Evening star., 1925-11-05
Shaving Uncle Sans Dollars
And Saving His Dimes
BY WILLIAM p. HELM, JR.

ing 93,038 large publications and by
the Department of the Interior In
taking similar action as TO b32.94s
obsolete Interior publications"
A short time prior to disposing Of
this costly rubbish, the public printer
went over his stock OF useless cleo
| trotype and stereotype plates clutter
ing UP his shelves and taking up
valuable space. AZ result of that
little excursion into the realm of un-
wanted Government literature, the
public printer found $4,000 pounds
Of metal kept standing unnecessarily.
That metal was remelted and saved
the Government $88.000, which IT
would have spent otherwise for new
metal.
Individual instances by the score
have marked the progress of Coolidge
economy in the Government Printing
Otfce. The following instances of
economy are taken from a specially
prepared report Of George II. Carter.
the public printer. to the Federal Bu-
reau Of the Budget. describing few
of the economies effected in the fiscal
year 1925:
1.-THE time -honored but useless pub
lication known as The Abridgment Of
Messages and Documents which cost
from $4,000 to $4,000 annually for pub
lication, has been abolished. The
Abridgment was a wasteful duplica-
tion of the annual reports of various
executive departments.
Another publication permanently
discontinued was the Navy Year Book,
which likewise served no useful pur-
pose. The expense of printing the
Navy Year Book was approximately
$4,000 a year.
Reduction in the size Of annual re-
ports by eliminating matter of minor
Importance and unnecessary details is
especially pleasing. Reports of the
various departments for the fiscal
year 1924 totaled 1885 pages. as COM
the reports for 1920. Printing and
binding the reports for 1920 cost
$3.50, ,437, while the expense for 1924
was $194 1895, a saving of Sl66,045.
/ The permanent conference on print
ing has Co-operated with the requisi-
tions review board in it's effort to re-
duce printing and binding expendi-
lures. The sum saved during the ac-
tivities of the review board was
S248, 900
The demand for rush work at extra
cost is another generally unnecessary
expenditure that the conference has
.
ber Of persons in certain departments
are prone to delay preparation of copy
for their publications until the last
minute and then demand that the
printer shall make up for all the time
they have lost by procra stinating 1t
is encourag ging to observe, however,
that expenditures for rush work have
been gradually decreasing. The extra
charge for rush work in the fiscal year
1925 was $20,755. as compared with
$47.525 for 1921"
X
OF the Government author who
changes his mind about what he has
to say and his copy in proof-one of
the most extravagant pests known to
the Government Printing Office-Mr,
Carter has this to say:
The corrections made by the au-
thors of two publications recently sub
mitted to the Government Printing
Office cost several thousand dollars, or
more than the entire expense of put
ting the original manuscripts into
type. This is a gross waste of public
funds due to the carelessness or in.
efficiency of the persons who prepare
the manuscripts
THE expenditure of 1910, 900 in the
last five years for the correction of
authors alterations after their mann
scripts had been printed in proof forrs
is somewhat startling and shows
clearly that there is still much work
to be done by the conference to rem
edy this evil"
These savings are typical. They
could be matched in tiresome detail to
the extent of many columns of print
Suffice 1t to say, however, that the
sum total of all the individual econo-
mics in this one minor branch Of the
Government service is shown by it's
comparative drain on the Treasury
900 in 1921 and s2,91s, 900 for the
current fiscal year.
Copyright. I925.)