New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1910-05-19

Quoted in Magazine Article on
His Administration.
CORPORATION TAX VIEWS
Public To Be Allowed to See Re-
ports on Concerns in Which
They Are Interested.

They Are Interested.
In 'McClure's Magazine for June George
Kibbe Turner writes on How Taft Views
His Own Administration-An Interview
with the President, explaining that 'this
is statement by President Taft of the
purposes and achievements of his admin
istration. made during the first part OF
April. At that time the bills in the adj
m1nistration programme. presented TO the
current session of Congress, either were
still in committee or were being debated In
the Senate and House. The statement, for
the sake of clearness and simplicity. was
put in the form of continuous quotation
-unbroken by the questions asked or the
excursions from the main points Of discus
sion which are of necessity made In any
interview. This statement is, necessarily,
not a verbatim reproduction of the Ian
guage of the President, but il gives sub
stantially what he said
"a present need" Mr.. Taft thinks, ac-
cording to Mr.. Turner. is a few trust
makers in jail On this point he says:
The serious difficulty in prosecuting men
or corporations for creating mOnopolies
comes as a matter of fact-in criminal
cases-not from the lack of convincing
evidence, but from the reluctance OF 1urleS
for what he has done. His acts are newly
created crimes: they are maIa pronlDlta,
not mala in sc. 1t is easy for the average
citizen to decIaim about what should be
done to the makers of trusts, but when he
is actually in the jury box he f1nds IL very
difficult to send a man TO jail Tor practiceS
that until within comparatively short
time have been considered legitimate and
clever.
In one of the foremost recent trust pros
ecutions virtually all of the evidence Sc
cured by the government was based upon
the conduct of one man, the president or
the offending corporation; yet when the
iurv came to render its verdict this man
was set free and the corporation was fined.
This Is unfortunate, for, in my opinion,
nothing would stop this building up OF no
nopoIies more quickly than the conviction
of some of the individuals who create them
by their Illegal acts.
After the discussion of the corporation
tax law and the steps leading to its adop-
ton. Mr.. Taft says that ut now appears
likely that Congress will pass a bill put
ting upon the President the decision as TO
just how much publicity these returns shall
be given. Such a decision seems to me easy
TO make. There are three parties having
an interest in such returns-the public, the
corporations stockholders and the govern
ment 1 shall hold thai all returns must
be open to the proper government officials
and to the stockholders of the corporation
The public will be given access to the re-
ports listed In any stock exchange, adver-
tised or in any way offered for general pub
lie saIe-that is, they will be allowed TO
see the reports of all stocks in which they
have a legitimate interest"
OF the tariff the President says that the
actual operation of the new law shows
reduction on necessities, and adds:
The chief interest of the public in a tariff
is to whether il raises or lowers the cost
of the necessities of life. For this rea-
son the most valid way of passing judg-
ment on tariff is to. take the countrys
total consumption of the necessities OF me
on which it's schedules lower rates and
compare IL with the total consumption OF
the necessities upon which they raise rates
fumeries and silks-are subtracted, the ne
cessities of life upon which rates are low
cred in this Payne bib are consumed d, by
this country to the extent OF s0,oo0,000cD
year; while those upon which the rates
are raised have a consumption of only
about 270, 900, 00!-about one-elght9enIn OF
to rely upon this calculation alone the
actual operation of the tariff IS showing
ward According to figures compiled by the
federal Bureau Of Statistics, the average
rate OF duty paid on all imports during the
first six months under the Payne law was
70 per cent lower than in the correspond
ing months of the four previous years I'M
der the Dingley law. while the proportion
list increased just about the same per cent
That the President hopes to save 100000
600 year is one cheering announcement
that his interviewer makes He writes:
The United States now has an expendi-
The savings that have been reported as
possible by the different departments in
various branches of the work run from
to 40 per cent. Men who have been active
in the administrators efforts for econo-
nv in the departments estimate that IL
Congress vii 9eopsratsi IN s xc e 1
year can be cut off from public eXpendi-
lures simply by doing the same amount OF
business methods. This means that the
cost of government can be reduced by more
than the entire cost of the federal govern
ment in any year before the Civil War
AS an annual saving this is an immense
prize and is worthy of the concentrated
efforfs of the entire administration The
statement has been made that If single
business man We're put in charge of the en-
tire administration of the government and
given free hand, consolidating activities
as he saw fit, frightening hours of labor
in other words, running the government ex-
actly as a well conducted private business
is run-as much as SS00,OoO,Ooc year could
be saved. This may be so. What / am
aiming at is to accomplish the very large
saving that can be secured in spite Of gov
ernmental conditions OF work.
Archaic methods and practices in tho
Treasury Department, some or them daung
back 10 1879, and steps taken TO remedy the
defects, are described:
In the Treasury Department thorough
investigation, conducted with the assist
ance of commercial experts, uncovered
methods of business even more archaic
than those in the Navy Department Some
of the suryivals in this department were
extraordinary. One of them is the geo
graphical arrangement of the customs dis
fricts This remains virtually the same as
when IL was established in 1889. Pittsburg
and Cincinnati still remain in the district
of New Orleans: and at some of the
smaller ports-survivals OF a century-it
costs from 500 TO $500 to collect every dol
lar of revenue.
In the mint at Philadelphia women were
still weighing coins by hand. In every i'm
portant mint in Europe machines were in
operation, which weighed more coins in ten
minutes than woman could In day, and
more accurately. BY one piece OF reOrgani-
"a ton 100000 was saved there.
In the Treasury Building there was
bindery engaged solely in binding linen
sheets upon which a certain class of mail
was pasted for filing-a custom that had
been continued since the days of Alexan-
der Hamilton This bindery was abolished
When the governments paper money was
printed by private concerns, years ago, IL
was considered necessary to place the
seals and numbers on the notes In the Of
flee of the Treasurer. Some twenty-five
wears ago the printing was taken over by
the governments Bureau of Engraving and
Printing The old plant, for the second