The Kansas City sun. (Kansas City, Mo.) 1908-1924, 1915-11-13

method of securing and charting this Information
become that it requires little labor and its cost
by comparison with the results achieved IN as
sisting in intelligent buying, is remarkably low
Other charts, corrected daily, keep the bureau
informed as to the amount of stocks on hand
in every detail, not only at the storehouses but
on the ships as well. Since the navy through its
extensive wireless system is in constant COM
munication with every ship afloat, the task or
keeping up these charts is not so difficult as it
seems.
Or the bunch of cards making up a ships com.
psny also is producible on the instant.
Machines have reduced the amount of work in
the accounting section more than 50 per cent.
There are retinements of cost keeping in a mill
tary establishment that are not known in a
private establishment, for all expenditures must
conform to some specific item of an appropria-
ton bill, and appropriations for the naval estab-
lishment are found in three different appropria-
tion acts.
Roughly speaking, 5000, 900 separate accounts
must be kept properly to meet the requirements
of the law and to furnish the information as to
costs, gross and detailed, needed. Imagine a
ledger with 1900, 900 accounts!
Here the cards and mechanism have come in to
the extent that half the number of men needed
Is months ago are now required to do the work.
In addition a great deal of new work has been
taken on.
The use of new card punching machines is re-
sponsible for the larger economies.
The machine is so arranged that 1t sorts the
punched cards, arranges them in proper groups,
ascertains the totals of the figures indi :ated by
the punched holes and prints on a sheet the
results. 1t is accounting reduced to mechanism.
OF course the usual machines, such as adding
machines and the like, are part of the equipment.
In fact the whole trend of the reforms in this
section has been to reduce everything to a
mechanical basis.
The result is great economics in operation, in
creased efficiency, increased accuracy and in
creased speed. To the casual observer the strik-
ing thing is the disappearance of books. Few
indeed are the books in sight. remarkably slim
the files. In other words, the accountancy sys-
tenn has been reduced to the simplest dimensions.
Ask any man, officer or civilian, in the estab-
lishment how the whole organization has been
made over in such a time, and he instantly will
tell you that Sammy MCGOWAN did it. And then
he will grow confidential and tell you what he
esteems is the secret of the whole accomplish
ment, the spirit that McGowan has put into his
entire force. I'VE don't tolerate grouches," your
informant will say. I'VE all belong to the Don't
Worry club and MCGOWAN is its president"
Another thing this paymaster general has done
is to establish in Washington, with the approval
of the secretary of the navy, a school for navy
pay officers. These officers are appointed from
civil life on a competitive examination. They 60
into the service equipped with a good academic
education, but with no knowledge of the navy
and its needs. Hence the new service school
which has in this years class Is young officers
who are being trained in their new profession.
Admiral MCGOWAN himself is a product OF
civilian training. When he secured his appoint
ment in the pay corps in 1894 he was a South
Carolina newspaper man who had worked his
way through college and law school by running
a brick yard and serving as a ticket agent at 6
railway station. Maybe there he got the training
which has made him a great business executive
The fact that he has spent most of his naya
career at sea accounts for his insistence that the
fleet and not the bureau is the thing ever to b.
kept in mind.
When he left the Atlantic fleet to go ashore a.
paymaster general his commanding officer, Ad
miral Badger, said of him. HE has made the pa,
department of the feet a smoothly working mil
itary machine"
That is the ideal he holds up to his bureau
and corps: Make it a smooth running militar.
machine"