The morning journal-courier., 1908-10-08
ACCOUNTING THE ACCOUNTS.

h'tutNllNG JliE ACCOUNTS,
 It Is much to be regretted if tho OK cellent suggestion recently made by Mr. Deforost. that an expert account ant be put to work on the books of the city, falls through, It Is doubly to be regretted, too, If tho various officials of tho present city administration gee any personal thrust in the suggestion and, for that reason, take what steps they can to defeat its accomplishment. Every year the realization Is growing that our units of government are in reality nothing other than big busl- nesses and that as governments they attain their greatest efficiency when as businesses they arc run with he least friction and tho least leakage.
 Of nono of our units of government is the business element moro in ovl- dence than in our cities, Mayor Mar tin is tho present head of our New Haven business concern; his right hand men are the officials in city hall; his stock holders are the citizens. If the latter see fit to put an expert io work upon the books of their corpora tion, 1t is far from being a personal thrust at any who may have kept those books. Similar investigations are being made in many other cities. They are contemporaneous with the ] general movement tlfe country over toward better municipal governments There should be no upright city-dwell- CT but is rejoiced that this movement has come. Less and less have city | governments come to be concerned with politics. When city political par ties are entirely separate from nation al political parties in every way and each of them yies with the citizens fnr their votes irrespective of the beliefs of the latter as to the tariff and the currency and other matters of natIoa- al importance, then will the mellan. ium in matters municipal be close ni hand.
 Yesterday brought news of the re. port of the commissioners of accounts and the bureau of municipal research to the New York board of aldermen These reports cannot but impress lpor New Workers the gross extrayaganct and financial carelessness which Ina, been going on fin the big city. The way in which, through ignorance ol wilfulness on the part of officials iht city's supplies are bought at the high, est of figures, is nothing less thar criminal It may be true, as New Yorks controller MT. Metz, says, fha' 1t is quite impossible to run city aX actly on the same business princlplel on which one might run large prl vate business, but at the same time | is equally true, as he says, that th' constant aim should be to try to ap proach that ideal as near as Is possi
 ble. In accomplishing that aim n, better plan could be suggested thGi that of MT. DeForest, which goes ;h
 New York plan one better in that 1 provides for an expert probe at thu
 instigation of thoroughly non
 partisan and unlntluenced organiaa
 ton, the Associated Civic Societies
 More of interest would be sure {, come to light in this way than ghoi ths Investigators are put to work m
 der the direct superintendence o those they are Investigating, as in Nov York.
 New York is not at all alone in thi
 movement for better business govern ments. Chicago IS conspicuous eX ample and Chicago has prospered o late because of 1t. Not only is thi country wide movement tending [ , eradicate evils of extravagance an waste but it is tending as well to es ! tablish everywhere a uniform syster
 of municipal bookkeeping, which yer materially aids the bureau of com merce and labor in gathering it's man statistics, As Don, B Mowry clos , student of municipal affairs, said ] f closing recent article on Saving tn s City's Money: Let's save the city
 waste. That's the real issue. jt 3 not so much the graft that we Wal , to expose as it is the need of bette t methods in handling city funds Tn - city will come out of tho generc s shifting of scenic standards the bott. 3 If we tend strictly to business.