I am bringing to your attention this statement of the present lack of facility for obtaining prompt, complete, and accurate information in order that congress may be advised of the conditions which the President’s inquiry into economy and efficiency has found and which the administration is seeking to remedy. Investigations of administrative departments by congress have been many, each with the same result. _All the conditions above set forth have been repeatedly pointed out._ Some benefits have accrued by centering public attention on defects in organization, method, and procedure, but generally speaking, however salutary the influence of legislative inquiries (and they should at all times be welcome), the installation and execution of methods and procedure, which _will place a premium on economy and efficiency and a discount on inefficiency and waste_ must be carefully worked out and introduced by those responsible for the details of administration.
Does that broad accusation of the President approve or disapprove our previously expressed opinion of governmental department service in general and of the postoffice department in particular? Notice the statements I have taken the liberty to _italicize_. Permit me to repeat a few of them:
“The chief difficulty in securing economy and reform _is the lack of accurate information as to what the money of the government is spent for_.”
Does not that fully bear out what Judge Moon said in discussing the Senate resolution to appropriate $50,000 more for a second-class mail commission--devote fifty thousand more after the government had already spent several hundred thousands delving into the same subject and got little or nothing of value, by reason of the loose, careless and _wasteful_ methods of the federal postal department?
… “_There is no means for determining the relation of current surplus or deficit._”
An _inviting_ business situation that, is it not? Especially “inviting” is it to officials and subordinates who want something they have not earned, who want to _find_ something.
“No operation account is kept, and no statement of operations is rendered showing the expenses incurred--_the actual cost of doing business_--the actual cost of doing business on the one side and the revenues accrued on the other.”