New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1921-06-24
\ Dawes to Ask SO
Business Men TO
w rkon Budget
tContInuod from pape ens,

| G.
I Continued from page 6ns)
/ This alternative budget the President
is expecting to recommend to Congress
on the first Monday in December--five
months from this date.
I'm other words" said the General
the President is depending upon the
budget bureau within this brief time
to make a survey of our vast govern
mental business activities and to sug-
gest improvements therein, involving
| economies, with an estimate of their
| financial effect"
In making a plea for cooperation
upon the part of business and bureau
chiefs General Dawes said:
Il am accepting the place as di-
rector only with the idea that the pa
| triotism of the bureau chiefs and the
country as q whole can be so aroused
in this emergency that it will be met
like the war emergency. Unless the
bureau chiefs of the departments and
the leading business men of the ,copn-
| try respond to the call of the Presi-
dent as they did four years ago the
situation is hopeless SO far as any ma
terial relief for two years from this
source is concerned.
Five Months Enough
"There is no reason why in FIVE
months a proper budget cannot be
made if the bureau chiefs and Amer
lean business men are made of the
same stuff aslwere their sons in the
last war"
Outlining his intention to conscript
big business men he said
son or before August ! I shall ask
the President to invite number of
leading American business men to come
to Washington to serve without. com
pensation in an advisory capacity to
the budget bureau These gentlemen
at first will be assigned to the different
departments to advise and cooperate
with the respective budget officers
thereof during the progress of their
work. Later, concurrently, they will
advise with the director of the budget.
AS soon as possible, pending the organ
ization of my office and before August
1, will call together en- masse all the
bureau chiefs of the departments in
Washington and their assistants and
explain my purposes. They and they
alone being in intimate and close con
tact with current governmental bust
ness and each fully cognizant OF the
situation in his own bureau, must form
President, of Congress and of our peo-
pie for the accomplishment of this
work By December J.. Called before the
representatives Of the budget bureau,
who, if they respond to this appeal,
will include the best business minds
of the nation, they must furnish the
information and, in many cases, the
suggestions of the changes in methods
to insure economy through coordina-
ton.
misunderstood Men,
Gas former bureau chief | think
am qualified to speak of this magnifi-
cent body of misunderstood men. Com
PEELED heretofore to work in the inter
est of their particular bureaus without
the guidance of superimposed organ
ization thinking in terms of the whole
government, they have conscientiously
fought for their trust without the
knowledge of how to fight at the same
time for unified business administra-
ton and the common good.
II will say here that whenever a sug-
gestion for coordination made by a
bureau chief is adopted by the budget
bureau as policy to be recommended
to the President it will bear his name
and not that of the officers of the bud
get, who, after all, act largely as clear
ing house Tor the transmission of the
brains and industry of others.
I'm the minds of the President, the
Cabinet the Congress and the public
there must exist an absolute confidence
and disinterestedness of the budget
bureau, which can never succeed
properly if it becomes involved in con-
tloversy, public or private, with the
heads OF the departments. In govern
ment business administration it is the
eyes and ears, but not the fingers of
the Chief Executive. If it 1niscon-
strues its own functions and thereby
becomes unnecessarily involved in CON
troversies with the depa rtment heads,
upon whom alone rests the duty of ad-
mlnistration, it will fail.
Will See 1t Through
"In proportion as it functions humb-
Ily it will function powerfully, for the
adoption Of its suggestions by the
President depends upon their reason
ableness alone. Ny own connection
with the bureau will cease after the
first budget is made, provided the
budget machinery then is operating
efficiently. But whatever may be the
time involved, I have made MP my mind
10 stay With 1t until 1t is so operating,
provided in the mean time I am not
regarded as a failure by the President
"The crisis which confronts us all
as business men is as great as that
when the business community and all
our people rose as one in the support
of the Liberty loans. For the welfare
of the nation money then had to be
spent; for its welfare now it must
be saved.
at is popular misconception that
Congress primarily is responsible for
the extravagant expenditures Of the
government. For twenty years, IN
Guiding 1915, before we went into the
war, there were only two years when
Congress did not reduce the appropria-
tions asked for by the unco6rdinated
departments Of the government In the
last two years they have cut down the
appropriations requested by the de-
Ipartments by billions Of dollars. 1t is
Congress which has created the reor-
ganization committee and the budget
bureau in order to give the President
and Congress the Information neces-
sary for them to meet the existing
| emergency"
I