The Cordova daily times., 1921-06-13
CUT NUMBER OF GOVERNMENT
 DEPARTMENTS
Especial Correspondence) BY COL. WINFIELD JONES

committee on reorganization of the federal government has finished a draft of plan that is believed will have good chances of enactment into law The major part of this plant is the concentration of the existing ten government departments into eight departments. This would abolish the existing departments of labor and agriculture, and perhaps combine the war and navy departments into one department of national defense. Pres. ident Harding is reported to be seri. ously considering the plan and may favor it. If the president does favor it in all probability congress will accept the recommendations of the joint committee.
 President Harding has already let it be known that he would favor a consolidation of the war and navy departments into one department of national defense, and he favors crea. tion of new department of public welfare. Bills for both of the new departments have already been intro- duced in house and senate.
 One of the most interesting fea- lures in the proposed plan of reor- ganization is that it would greatly increase and magnify the office of secretary of the president and give that official cabinet rank. Under an arrangement of this kind the private secretary would be the off, cial directly under the president who would supervise all the federal de- partments of the government, and who would be directly charged also With administration and management | of the annual budget. Under such an arrangement the private secretary would become a sort of active vice president and would have vastly more power than any cabinet officer or even the vice president who pre- sides over the position he would be able to take a great deal of the de- tail of government and other matters off the shoulders of the president and considerably tighten the labors of the chief executive This would be an advantage to the president and | the public also, for any Washington observer will agree that under pres ent conditions the president of the United States has far too much work to perform. He has too many details to consider, and many of these de- tails could just as we'll be handled by a private secretary. If the secretary had the necessary authority. The fact is a president of the United States has the biggest and most ex- acting, as we'll as the most import ant job in the world.
 Suggestions are also that a de- partment of public works be created, which would have jurisdiction over many things now handled in some of the existing departments.
 l The joint congressional committee, in it's investigations, has discovered that there is hardly any official or bureau chief of the whole gov ernment in Washington, or any em. ploye for that matter, who is not heartily in favor of some sort of re. organization-until it seems that the reorganization would affect the job want. If this is the case there is immediately opposition manifested by the government employe that the re. Organization scheme would touch.
 The proposed reorganization plan
 as outlined, would group all the fed. eral government, roughly, into the following eight great divisions-na. tional defense, relations with other nations, fiscal affairs, commercial af
 fairs, national resources, public wei
 fare, administration of justice, and postal affairs This would give de. partments of national defense, state
 commerce, interior, public welfare justice and the postoffice department
 It has long been realized that a department of national defense would be far better than the existing ar. engagements of separate war depart. ment and a navy apartment. An enemy must be fought in three med. iums, on land, on water, and in the air Obviously a single department of national defense under one di. recting head, could better meet a national menace than two heads of departments of army and navy. If the present arrangement of separate