Evening star., 1942-05-03

of situation where budgeting done on an
annual basis is inadequate; it covers too
long a period. The conditions change
so rapidly that we have had to think of
budget making and administration in
terms Of quarters rather than the annual
basis"
Many of the men on Smiths enlarged
staff are hard-hitting younger officials
out of other Government agencies. Some
have come to the Bureau of the Budget
with highly specialized knowledge Of
their own departments and have there
fore been assigned to work in connection
with those departments.
Special Military Sections Set Up.
In the estimates division the bureau
now has eight chief examiners and so
examiners. They send in field reports
phase of Government activity from the
progress of the campaign against the
japanese beetle to the construction of
the newest warship.
When the defense program began to
expand, military section was set up in
the bureau under Col. Henry M. Waite,
one of the foremost consulting engineers
in the country The objective is not
merely to stop wasteful spending but,
wherever possible, to prevent the Gov
ernment from being cheated. The work
Of the military section is kept on
confidential basis
The more than 400 employees of the
bureau are not concerned with money
and figures alone. A considerable part
of the Presidents correspondence is
handled by Smith and his assistants.
The division of legislative reference is
concerned with the mass Of legislative
recommendation that go from the ex-
ecutive branch to Congress. Then there
are those executive orders-some mo-
mentous and headline-making, others
unnoticed but none the less important
which have the weight of law.
Wife Manages Family Budget.
The man who deals in Government bill
lions has nothing to do with keeping his
own personal budget Mrs. Smith, an eff
cient housekeeper and mother, takes
care of that function. Smith never signs
a personal check. Beginning in the days
when they lived on an infinitesimaI SAL
ary, Mrs. Smith has been the manager.
He was born on a Kansas farm and
worked his way through high school and
college. He remembers that for two or
three summers he was engineer" for a
threshing machine. Smith had to be on
hand before daylight to start the fires
and at night or on Sundays he had to
move the big, cumbersome machine to
the next farm. Roads and bridges were
narrow and it was often difficult for the
17-year-old engineer" to get the
thresher through. His job then, he some
times reflects, was not unlike his present
responsibility for moving the cumber-
some machinery of government along
the narrow lanes of traditional usage.
At the University of Kansas he got a
bachelor of science degree in electrical
engineering, graduating in 1922. In
school he had been leader in religious
activity and he seriously considered at
one time going to China not as a re-
ngious missionary but as a scientific
missionary. His interest shifted, how
ever, from religion to government
public administration.
Built Up Municipal League.
Out of Kansas he went on fellowship
to the University of Michigan. With a
masters degree in public administration,
he served an interneship first with the
Detroit Bureau of Governmental Re-
search and later with the Kansas Mu-
nicipal League. He was learning about
government at flrst-hand and when the
offer came in 1923, he went as director
OF the Michigan Municipal League.
The league existed largely on paper
and the salary attached to the directors
job was almost non-existent. But Smith,
appalled, by the waste and ineficiency
he had found In government, believed
1t could become useful agency. With
q rented typewriter in q combined bed
room and office he set to work.
In the meantime, he had married q
girl he meet as an undergraduate at
Kansas. To Mrs. Smith, still living in
Lawrence, Kans., where their first child
had been born, the young husband wrote
recommending the sale of their meager
household effects to raise enough money
for the trip to Ann Arbor, Mich
1t was not long, however before cities
and towns f1ocked to the Municipal
League and, what is more, paid the req
ulslte dues. Smith had shown the way
to substantial savings In municipal
housekeeping. Fire hose cement and
other supplies were bought on q pooled
basis. Efficiency and economy resulted
In every phase Of municipal government.
Wrote City Charters.
Smith wrote number of city charters
to bring city government up to a goth
century standard. He made himself
useful In a hundred and one different
ways. His reputation in the field of
public administration naturally grew.
When Frank Murphy became Governor
OF Michigan, he looked around for good
men to fill important jobs. In 1887 he
made Smith his budget director.
When President Roosevelt began look
ing for a Federal budget director to
replace Bell, Smiths name was sub
mltted with others on a list supplied
by the Treasury. His name was high on
that list, first on lists supplied by other
agencies. Out Of the blue the President
telephoned Smith in Michigan to ask
him to come down Immediately to take
the job. Almost from the first dav of
his arrival Smith has worked at the
same hard, unrelenting, tireless tempo