The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1921-06-30
DAWES HITS
AT ROOTS OF
DIFFICUL
Has Imagination, Force-Will
Do Much to See That Gov
ernment is Managed In
Business Way.
PUBLIC WILL like HIM
BY MARK SULLIVAN

WASHINGTON, June 30.-If Cen
eral Dawes could be made a perman-
ent official of the United States; If
he could be made assistant president,
so to speak, or if we could create the
office of general manager Of the Unit
ed States and give it to Dawes. or If
we could reorganize the government
along the lines that some. cities have
done and give General Dawes job
analogous TO that which has come to
be known in many parts of the coun-
try as city manager"-if any of these
things could be brought about, and if
General Dawes could be kept on the
job permanently, there is no doubt
that the United States would be bet
ter managed in a business way.
General Dawes has imagination and
force. Those of us who have followed
rather closely the way he has begun
his present task observe that he IN
derstands both public psychology and
individual psychology and knows how
to make both serve his purpose.
Public Will Like Him.
There will be more of this before
public will become familiar with him
tractive personality.
Of course, all that General Dawes
can do is to lay the machinery and
set it in motion. To do this he has
five months of time and a quarter of
million dollors in money. The money
is ample, for General Dawes's methods
do not depend much on money. He
makes his personality serve as a sub
stitute for funds, but the five months
Of time is rather short, and when it
ends it will be wished that General
Dawes might be drafted for a longer
period
Discard Old Methods.
Entirely aside from General Dawes's
personality, a good deal has been
started in the way of fundamental re-
organization which will remain The
old method of making appropriations
is gone forever. BY that old method
broadly described, the head of a bu-
reau made a rule-of-thumb guess as
to how much money he would need
for the coming year, his whole motive
was to estimate as large as possible
Then a committee of congress made
rule-of-thumb reduction in the esti
mate.
There was nothing scientific or busi.
nesslike in either end of the process.
Those most concerned did not take ii
seriously, in some cases the reductions
made by congress we're ignored by the
bureau chiefs. They went ahead and
spent as much money as they thought
they ought to have and then called on
congress for a deficiency appropria
ton. There was no one man in the
government had the responsibility
which some one man in every private
corporation has for making ends meet
and avoiding bankruptcy.
important Post.
| In the new system we shall not have
quite what exists in private corpor
ations, but We shall have one man who
at least will have the power and duty
| of critical supervision of estimates
made by the various departments. His
lpower will fall far short of what many
cities have given to one man under
the title of city manager, nevertheless
| the new job will be largely what its
occupant makes it.
| The appointee to this new Office
known as controller general, will be
]. R McCarl, of Nebraska, if he
should turn out to have as much
Imagination and energy as Genera
| Dawes, he can, with the sympathetic
support that he will undoubtedly have
from President Harding, make his new
office as potent as it is hoped to be.
| (Copyright 1921 by the New Yorl
| Evening Post, Inc)