding companies loses any sum
worth mentioning because of the dishon-
esty of the employees in the internal reve-
nue. service.