The Virginia enterprise. [volume] (Virginia, St. Louis County, Minn.) 1893-19??, 1914-03-20
SIX d.
ARE SUGGESTED
BY COMMISSION
Railroad and Warehouse Com
mission Will Be Allowed to
Stand as It Is. =
CIVIL SERVICE PLAN i.
s. IS ALSO FAVORED
Heads Of Departments and Gov
ernor Will Form a Sort of
Cabinet.
From Mondays Daily.

81. - AOA, ANlIlll., MdIClI 4O---OlA
big departments and a group of
constitutional offices instead of
sixty or seventy boards, commissions
and miscellaneous organizations
how does that strike you for the
framework Of state government?
Seven departments could include
everything if it was not for the con-
stitution, but the efficiency commits
sion which puts out this plan is look
ing only at what the legislature can
do. What corresponds to a depart
ment of general administration and
finance is made up Of the secretary
of state, auditor, treasurer and at
torney general, plus the public ex-
aminer and tax commission.
Here are the other six, unless the
commission changes it's mind-and if
the legislature sees it the same way:
Public Land and Works.
Public Welfare.
Public Education.
Labor and Commerce.
Agriculture.
Public Health and Safety.
In those departments can be in
Guided, apparently without violence or
confusion every blessed thing the
state is doing. With a few excep-
tions. The railroad and warehouse
commission stands alone as a sort of
court and the commission does not
propose to alter the manner Of it's
election. At the same time there is
left in the hands of the railroad and
warehouse commission the grain in
spection department., the only place
where executive authority is pro-
posed to be given to a board. Ev-
erywhere else boards are designed
only for regulative or advisory
duties; for executive authority the
single individual.
For sensational and historical
reasons, the commission is disposed
to leave unattached the historical So
ciety and the soldiers home. Every
other place where the state grants
the use of it's name or where state
money is spent, it is the design to
put the disbursements through one of
the state departments.
A civil service system goes with it
all or it doesn't go at all. Naturally
the heads of departments with the
governor will form sort Of a cabinet,
Naturally the legislature will get it's
first information about the needs Of
the state from the heads of depart
ments and the governor in the form
of budget. Naturally appropria-
tions will be made with much better
knowledge of their relative import.
ance than it is in the power of any
legislature now to know. Naturally
there will be much better team play
between the departments when they
are thus associated than when sixty
or seventy boards are running at
large.
Naturally some salaries will have
to be increased-we Nigh as well
understand it from the start. If you
are going to put the states business
on a business basis it will have to be
on business lines. Naturally on the
other hand some useless places will
be abolished, some duplicate services
will be eliminated, lots of lost motion
will be taken up.
Naturally it will need a great deal
of study to work out all the details.
This is skeleton. But if it looks
as thrifty to the rest of the state as
it does to the efficiency commission,
that skeleton will be clothed with
as pretty and symmetrical scheme of
government as can be found in the
United States.