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GOVERNMENT EXPENDITURES ESTIMATED BY

Legislative

Executive

THE TREASURY

SECTION I

REGULAR CIVIL INCLUDING

Executive Departments and Establishments

State Department
Treasury Proper
Public Buildings
War Dept. Civil
Dept. of Justice
Post-Office

Navy Dept. Civil

Interior

Agriculture

(Disbursements)

1914

(Estimates)

1921

1922

$ 13,468,000 $18,862,000 $18,494,000
2,763,000
12,665,000
223,600,000

564,000

5,253,000

2,111,000 10,208,000

48,862,000

145,588,000

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Commerce

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Labor

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Independent Offices

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District of Columbia

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State War and Navy

Buildings

2,031,000

10,462,000 8,712,000 20,909,000 2,133,000 $170,569,000 $401,173,000 $539,334,000

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Neither will the Budget Bureau which is about to be set up in accordance with the law recently passed, necessarily work the needed changes. It will be highly serviceable in many ways. The Bureau will promote the better business handling of estimates and expenditures, and should be highly influential in shaping taxation and appropriations, but it cannot control either of the latter.

Further relief could be had if Congress would evince less suspicion of executive officers, and would create conditions which would make it possible for the nation to secure and retain in strategic or "key" administrative positions, men of great ability and experience. Many of the actual administrative defects or failures in Washington arise from statutory restrictions which unnecessarily hedge administrative officers about, and particularly from the small salaries fixed by Congress for the most responsible and difficult positions. Many $197.763,000 $207,184,000 legislative restrictions, of course, are necessary, but we have gone to useless and uneconomic extremes. We strain at a gnat and swallow a camel. It would be in the public's interest either for Congress to create from five to six, or a dozen or more, positions in each executive department which would carry maximum salaries of from ten to twenty-five thousand dollars, to be filled by men of great ability; or to give the heads of departments lump sums, with discretion and without limitations to pay salaries necessary to secure the talent required, with an annual report to Congress. An average fund of $200,000 a department would serve the purpose and would be the greatest single minor measure which could be adopted to ensure executive efficiency and to prevent

SECTION II

New-Mainly Result of War

1921

War Risk, less Premiums

Postal Deficiency

Shipping Board

1,078,505,000

Federal Board Vocational Education.

94,614,000

12,399,000

35,000,000

132,703,000

15,000,000

16,948,000

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Fund

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1914
$173,500,000
141,800,000

83,345,000
7,250,000

20,909,000 7,038,000 $534,916,000

1922
$925,000,000
655,896,000

36,000,000
265,000,000
922,650,000

$700,500,000 $4,851,298,000 $3,897.227,000

are not very badly organized. Most services are where they are for good reasons. Some, of course, are not. Some should be shifted. Three for instance, the War Risk Bureau, Public Health, and Public Buildings, should be taken out of the Treasury. Public Parks should be put into the Department of Agriculture with the public forests, and this Department should be charged with the regulation of grazing on the public domain and with agricultural phases of the Government's work for Indians and on reclamation projects.

Doubtless, other changes should be made, but not many of those advocated by outsiders who know little, intimately, about the workings of the Government, or by those who are merely the slaves of logic.

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sort of men in strategical, supervisory positions of vast importance, our democracy will continue to be confronted with relatively mediocre performances. It is unjust and unwise to rely on salaries of from $5,000 to $10,000 for men occupying such positions. Take for instance the fiscal Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, now the Undersecretary. This officer has responsibilities for the supervising of financial transactions of a very delicate and complex nature, running annually into billions of dollars, and should be a man to whom the largest banks or corporations of the country

would gladly pay from twenty-five to fifty thousand dollars a year. Of course, the Government cannot compete with business in the matter of salaries, and fortunately it is unnecessary for it to try to do so; for men will serve with joy a great nation for much less than they will serve private agencies. But the Government can and should pay the right sort of men enough to make it possible for them to live as they are compelled to live, and to provide for their old age and their families without undue worry to themselves. I am sympathetic with a rational proposal to give proper compensation for the hundreds of thousands of men and women who fill the subordinate positions, but too exclusive attention has heretofore been devoted to these positions and little, if any, has been given to the positions of the kind I have in mind. Certainly, there is no reason why Congress should not trust something in this direction to the patriotism and judgment of the heads of executive departments. It does vest in them enormous powers and almost without exception they have justified the confidence. If Congress would pursue this course, executive departments could render much more efficient service and effect marked economies.

During my service in two departments I was frequently handicapped in discharging a responsibility by my inability to secure or retain men of the right type. Men whom I knew could render vast service to the nation could not be attracted for the consideration offered.

Indeed, on more than one occasion when, because of statutory restrictions, it became necessary to ask for increased appropriations for salaries, I pointed out that we would not only refuse the increase but also would accept marked reductions, if something were left to the discretion of the responsible head. I am not optimistic that there will be a change in this direction. Washington pointed out the need of doing this very thing more than one hundred and twenty odd years ago: others have followed suit from time to time, and yet nothing has been done.

HURTFUL RESTRICTIONS

S TO the removal of other administrative

ment of space for department workers, and the
determination of what a department can
publish or even mimeograph, and where the
work can be done. Here the situation is going
from bad to worse.
from bad to worse. Congress is even usurping
executive functions by creating legislative
committees of its own to administer matters of
this sort. Perhaps congressional suspicion of
the Executive will increase and further handicap
the administration of the nation's business.
And if it does, the only way out of a bad and
unnecessary mess will be to make the Execu-
tive a committee of Congress-that is, create
a real responsibile ministry selected from the
majority in the legislative body, as have all
other leading constitutional countries. But
this is another story.

WASTE THROUGH POLITICAL APPOINTMENTS

TILL another step of a minor nature,

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which would result in more saving than others more commonly discussed, is to remove from politics vast numbers of important positions in various departments. There may be a reason why the Directorship of the Mint should be a political appointment although I have never been able to discover it. certainly is no reason why a superintendent or an assayer of a mint should be subject to change when parties change. There is just now a change in the New York office. There has been under the supervision of the superintendent more than a billion and a half dollars and there has to be an accounting. It took a committee of five, with all the necessary assistance, three months to complete the work, and, if parties change three years from now, the thing will have to be done over again. There may be a reason why collectors of Custom and subordinate Internal Revenue officers, marshals, and heads of important bureaus should be subjected to change when parties change, but I have not discovered any good reason for the practice. On the contrary, I have noted many reasons why they should not change. The best organized and most efficient part of the Government in Washington to-day is the department of Agriculture. And in that department, there

A restrictions, I am still less optimistic. are only three or four officers of consequence

These consist partly in statutory limitations of great variety on administrative discretion, involving not only salaries for positions which cannot efficiently be handled on that basis, but also even such minor things as the arrange

namely, the Secretary, the Assistant Secretary, and the Chief of the Weather Bureau-who are not appointed for merit. Administrative officers have no business playing politics. Laws should not be administered politically. Only

those officers should change, who have to do with the formulation of policies and with the enactment of law, and these are limited mainly to the secretaries of the various departments and the assistant secretaries. As long as administrative officers are appointed for political reasons the error will persist that there can be politics in the administration of law. This is the antithesis of democracy, and fatal to its success as well as highly wasteful.

But in a democracy all these measures are secondary in their bearing on expenditures. No device or piece of mechanism will safeguard liberty or control expenditures and taxes. This control rests with the people; and the people right now have an unusual opportunity to exercise their control, to determine what their expenditures shall be, and, therefore, what taxes they will pay. The matter, in immense proportions, is now before them in critical and dramatic fashion. The test is on them. Their decision will be farreaching. It has to do mainly with the matter of spending money for war, for destructive

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Look again at the estimates for 1921 and 1922 presented on page 484. The striking thing is that practically all the huge total for the first year of more than $4,800,000,000 except about 401 million, is for war. For the second year, all except approximately 540 million out of more $3,800,000,000 is for war. The amounts estimated for ordinary purposes, though vast, are relatively small. Many of the items in the second section will disappear during this current fiscal year, such, for instance, as the purchase of the Obligations of Foreign Governments, the Postal Deficit, Expenses of Loans, and probably the item for the railroads. But no one can now predict what such services as the War-Risk Bureau, the Rehabilitation Division, and the Shipping Board will involve. That there will be a continuing large expenditure under these heads is reasonably certain.

Turning now to the third section, we find two items due to the past war; namely, Interest on the Public Debt, and Pensions. The interest will be greater or less according to the way in which the public debt is handled. It will decrease as the debt is reduced or as, in time, when economic conditions change for the better, the debt can be refunded at a lower rate of interest. If the unwise suggestion made by

many, that the debt be refunded at a higher rate of interest and a bonus thereby be given the capital, should prevail, the burden will not only not diminish but will increase. The amount paid for pensions is controllable, but judging from the past, the chances are that there will be no considerable reduction in the near future.

TH

THE PEOPLE MUST STOP IT

HE remainder of the estimated expenditures given in the tables; namely, those for future wars, estimated at $1,766,464,000 for 1921 and at $1,580,896,000 for 1922, can be controlled, but only in one way. Doubtless Congress will effect reductions in the estimates, but the totals will still be huge. They can be brought within reason only by removing the causes of war, by participation in an association of nations to enfore peace, and by disarmament through agreement. This is the most urgent matter now before the world, not only so far as the immediate reconstruction of the world is concerned, but also so far as relief from high taxes in this nation or elsewhere is involved. If we remain, or try to remain in isolation, no effective remedy can be found or applied. If we remain apart, we shall be the leaders in a criminal enterprise-the perpetuation of mediæval militarism and its extension to the point where the breakdown of civilization will be reached. Not only our foreign policy but our financial policy as well is contingent upon the success of the Conference which President Harding has called-anyway, upon some method of international coöperation to limit war cost. The recent conflict taught us what military preparation must be, and the expenditure before the recent conflict will furnish no sort of gauge for that on which we shall have to embark if the race for military supremacy persists. If the people wish to continue to spend from 80 to 90 per cent. of their federal funds for war, the Government will execute their wishes. They are now doing this. They have averaged this fraction throughout their history. Since the foundation of the Government we have expended in round numbers 67 billions of dollars, and of this 58 billions were for war-that is, for the Army, Navy, their auxiliaries, pensions, and interest on the public debt. And yet we claim to be an enlightened, a civilized, a peaceful, and a Christian people. If the people wish this stopped they can stop it. They can bring their opinions to bear on their

rulers. They can force them to take advantage of the present opportunity and engage in an international plan for disarmanent. It is obvious that if they do not do so, the least thing they will have to suffer is a continuance of mounting expenditures and of military disbursements, which will probably be as much higher than the recent ones, unthinkable as they are, as the latter were higher than those which preceded. If the people want this, let them quit prating about high taxes. Let them willingly support what they order their government to do. Let them limit their discussion to the best method of financing the business they wish to have done to the more immediate question, not of reducing expenditures but of modifying existing taxes to meet the necessary level, with the prospect that it will become higher. Certain it is that precedent does not hold out hope that without heroic action we shall get on an expenditure level even approximating that before 1917. After the War of 1812, ordinary disbursements were about double what they were before. This was equally true after the Mexican War. Before the Civil War our expenditures averaged for five years, 65 millions of dollars, the highest annual expenditure being 69 millions. During the Civil War, they rose in 1865 to one and one third billions, and the lowest point reached after the conflict was 231 millions in 1878. The expenditures were not more than 355 millions till 1898. They rose in 1899, after the Spanish War, to 597 millions and thereafter were never under 469 millions. In only two years were they under the 500 million dollar mark. For the fiscal year just closed they slightly exceeded five billions. For the current fiscal year the indications are that they will range above four billions, and from three to four billions for the year following. I doubt if we will ever again see the ordinary federal disbursements, exclusive of the postal expenditures, less than $1,500,000,000 or $1,800,000,000 -a sum two or two and a half times as great as that preceding the World War. If we assume that within two or three years, or by the end of the fiscal year 1923 or 1924, the ordinary civil expenditures are reduced to the minimum,

that the Shipping Board draws much less heavily on the Treasury, that the business of the War Risk Bureau takes a more favorable turn, that the railroads are out of the Treasury, that special items of military origin disappear, that particular, large, new raids on the Treasury are frustrated, and that the appropriations for the Army and Navy as a result of agreement partially to disarm or for other reasons are reduced to double their average for five years preceding the war-and they are not likely to fall below this-and that the sinking fund operates in full measure, we might see a level of expenditure of somewhat more than 2billions, roughly as follows:

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This is about as favorable an outcome as we may reasonably expect, and it rests on a number of violent assumptions. I am certain that the people do not want this nation to persist in such folly-they want and must have disarmament. But let them remember that it can come only through agreement. They cannot get it if they stand apart. The signs are promising.

There is now a league of more than forty nations, and one of the most important parts or plans of this Association is to effect disarmament. So far, this nation has not seen fit to join this body. The President has thought it wise to suggest a special conference to consider disarmament and his invitation has been accepted by all the nations invited. No one can now predict what the final issue will be; but in no small measure the responsibility rests upon the American people to see that, through one or both of these agencies, the requisite action is taken and relief from militarism is secured.

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In order to present in one place wise and informed thought and stimulating counsel, month after month, the editors of the WORLD'S WORK have created this special section in the magazine and invited the gentlemen whose names appear above to contribute to it. The magazine wishes to express its appreciation of their willingness to coöperate in this undertaking.

The views expressed by each author are bis alone, there being no group responsibility for any of the opinions, but no opinions will appear in this section except those belonging to some individual of this group.-THE EDITORS.

E

A NOTABLE MEMORIAL

BY HENRY J. HASKELL
Of the Kansas City Star

VERY war produces its memorials. A nation's gratitude to its defenders naturally expresses itself in permanent symbols. Their type suggests the general culture of the period. As, for instance, the Civil War statues that dot the country: the soldier on guard in cap and cape; the ornate and conventional

shaft. It would be possible to write a fairly adequate commentary on American cultural development from a study of the statues and monuments in Washington.

One of the important influences in the artistic growth of the United States in the next few years will be the sort of memorials that will commemorate the devotion of the men who served in the

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