The Bottineau courant. (Bottineau, Bottineau County, N.D.) 1895-1929, 1922-08-10

10 today into the Treasury depart
ment, the Department Of Agriculture,
the Department of Commerce, or into
any other establishment of the govern
ment doing important technical work,
and they will tell you hat their chief
difficulty is to retain competent en-
ployees in the supervisory and tech
nical positions. Their turnover is alb
normally high in these positions.
Every day men leave the service
to accept private employment at ma
terially increased salaries, so that the
departments are continuously going
through a process of selecting and
training executives and technical en-
ployees, only to lose them, as they be-
come really valuable, on account of
the inadequacy of their compensation.
The second factor which contrib
utes to the present ineffectiveness of
the government as a business estab-
lishment is found in the improper Or
g%anization of the executive branch of
the government for effective service.
You are familiar, at least in a general
way, with the defects of the present
administrative machinery.
You know for example, that the In
terror department 10Y has jurisdiction
over a great number of bureaus of a
miscellaneous character that have
nothing to do with each other or with
the functions which the Interior de-
partment was originally established to
perform.
You know that many agencies have
been located in the Treasury depart
ment, the great fiscal department of
the government, which are purely non
fiscal in character, such as the coast
guard, the public health service, the
supervising architects Office and the
bureau of war risk insurance.
You know that the great bulk of
the civil public works of the govern
ment are executed under the super
vision of the Wal department, although
the bureau of public roads is located
in the Department of Agriculture, and
the reclamation service in the Depart
ment of the Interior.
LOU huON, luI LICl LlU1C =, VI LAU III
dependent existence outside the juris-
diction of any of the great executive
departments of some 4O-odd boards,
commissions, offices and bureaus.
These are merely examples of a con-
dition that would require volumes to
describe fully, but it is generally
known that the executive branch of the
government is at the present time IL
logically and uneconomically organ
lied in many important particulars.
1t should be remembered, however,
that even with an ideal personnel and
a perfect organization it is doubtful
if the high degree Of economy and
efficiency that characterizes private
business can ever be attained in the
government Offices. This is SO because
economies made by. government off,
Gals are not transformed into divi-
dends for themselves az they are In
private business. H
There is an impression in congress
and throughout the country that men
of great ability are not found in gov
eminent service !; that the salaries are
not suficient to attractta and hold them.
On the contrary, there are q great
many people of distinguished ability
In the government service. One Is
more and more impressed by that fact,
especially since the wal sent to wash
inigton so many men Of large means
and famous names with whom the
government employees could be COM
pared. The comparison was time and
again to the advantage Of the govern
ment employee. But the salaries are
not the attraction; it is the work it
self. This Is we'll understood BY some
eminent observers of public life. Sec
rotary OF State Hughes declared him
self as follows before the advisory
committees or the war risk insurance
bureau:
1T has been my experiences that with
the higher ~oficers, the officers or greater
institutions, where sfiiciency in rewarded
by pubic representation-sWhile the field
u y limited one beeaass4of to grsAs On,