for the ensuing year. Without adequate provision made for Executive review and revision it is impracticable to expect anything other than grossly inflated estimates. Although by such cursory review as could be given I have succeeded each year in reducing these initial estimates millions of dollars, it is not just to make the President, in any but a slight degree, responsible for such estimates when required to be submitted to Congress in the manner at present prescribed.

Plans which are well adapted to the needs of a highly technical and widely varied public service can only be properly prepared by those who must handle the details of business. Until some provision is made for laying before Congress a well-considered administrative program as a basis for legislative action-one for which the Executive must assume responsibility-the country can not expect anything more than haphazard and wasteful management of public affairs. Such a method is necessary to the location of responsibility for inefficiency and waste.

Point was made by the chairman of the Committee on Appropriations in his comment on my message advocating the submission of a budget that it cost the Government $4,000 to publish this message with the report attached. It might have been pointed out with much greater pertinence that it is costing the Government many millions of dollars each year because it has no budget; that in the very nature of things is must cost the Government many millions of dollars each succeeding year for lack of a definite, well-considered program of business with respect to which both Congress and the Executive must assume responsibility.

I have gone thus at length in stating my position in order that you may understand the reasons for urging that you cooperate with the Commission on Economy and Efficiency in the preparation of such financial statements and summaries as will enable me to place before Congress and the country for the first time in our history a clearly stated and understandable, businesslike proposal which will enable Congress and the country to think in terms of what it is that the Government is doing, what it is that the administration proposes to do. With this accomplished, the people may then judge for themselves whether the proposals sent to Congress are in the interest of public welfare and as such should be supported. The further recommendation which I have made is this, that in the preparation of data for the budget you and the head of every other department shall clearly indicate what changes in law are thought to be desirable as a means of increasing the economy and efficiency of the service. What is desired is open-handed dealing between the Congress and the executive departments, and in this the public should be taken into confidence through the broadest publicity that may ensue.

In conclusion, therefore, my instruction is to print and send to Congress the forms of estimates required by it of officers without delay; also to have sent to me the information asked for in my letter of July 10, 1912. This will be made the basis for review, revision, and summary statement in the form of a budget with supporting documents which may be sent to Congress by special message as the proposal of the administration.

I am sending a copy of this letter to the heads of all departments and independent offices and establishments.

SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT AND

GOVERNMENT

INTRODUCTION BY THE CHAIRMAN

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN:

TAKE it that the chief requisite of a presiding officer at a meeting of this sort is brevity. This evening's session of our conference is to be devoted to the application of business methods to the government of states and we are to be so fortunate as to hear this subject discussed by a man who has not only developed an efficient and systematic business method of conducting the finances of great municipalities, but also has been able to get his ideas actually put into practice. In recognition of his scientific achievements in this and other directions he was appointed by President Taft to the chairmanship of The President's Commission on Economy and Efficiency. I have the honor of introducing to you Dr. Frederick A. Cleveland.

THE APPLICATION OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT TO THE ACTIVITIES OF THE STATE

BY FREDERICK A. CLEVELAND

Director of the Bureaus of Municipal Research of New York and of Philadelphia Chairman of the President's Commission on Economy and Efficiency

MR. CHAIRMAN, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN:

IT

T is commonly assumed that the great public corporations in which we are all interested do not lend themselves as well to economic management as do private corporations. While experience has been such as to lend color to such a conclusion, I am convinced that there is nothing inherent in gov

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