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one officer of government who represents the people as a whole is in a better position to lay before the Congress and to state to the people what the Government is doing and what it proposes to do; that the President, under the powers given to him by the Constitution, is in a better position than any one else to dramatize the work of the government to so impress this upon the attention of the people, through the public press, by means of a budgetary message as to arouse discussion and elicit comment such as will keep Congress as well as the administration in touch with public opinion when deciding whether or not the proposals are such as will best meet welfare demands."

Submission of Budget by President Taft

Not only were these recommendations commended to the favorable attention of Congress in a special message asking for its coöperation, in a revision of laws and practices to make their adoption practicable, but the thought was further enlarged upon in a subsequent message submitting a budget to the next regular session.

"The recommendation of such measures as may be thought to be necessary and expedient and requests for support, in the form of estimates for further expenditures," the President said, "should be premised on a knowledge of service needs. The needs of the service can only be known to those who are in charge of administrative detail. Representation of what has been done as well as what should be undertaken in the future must come from those who are acquainted with technical requirements. A sense of proportion, however, can come only from those who must assume responsibility for the administration as a whole. . . .

"The advantage to the Congress of having placed before it a definite statement and proposal, one which is submitted by the responsible head of the administration, must also be apparent. Such a statement will greatly facilitate

the adoption of a procedure whereby the deliberative branch of the Government may determine the gross amount to be appropriated in advance of decision as to what amount shall be allowed for each detail of the Government's business, rather than leave the relations of income and outgo to be computed after the action has been taken on the many matters which are brought before the Congress for determination.

"Size and complexity of the problem make it necessary for officers to have the advantage of seeing the business of the Government in perspective. But judgment with respect to the requirements of particular services requires that exact information be made available for the consideration of detail. This budget is submitted, therefore, not only as an instrument through which a perspective may be gained, but as an index through which members of Congress and the public may obtain ready references to supporting reports and detailed records of account.

"The need for such an index through which exact information may be obtained as a basis for judgment about problems of public business is evident to one familiar with the governmental problems.

"The highly complex and technical character of questions that must be decided by executive heads of departments is suggested by the complexity of departmental organization. In the department of the navy, for example, there exist at present thirty-four navy yards and stations, thirty-one naval coaling plants, forty-three naval wireless stations, twelve naval magazines, fourteen purchasing, pay, and disbursing offices, nine inspection districts, sixteen hydrographic offices, twenty hospitals, twenty dispensaries, fourteen naval schools, three schools for the marine. corps, seven naval medical schools, four naval training stations, thirteen target ranges (naval), one target range and permanent camp of instruction for the marine corps, three medical supply depots, thirteen recruiting stations,

forty-eight marine posts and stations, and a naval militia, besides the fleet, which is the actual fighting machine of this branch of the military establishment. More concretely, the administrative requirements may be shown by reference to a single station (one of the thirty-one above mentioned), such as the proving grounds at Indian Head. Here under the jurisdiction of an officer known as the senior assistant are a police force, office buildings and grounds, living quarters, a water-supply system, boats and wharves, a railroad, a power plant, a carpenter shop, an electrical shop, a tin shop, a repair and pipe-fitting shop, a storehouse; and under the jurisdiction of an officer known as a powder expert is a chemical laboratory, a sulphuric-acid factory, ether factory, dry house, boiling tubs, dehydrating house, an intensifier house, a solvent recovery house, a reworking house, a nitric-acid factory, a roaching and pulping house, a mixing house, a press house, a blending and packing house, a powder factory and magazines, a signal house, a rocket house, and a storehouse. These may be taken as illustrative of the character of the administrative attention required in directing and controlling the activities of one of the many institutional subdivisions of one department of the Government.”

Why Commission's Recommendations Were Limited

The conclusion drawn from this is that a requirement laid on the executive to prepare information in advance of the meeting of Congress needed information of a plan or program of service which will include all the varied activities of the Government, to put upon the department heads the necessity of preparing their information in such form that they can explain and defend their expenditures and estimates to an executive staff engaged in the preparation of a budget, and then to justify their claims in the course of a cabinet inquiry before the budget is made official, is desirable both from the viewpoint of executive

management and for purposes of review criticism and discussion before Congress.

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With respect to the development of a procedure or means whereby five hundred members of Congress and the country at large may be informed of the service and financial needs before money is voted for support, the temper of Congress at the time was such that the subject was purposely avoided, except as indicated by the general principles laid down: (1) that the executive should be made responsible for preparing and submitting a plan which would include the needs of every department and establishment which the executive would be prepared to explain and defend, and (2) that opportunity be given for presenting it and defending it before the legislative branch of the Government and the country." Whatever may be the use made by Congress of committees for purpose of inquiry and by way of preparedness of its leadership for criticism and discussion, it is obvious that the desired end could be achieved only by bringing inquiry, criticism, and discussion of budget proposals out into the open, and having the proceedings conducted in such a way that the whole membership may be brought face to face with officers in charge of the activities which are made the subject of review. And under our constitutional form in which the heads of departments are not given a seat in the deliberative body while in formal session, this may be done only by having the inquiry, criticism, and discussion take place in committee of the whole with the executive present, instead of in the recesses of the standing-committee room where, if other members and the press were permitted to attend, they would be required to follow the performances of a twenty-nine ring circus with nothing definite or authentic as a measure to be acted on before them for discussion.

CHAPTER XIX

PROPOSALS OF CONGRESSMEN FITZGERALD, SHERLEY, AND

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CANNON

IN the states, opposition to boss rule had carried with it a prevailing public opinion hostile to legislative committee domination. Because of this hostility the defenders of the standing-committee system (the advocates of the legislative budget " idea) had won out in only two of the forty-four legislatures where new budget procedures had been passed. In the other forty-two states honors were about evenly divided between the advocates of the “executive budget " idea and the advocates of the "commission budget" idea. The latter were made up of advocates of "government by commission," who had succeeded in all of the states in making the government more serviceable; but it finally came to be recognized that they had done this in a way to weaken instead of strengthen the processes of popular control. The advocates of the executive budget idea had won out against the advocates of the commission government in twenty-two states; they undertook to preserve the advantage gained by the " government-by-commission" advocates by way of improved service; in fact, to make the public service more efficient, and at the same time to make the administration responsive to public opinion by making the head of it responsible directly to the electorate.

These two forces had been opposed to each other as to method, in controversy over the budget; but they were united in opposition to the boss, and to the irresponsible party machine-i.e. in all the states except New York

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