The La Jara chronicle., 1910-05-27
THE ACHIEVEMENTS OF TAFT

one a slight idea of the splendid
achievements of President Taft as
chief executive of the nation up to
tion and obstruction he has met from
disgruntled member of his own party
as we'll as the united opposition of
the Demo rats. The Denver News
Democratic paper. pays him the
following high tribute:
Whatever mistakes President Taft
may be making politically. he is scor-
ing an emphatic success in his work
of reorganizing the governmental de-
partment at Washington. The crying
need for such house clean
ing has long been clear. but the
system of dry rot that obtains has
become so incrusted with tradition
and so rutted in inertia that pre-
vious administrations shrank from the
task of the necessary overhauling.
The departments as at present
run are an anachronism- They show
an almost inconceivable stupidity and
waste. In undertaking to bring them
to date by sweeping out the rubbish
and installing modern business meth
DDS Mr. Taft is rendering a dis
tinct service to the country.
His work a'ong this line has bare
ly begun, but already his new budget
announces a cut of s94. 900 900 in the
estimates of expense for running the
federal government for the year end
ing June 30, 1911, over the estimates
of the current year. incidentally, it
may be mentioned that until this
year we never had budget setting
forth the anticipated expenses of the
government. Unlike other countries,
we have hitherto stumbled along
haphazard and trusted to luck that
our income would prove greater than
our outlay.
Mr.. Taft has been able to accomplish
this saving by means of a prelimin-
ary shaking up of the bureaus in
control of the depart business.
1t has been known for a long time
that their system was obsolete. ex-
pensive and inefficient, but what the
president calls their eighteenth cen
tury methods were so much a part
of them that reform seemed impos-
sible. One bureau has been added
to another as a demand seemed to
arise for it, without any system of
adequate correlation.
Of NTrT
Mr. Taft has a hea"t-to-heart talk
with the public. In tie course of it
he instances some of the absurd in
efficiencies of buree-- acy. At Phil
adelphia in the mint coins were still
being weighed by hand, though all
over Europe machines for this pur-
pose were in use that can do more
and better work in ten minutes than
u woman can DO in a day. At some
of the smaller ports that have sur
vived since Jeffersonian times it
costs $500 to collect each dollar of
customs revenue. The saving under
only one of the six auditors of the
treasury department, through his re-
organization report, dhiouHIS ~
$50 900 a year.
The greatest individual saving is
in the case of the naval bureau. I'm
mense sums have been wasted in
duplication of plants and in lack of
cooperation of the various boards.
Secretary Meyer has modcrnizcd the
navy system at the expense of the
bureauracy that controlled it. His
estimate of expense is 10000. 900 less
for next year than this, without any
decrease in the efficiency of the navy.
What is needed in operating the
departments is modern business meth
ods Mr. Taft realizes this and has
set at out the difficult task cf putting
the government business on the same
economical system that the head
of vast corporation might use. He
has asked congress to help in this by
establishing a committee from that
body with tthe object of employing
experts to study the departments
and suggest improvements that will
be sweeping and widespread. This
is move in the right direction. 1t
is to be hoped that congress will join
the president in aiding him to give
the promised business administration
The way Uncle Sam is building
that Panama canal is enough to make
us all proud of being Americans.
Ever since the army engineers took
hold. things have been done right,