The Cordova daily times., 1916-07-06
RED TAPE LIVES IN SPITE OF
 B|G WAR

PARIS. July l. - Correspondence of the Associated Press.) - Red tape in France was expected to crumble under the pressure of war, but 1t seems to show resisting powers quite equal to those of the armies. armor and concrete The late General Gal Iieni vigorously assailed it, and was thought to have made a big breach in it's breastworks, at least in so far as concerned the war departmen. Evi- dence comes to light every day, how ever, showing that it's principal strong holds are untouched.
 Among the latest examples of what the French call "paperasserie,' morning paper produces a photograph showing a roll eight and half yards long, made of sheets of official paper pasted together; 1t required the time of several clerks several days to note upon these sheets duplicate entries of the balances and pay and meal indem- mites due to the soldiers of a single company while on leave. What the same expenditure of time and effort would amount to in the entire army of several million men may be imag- ined, but calculated with difficulty.
 The Oeuvre cites a case in which more than 2,O0O postal money orders for ten centimes (two cents) and twenty centimes -four cents). each accompanied by note written by hand, were sent each month from the commanding bases of army corps to soldiers who had been sent to the rear to work in intuition factories at C--. The officer in charge who receives these postal orders at c from the different army corps acknowledges re ceipt of each order to the director oi the works in which the soldier is em' ployed; the works director acknow ledges receipt of the sums, enters them in a special register, after which the order is finally delivered to the soldier in exchange for a receipt and which receipt takes the inverse road and follows the different hierarchic stages until it gets back to the army corps. The soldier, provided with identifying papers, can then collect his two cents or four cents as the case may be, in exchange for another receipt, another signature and another stamp.
 An order was given to all the heads of the different services of the war department that all clerical work should be simplified and that every document not indispensable should be done away with. However, it recently transpired that the director of every Red Cross hospital received a circular calling for detailed report regard ing each patient treated in the hos pital, comprising four full typewriter pages of questions. An experimental demonstration proved that it required two days time of one of the nurses to fill out this circular, as required for a single patient. Consequently had the demand been complied with if would have been necessary to null tiply the hospital staff several times to do this clerical work in addition to the complicated bookkeeping and the individual records made up for the personal file of each man brought into the hospital.
 The Cri de Paris cites another case in which this red tape in the hands of people not expert with it multi plies ItSelt. A CrCuldT run tho o'iA' tary department of an army corps in- formed the officers in command of different units that they were author ized to buy shoes for the men to be shipped from the rear at the mini mum price of 20 francs; three days later a new circular cancelled the first and announced that it was maximum price of 20 francs that was author ized; four days later a third circular cancelled both the others and an nounced that the authorization in question applied only to troops in fighting units actually at the front; result, a number a circulars, eSselopes written and forwarded, triple the number of officers commanding diff ferent units of an army corps of the entire force behind the front.
 It has often been stated that the de- ficiencies of armament, both in the army and navy were largely the result of red tape, or Monsieur Le Bureau,