TOO MANY IN ADMINISTRATIVE SERVICE
Madden, Congressman Martin B.
Too Many in Administrative Service Congressman Makes Tour of Government Offices To Determine if Employees Are Busy Results Are Surprise To Congress By CONGRESSMAN MARTIN B. MADDEN (Speech in...
...I saw at least a thousand people in the hour and a half and there Was not *one in the whole thousand workoing during the hour and a half...
...They have eight men in the Bureau of Supplies and Accounts—inen and women—to do all the work of coaling the ships of the navy...
...It is an appeal that cannot be denied...
...I think he is a man of great ability, and I think he has done wonderful work...
...Doctor—"Quite, madam, quite, you cough exactly like the Countess^ of Wesscoc"—Punch, and Accounts about 1,600 men and women...
...You will.find that all through the departments, and yet we are spending millions of dollars here for housing \jthieh is unnecessary...
...There will be sickening disclosures if utter ineonv petency and waste of the ' people's money, much of it wrung from poor people under the urge of patriotism and the desire to protect and comfort the boy called to serviee...
...Unless we have immediate curtailment of such abases there will come the usual Congressional investiga-tion^with the usual results...
...IHAVE nothing but the greatest admiration for Mr...
...There is just room for a proper organization in that office for 20 division directors...
...There was one desk in the place for every three men...
...These have been removed, and there are now a million and a half voters instead of p. million...
...For a similiar function in the Army they would have 2,000 men...
...I got the The Madden statement is merely illustrative of the tremend-us waste going on in all departments during war time...
...I think' that he is worthy of the confidence of the courftry, and I do not know of any man with whom I have had conversation who impressed me with better knowledge ef the work that he has in charge than Mr...
...It buys and supplies, it keeps the accounts, and pays the men...
...Why, over in New York I went through the quartermasters stores, and I was abtejo get the Dames of 210 commissioned officers in that office from majors down...
...The election does not yet seem to have resulted in any radical changes in the government's policies, and the endeavor to main tain strict neutrality is supported by all groups and parties as necessary to Holland's independent existence.—Review of Reviews...
...Too Many in Administrative Service Congressman Makes Tour of Government Offices To Determine if Employees Are Busy Results Are Surprise To Congress By CONGRESSMAN MARTIN B. MADDEN (Speech in Congress, September 23...
...Editor's Note...
...There are ten people doing one person's work in most places...
...The voting age in Holland has long been fixed at twenty-five years, instead of twenty-one as* with ns...
...Hoover has, but that could not make me agree that this performance is one that he can justify...
...Hoover as a man...
...And so it goes...
...groups of stenographers in three or four diffcent rooms, maybe as many as 5, maybe 10 in a group, with not a typewriter at work in any room, with no person employed, sitting around reading a newspaper or gossiping...
...They have for example, in all of the Bureau of Supplies Holland's New Democracy Shown THE democratic tendencies in western Europe have been illustrated in the general elections held early in July for a new parliament in Holland...
...In this connection I call attention to the Bureau of War Risk Insurance, with 10,000 employees where half that number should suffice...
...Not only that, but the men previously in the offices have not been doing anything, they say so themselves, and they are ashamed of being there...
...The number of voters un-deT the new law is increased by 50 per cent...
...name and rank and house address and the telephone number of every one of those men and called the case to the attention of the Quartermaster General...
...Until now there were restrictions which shut out one-third of the men above the age of twenty-five...
...Drawing pay...
...He got them, and not one of those men has done a bit of work since commissioned...
...CALDWELL...
...They had to relay, In order to get a desk once in a while, and when they were not relaying they acted as messenger boys or smoked cigarettes...
...You can walk through the §ffice of the Food Administration, as I have done for an hour and a half one day, and you would have seen at least a thousand people supposed to be employ ed as clerks...
...and that is not the only department where that is true—I walked through the Engineering Division one day, started in at 9 o'clock and walked through from 9 until half past 10, just as a Blatter of curiosity, did not speak to anybody, Went through the office...
...ATTAINING DISTINCTION...
...There is no need for spending this money if the departments will confine themselves to the number of people that they can legitimately employ...
...They buy all the cannon for the ships, let all the con-* tracts, keep all the accounts, pay all the men, de everything that is to be done in connection with the supplies...
...Wife of Profiteer—"Are yr>u quite certain Pve had the very latest form of influenza...
...The Bureau of Supplies and Accounts of the Navy provides for 560,000 men and all the ships...
...The work they were doing was done before the war by civilians—men and women...
...While the Fuel Administration has over 1,200 people right here in Washington, compare their work with the work of the Supplies and Accounts Division of the Navy and you can understand how idiotic it would be for anybody to suppose that 1,200 people are necessary in the Fuel Administration of this Government...
...On the pay roll, which gives them a chance of drawing money out of the Treasury <and giving no value for the compensation they receive, than in any other place I know...
...I saw there groups of stenographers, five groups, not less than 50 in all, and not one typewriting machine at work out of the whole 50, not anybody at a desk doing a thing...
...Now, contrast, for example, the Bureau of Supplies and Accounts of the Navy with the Quartermaster's Department of the Army...
...After the war began it was done by unrtormed officers drawing high pay...
...I know a case where, for example, a major in one of the branches of the War Department having charge of personnel work, anxious to employ and get commissions for two or three more majors, Succeeded in convincing the head of the department that the work of his branch of the service Was so arduous that he was compelled, as a matter of justice to the department, to get more officers...
...I will say about his office that there are more people employed in the office—I will not say employed because that would not be fair—but people, who are sitting around the office— Mr...
...It might be proper that each of those should be a commissioned officer, but all the other people in the office ought to be girls or young men below the draft age or men above the draft age who ought not to be in the army, but those men, with five or six exceptions, are within the draft age...
...Now, if they were doing that during that hour and a half, how many other hours and a half might that same thing be true...
...Women are not yet enfranchised in Holland, but Tinder the new law they are permitted to be candidates, and there were twenty-one women running for parliament last month, of whom it is reported that several were elected...
...For it is known that the most powerful appeal to the poor comes from first induction into service of our loved ones an-1, then calling upon ns to back them up in the field...
Vol. 10 • November 1918 • No. 11
