Audubon Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Iowa) 1894-1925, 1921-04-14
GET GOVERNMENT
FOR THE PEOPLE
UNCLE TED TELLS THE Chill
DREN HARDING WILL GREAT
LY REDUCE THE EXPENSE.

The sun was setting low down in
the red west" 1t had been a vernal
day filched by March from the ward
robe of Miss Cally Fornia, to wear
at a pageant given by the Seasons in
the aisles of Time in celebration of
the birth on March 4th of a new
heir to History. A cool breeze was
trailing in, betraying the approach
of BOreas, the weather cop, who had
been sent to the pilfering by one OF
the Dakota girls to demand the re-
turn of the sunbeam gown to their
Pacific sister. Uncle Ted was
lounging on the Veranda, dreaming
of the yesteryears and wondering
whether he had better go to sea to-
morrow, or be practical and hoe the
garden for an early planting, when
Ruth, Jack and the North Wlnd
blew in together-there was a scut-
thing of feet for indoors, scuttle
of coal for the crate fire, the appe-
tizing sniff of apple pie from the
kitchen and the promise OF a story
after supper, if the children would
choose a topic from the headlines.
Following a noble meal the three
statesmen gathered around the fire
side and Ruth read from the head
lines of the Evening Planet: "Ad-
ministration for Complete Reorgan-
ization Of the Departments. Con-
gress to Put Government on a Bus
mess Basis" Tell us about that,
Uncle Ted" requested Ruth.
well, that is as good a topic as
any you could select" replied Uncle
Ted, so if you will get down that
volume of presidential messages l
will start off with what Mr.. Taft
said about our government depart
ments, in January, 1912, when he
was president. All, here it is. Let
me read part of it: This vast or
ganization has never been studied in
detail as one piece of administrative
mechanism. No cOmpre-
hensive effort has ever been made
to list all its multifarious activities
or to group them in such a way as
to present a clear picture of what
the government is doing. At
no time has the attempt been made
to study all these activities and
agencies with a view to the assign
ing of each activity to the agency
best fitted for it's performance, to
the avoidance of duplication of
plant and work" ETC., etc.
There was a time, Riddles, when
we were nation of but 4,000,00
people and the expense of running
the government was about IL cents
a head each year. Today, with
100000 people government ex-
peRditures have risen to nearly $40
a head annually. Roughly, fifty per
cent of this sum is for the upkeep of
governmental agencies. In 1912 the
democratic party condemned the re-
publicans for what they termed its
'profligate waste of money wrung
from the people and the democrats
demanded "a return to that SIMPLE
ity and economy which befits a dem
ocratic government and a reduction
in the number of useless offices, the
salaries of which drain the substance
of the people. At that ime the
Official Register listed $4,000 fed
eral employees, in addition to 22S,-
900 postal employees, or 100000 in
all. When the republicans came in
to power two and half years after
the war there were about 100000
employees on the Federal payroll.
You see,' said Congressman Reavis,
some time ago, the American peo-
pie have for many years paid the
expenses of their government with
taxes collected from the protective
tariff and liquor, etc. They hardly
realized they were paying for the
operations of the government ma
chinery and consequently did not
care how that machinery was run.
The pork-barrel and the pork-barrel
congressman resulted
"What is a pork-barrel congress
man, Uncle Ted" asked Jack.
"a man who compacts with others
to hog the public treasury for the
benefit of their respective districts,
leaving the squeal to the taxpay-
ers," responded his uncle.
"0ur constitution provides for
three separate branches Of the gov
eminent, the legislative, executive,
and judicial, the first two being di-
rectly responsible to the people, but
as Congressman Zihlman points out,
there has grown up new adjunct
to the three coordinate branches,
namely, government by boards, by
bureaus and by commissions. Such
agencies had no place in the orig
inal scheme of government Lin
coin called them schemes to defeat
the government probably because
of their tendency to work at cross
purposes with the regular branches,
and to absorb their functions.
"a study Of the governmental or