The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-01-16
TaWney SaysRooseVe|t Made
 Government Extravagaht CUTTING DOWN EXPENSES
Most Serious Problem for Statesmen Now, Says Tawney, Is Getting Down to Moderate Living
 After Living High

New York January 15-(Special.)- Dur
 ing the two administrations of Theodore
 Roosevelt the expenses of the govern
 ment on the military account alone were
 g, ,250 GOO, ,000,' said James A Tawney of
 Minnesota, who for six years has been
 chairman of the committee of appropria-
 tions of the House.
 Mir. Towney was at the Waldorf-Astoria
 yesterday. He came over from Wash
 ington to deliver an address at the Cooper
 Union meeting of the New York Peace
 society Friday night.
 That is part answer to your ques- ton as to the cause of the rapid and
 enormous increase in expenses of the federal government" he continued. When we emerged from the four years of the civil war-the bloodiest and cost Hest strife of modern times-the national
 debt on that account was only s3,OoO.ooo, O0O So you see the seven and a half years of Rooseveltsm in a time of pro- found peace and prodigious industrial
 activity, in spite Of the man and his
 ways, cost the people of the United States almost as much in treasure for war pur-
 poses as did the civil war.
 Ours is now s1,000, ,000. 900 government,
 the only one in the world and the only
 one the world has ever known. It be-
 came a sl ,0Co,00o, GOO government under the | regime of Theodore Roosevelt. with his
 ism, which, although enunciated by him
 only recently, nevertheless was put into practice by him before he left the White House.
 Most Serious Problem "The most serious problem that con 1 fronts the statesmanship of the country
 at present is 10 cut down the expenses of 1 the national government Roosevelt cen
 tralization and Roosevelt militarism are
 90 interocked-the two always go to-
 gether-that they are almost inextrica ble. l It will require a high order of states
 manship to untangle them and get us back
 on the old ground. I doubt that my dem
 ocratic brethren, who are to control the next House, will be able to make much headway.
 "Of the $1,000, ,o00,000 the American peo- pie annually pay for the federal govern
 ment more than O0,0OOO00 are spent for wars we are preparing for. In other words, more than T per cent of the rev. enues collected annually is paid out by the government in all forms ms-pensions, the | army, the navy, Notifications, etc. ''The pension rolls which now cost
 to decrease substantially in a short time.
 So we will not consider that as a factor
 of very great importance.
 Big Cost of the Army Before the Spanish war, when the army was nearly third its present size, it's average annual cost for eight years was less than s24.0O0,O00. In 1903, under the | second year of Roosevelt's first admnis- tration. its cost shot up suddenly to near ly S92, 900. The average annual cost for the eight-year period from 1903 to 1910 WAS something over ss3,0O0000.
 "Undeh Rooseveltism the navy's cost shows an even bigger and more preten- tious increase. For the same eight-year period 1t jumped from an average of s2I,- 300,O0O to S102, ,400,0OO.
 Probably a remark Roosevelt once made to me in the White House when he
 was urging enormous appropriations for
 new ships will throw light on his methods l 1t before for publication, but 1t would
 just as we'll come out now as at any time. "'Tawney,' the President said when in-
 sisting upon my withdrawing my opposi- ton to one of his pet naval measures | before I quit the presidency I want it said that I built the biggest warship the
 world had ever known up to that time Extravagant Notions ''He displayed the same extravagant
 notions about the army, and especially Notifications. Why. he actually wanted 70 build an artificial island in Manila
 hay as complement to the Corrigedor defenses at a cost of SIG, 900, 900. And this
 artificial Gibraltar was to be built in
 water 90 feet deep. When Mir. Roosevelt
 left the White House the total cost of our military and the army and navy was sS, ,O0O00O greater than that of France with a standing army of 50000O men | and a navy with a larger personnel than
 ours. and only $4e,oOo.00 les sthan Great Britain, which has the biggest navy in
 the world, and an army of between 3O0,- | GOO and 100000.
 ''The enlisted strength of our army at I that time was less than 10000, with about | 10000 men in the navy. Roosevelt, as Pres 1 ident, forced more retirements from the army and navy than probably anyone during the terms Of all or his predecess- ors combined. except Lincoln, of course l These things cost the government much l money, for every retired officer draws pay until he dies.
 | But Roosevelts. extravaganza was not confined to the military service. It ex- | tended with the same reckless disregard | to the strictly civil branches of the gov ernment. Only those of us who have
 served on the two appropriations com
 mittee of Congress know the full story l of his extravaganza
 BurdensOme Committees "Without the warrant of law he ap- pointed committees to do nearly every thing that anybody suggested should he done by the federal government He urged the creation of new departmental
 bureaus almost without number, taking men away from the work thea were So 1 lected to do in the departments at Wash 1 ington or elsewhere and imposing upon the government expense accounts that
 had not been provided for fin the appro- rriatton. bills, ftsfSe
 | ''President Roosevelt's investigation or
 the child labor question iss case in point 'The federal government has no
 (CONTIN LIED ON PAGE sl