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

W~ q saves JACK S money for him and the
- savings bank it operates has deposits
aggregating ~s253,O00. 1t operates two great clothing
factories one at Brooklyn and the other at Charles.
ton' 5. q In another aspect it j. one of the biggest
purchasing agencies in the country.
So remarkable have been it's achievements in the
twelvemonth that many requests have come to it
recently from business establishments, public and
private, for information as to it's new methods.
The spirit behind the change is that of a boyish.
looking, wide-eyed, ever-smiling officer, who, Just
forty-tive years old-and he does not look it-holds
tne rank and draws the pay of a rear admiral. he
being paymaster general of the navy and chief of
the bureau. Rear Admiral Samuel MCGOWAN he is
u outsiders Mr.. McGowan is the form of address
he insists upon within the bureau. But in the navy
generally by all ranks and all grades, he is dubbed,
behind his back of course. Sammy MCGOWAN.
In the IA months he has been paymaster general
he has made over his bureau. What is more. he has
secured the hearty and enthusiastic support of the
entire force. That, to anyone who knows how anv
government organization is welded to precedent, is
amazing.
somewhat given to the making of epigrams in his
instructions, oral and written, Admiral MCGOWAN
has uttered two that give a hint of the predominat.
ing ideas behind his reforms. Make it bureau with
a small b and navy with a big N" is one. and
Remember that the stores exist for the fleet, not
the fleet for the stores"
The paymaster general and his bureau of supplies
and accounts have their Offices in the great nile
known as the state, war and navy building on
pennsylvania avenue, thanking the White House on
the west. When the building was erected some
forty years ago it was the largest office building
in the world. Each corridor in it has the appear.
ance of a battalion of barrooms, for each of the
many corridor doors has it's middle two-thirds
masked by a shutter door. The rooms are ali inter.
communicating.
The paymaster generals office is the end one in
a suite of five rooms. Across the hall are seven
more rooms. In the navy annex building, in a street
near by, are some more offices of the bureau.
When Paymaster General MCGOWAN took over the
job he inaugurated at once a cleanup campaign,
Down from the walls anne the dusty old pictures.
bookcases and file cases went out. Current and
absolutely necessary bureau files went into one
room in a set of steel vertical containers, for
general purposes, and in the purchasing end,
across the hall, they likewise were reduced.
Private libraries also went out. Upstairs the
navy department maintains a splendid naval Ii.
brary, and this is available for all purposes.
Abolish roll-top DESKS was the word. Where
fattop desks were not available the department
carpenters took off the roll tops. Since then
standard office furniture has been adopted for
the entire bureau.
All intercommunicating doors in the suites
we're taken eff the hinges. Walls were painted
in light colors. Then the chief of each room or
division chief was required to put his desk in
the middle of the room with his force grouped
about him. Now the paymaster general can
stand in his room and look down the line and
see exactly what is going on.
But that isn't exactly the point. The object
is not to keep an eye on the people so much as
it is to convey the idea of unity. The division
chief who, sequestered in his own little nest,
might be tempted to write a letter to the chief
next door, doesn't do it under these conditions.
He says, Say, Bill, how about so and SOP" or
goes over and discusses it at close range.
Stationery in use was reduced to the fewest
possible simple kinds.
On a shelf handy to the ~paymaster generals
hands is a book some IA inches long by IS inches
wide. In it is all the information that once oc-
cupied a big hleroom. This information pertains
to the present duty and availability for sea or
shore duty, as the case may be, of all of the $50
officers making up the pay corps.
The pages of the book are faced with trans
parent celluloid. When a pay officer is sent on a
cruise his name and the essential date are in
scribed on a typewriter slip and inserted at the
bottom of the section devoted to pay officers on
sea duty. Place by place the slip moves up au-
tomatically. and in this way one may observe
at a glance who is due for shore duty and who
for sea duty as, under the law, for every two
years of shore duty a paw officer must take three
years of sea duty.
And thus with all records. No effort has been
spared to reduce them all to the simplest and
most graphic form. The messenger force was
recognized and a squad told off to act as express
messengers. This insures speed in the move
ment of papers from desk to desk and to the
secretary's Office. No paper remains more than
Is minutes awaiting transmission.
One of the very first things Paymaster General