Evening star., 1932-07-17

:
who serve at material sacrifice. This
would make it easier to call such men
from civil life and retain them.
Once the central idea of the scheme
of reorganization is stated :. regroup
ing by purpose e. the details suggest
themselves. eff one reviews the different
departments" Mr.. Hoover said to the
JOINT Committee of Congress while he
was Secretary of Commerce, "one would
find that with some minor exceptions the
Post Office, Department of Justice and
Department of State contain practically
no functions not relating to their major
purpose. On the other hand, the Treas
ury, the Army and Navy and the De-
partment of Agriculture contain a con-
siderable number of functions which
have no relation to a sound plan of
major purpose.
Some of these anomalies are an in
heritance from the time of Alexander
Hamilton, when there were only four or
five departments of the Government. An
avenue of great confusion in organiza-
tion has been the independent establish
ments, many of which overlap depart
mental and bureau work Of one kind or
another. It would appear to me, there
fore, that the first process in reorganiza-
tion would be to strip the Treasury De-
partment, the War and Navy Depart
ments and the Department of Agricul-
ture Of all the functions that do not
pertain to their major purpose, since
their major purpose is sufficiently large
to tax the capacity of any one organiza-
ton. There are perhaps some independ-
ent activities that should be added to
these departments as being part Of their
major purpose.
of the functions in the Departments of
the Interior, Commerce and Labor and
all of the Independent executive estab-
lishmentS which can be placed under
departmental control, and then divide
them into proper groups. Examination
will show that most Of these functions
naturally fall under the headings of
Public Domain, Public Works, Aids to In
dustry, Aids to Trade, Aids to Merchant
Education, Matters of Public Health and
Matters of Veterans Service.
THAT a regrouping for greater efficiency
can be brought about quickly was
proved in October, 1881, when President
Hoover assembled all of the work for
oI,i1
bureaus and departments under one
direction. This was the White House
Conference for Child Health and Protec-
ton, financed by contributions from
private purses, whose work has since
become well known.
That such coordination throughout
the Government service would save tax
dollars becomes apparent at once, but in
all probability the larger saving would
flow from the greater ease with which
the citizen could maintain contact with
governmental authority. For example,
there is on record in Washington letter
from a business firm protesting against
a bureau heads demand for information
first, on the ground that to furnish it
would cost about $4,000 and, second, on
the ground that 1t had already been
furnished in different form to two other
branches of the Government and should
reasonably be considered available. The
bureau head in question readily agreed:
all he wanted was the information; he
simply didn't know it had been furnished.
He had spent much time and effort pre-
pairing his list of questions. The same
time would have transferred the data to
his own files from the files of the Gov