The Washington herald., 1922-05-23
Sec HOOVER TELLS
! TRADE TO BEWARE
OF BUREAUCRACY
Warns Lumber Men of
Danger in Government
Supervision.
SEES INEFFICIENCY
Department Should Be Merely
Clearing House, He
Declares.
SEES INEFFICIENCY

Standardization of the lumber
trade and industry through the in
ternal workings of the business IT.
self rather than government regu-
lation and control, was the keynote
of an address by Secretary of Com
,merce Herbert Hoover before the
conference of the National Lumber
Manufacturers Association, which
| opened yesterday.
| Secretary Hoover said he resents
an attempt to extend the arm Of
the government in every direction
and believes the trades could more
effectively accomplish the results
sought than the government.
Can Bring Trades Together.
The Secretary said in part:
The purpose of the department
is to assist by bringing the differ
ent trades together, so far as De are
| able; to give you such expert as
I,sistance as we possess, and in that
we make many reservations, be-
cause we all know that the real ex.
pert is the producer himself.
I'VE can give to you the expert
ences Of other trades and other in
dustries in methods of solving diffi-
culties. And we can give to the
work which has been outlined, we
| hope. a certain amount of moral
backing that will be OF assistance
to you in carrying through what
ever you may decide is wise.
Must Reduce Costs.
Now. the problem that we are
here to discuss is one of funda-
mental Importance. One of the diff
! fculties of our whole national eco
nomic system is the expensiveness
OF our distribution. And these ques-
tions that wa are going to discuss
here, practically all OF them, are
| distribution questions; the guaran-
| tees of qualities. the simplifcation
| OF dimensions. the grading of lum-
| Der. all of them, are steps in ad-
vance toward reducing the cost and
| wastes in distribution. Every time
we can take a penny off of the
costs of distributing a commodity.
we have made that much more Of
| many more persons.
I'm other words, the whole stand
ard of living of the American peo-
| pie rises directly with the cheaper
ing of its production and its dis
IL
for the development of selfishness
in industry at all: they are plans
that lead fundamentally toward a
betterment in American life. And
the plans are Of no purpose what
ever, unless they tune straight
away with the interests of bust
ness. Now, they could have no
survival unless they are developed
I IN 70
that is of benefit to the majority
of the people who are. engaged in
the trade"
| Danger In Bureaucracy.
He then took up the different
points of controversy that the lum-
ber manufacturers themselves must
straighten out, offering suggestions
only on the broader fundamentals
He confined himself to three phases
grading, guarantees, and simpli-
feat
Secretary Hoover continued:
Il would like to make this gen.
eral observation. that there has
been agitation in the lumber trade,
or amongst the pubic, for the past
twenty-five years, for some kind
of government inspection, govern
ment trade, and government control
of that type. Some of the branches
of the lumber trade themselves
have recommended courses Of that
order.
My own feeling is that IL we
can develop these things through
the internal machinery of the trade
itself, as matter of eslf-govern-
ment in the trade. that We will
have secured infinitely better re-
suits, and we will have secured
something even more fundamental
than that, and that is the sense of
self-preservation in the American
people.
Trades Must Help Selves.
81 do resent this attempt to ex-
tend the arm of the government in
every direction. and it is my BELIEF
that we have reached the point in
the development of our commercial
fabric where our trades can be as
sisted to establish such bases of
existence in matters of this charac-
ter as to make 1t unnecessary for
/ the government to have any exer-
else whatever. The trades can do
| these things infinitely more eff
ciently than government can do
them.
IF the government does do them,
1t means the further establishment
of bureaucracy, and one of the
most dominant notes of all govern
ment Bureaucracy is to try to grab
something more, some new function
which it can undertake. And you
can put il down that all those
branches of the trade which have
been contemplating government
control in those particulars, will
soon find this control extended far
beyond anything that they ever
anticipated at the start.
Keep Government to Minimum.
Now, the ineficiency of bu-
reaucracy in the conduct of its busi-
ness needs no elaboration from me.
Its inefficiencies are in herent in
the character of its work. The
clear object of good government is
to keep governmental functions
down to the minimum: that when
you have large departments like
this, with a good many thousands
of employees, representing an ac-
tual business concern greater than
perhaps any but thirty or forty
business concerns in the country,
and Yet with the requirement of
law that does not permit us to pay
single member Of this staff more
than $4,000 year, you can contem-
plate the difficulties. under which
We labor.
Il am constantly amazed at the
efficiency with which the govern
ment departments do their work,