New-York tribune., 1920-02-18

-panditurs on public works and tech
1licai services. These committees have
consistently and strongly urged the ap-
palling inefficiency in the government
Organizations Of these matters. They
report to you that the annual expendi-
ture on such works and services now
amounts to over $250,0O0,000 per an
mum, and that they are carried out to-
day in nine different governmental de-
partmcnts.
"They report that there is a great
waste by lack of national policy Of
coordination, in overlapping with dif
ferent departments, In competition with
each other in the purchase of supplies
and materials and the support of many
engineering staffs.
"They recommend the solution that
almost every other civilized government
has long since adopted-that is, the
coordination Of these measures into
one department under which all such
undertakings should be conducted and
controlled.
"Another matter Of government
organization to which our engineers
have given adhesion is in the matter
Of the national budget. To minds
charged with the primary necessity Of
advance planning, coordination, provi-
sion Of synchronizing parts in organi-
zation, the whole notion of our hit-or-
miss system is repugnant. A budget
system is not the remedy for all ad-
ministrative ills; it provides a basis of
organization that at least does not
paralyze administrative efficiency as
our system does to-day.
'Another great national problem to
which every engineer in the United
States is giving earnest thought and
with which he comes in daily contact,
Is that of the relationship of employer
and employee in industry. In this, as
in many other national problems to-
day we are faced with a realization
that the science of economics has
altered from science of wealth to a
science of human relationships to
wealth. We have gone on for many
years throwing the greatest Of our in
genuity and ability into the improve
ment Of processes and tools of produc-
ton.
I'VE have until recently greatly
neglected the human factor that is so
large an element in our very produc-
tivity. The development of vast repeti-
tion in the process of industry has
deadened the sense Of craftsmanship
and the great extension of industry
has divorced the employer and his
employees from the contact that car
ried responsibility for the human
problem.
"This neglect Of the human factor
has accumulated much of the discon.
tent and unrest throughout our great
industrial population and has reacted
In decrease of production Yet our
very standards of living are dependent
on a maximum productivity up to the
total necessities Of our population.
"Final Isolation
II am daily impressed with the fact
that there is but one way out and that
is to again reestablish through ORGAN
lzed representation that personal CO.
operation between employer and en-
ployee in production that was bind
ing force when our industries were
smaller of unit and of less specializa-
ton.
In the discussion of these ideals and
this social philosophy we hear much Of
riadlcallsm and of reaction. They are .
IN tact, not an academic state of mind.
put realize into real groups and real
forces, influencing the solution of eco
nomlc problems in this community. In
their present day practical aspects thev
represent on one hand, roughly, various
uegrees OF eXponents Of socialism who
would directly or Indirectly under
mine the principle of private property
and personal initiative, and, on the
other hand, those exponents who in
various degrees desire to dominate the
community for profit and privilege.
They both represent attempts to in
troduce or preserve class privilege
either moneyed or bureaucratic
a.rlstocracy. We have, however, in
American democracy an ideal and So
cal philosophy that sympathizcs
neither with radicalism nor reaction
as they are manifested to-dsy.
If we cling to our national ideals
IL VIII mean the final isolation and the
political abandonment of the m;nor
groups who hope for domination Of tha
government, either by interests or bv