Radio Script #32
Little Talks On Common Things
June 19, 1949
A columnist in one of our Maine papers has been getting in some punches at the Congressional franking privilege. While we agree with him that the privilege is often abused, we consider the particular incident which he selected less objectionable than most of this free mail. It may not be smart politics for Congressman Nelson to send copies of the American Creed to all of this year’s crop of high school graduates in the second district, but that creed is a good thing for every graduate to possess and to heed. To critics of Mr.
Nelson’s act, it probably doesn’t occur that he has sent out those cards with the best of motives. Charlie Nelson is the sort of man who believes that these young people, after twelve years ~ the public schools, are now ready for higher education or for the working world, ,~it:h a right to recognition by the man who represents their district in the national legislature, recognition that not only congratulates them upon successful completion of the public schools, but also places before them the stirring, memorable words of the American Creed. If the franking privilege must be used at all, we can think of no better use for it. More power to Charlie Nelson’s efforts to instill the American way of life into the hearts and minds of young Americans.
An anonymous listener sends in a post card asking how the old ox slings worked. While we have seen those old slings, we never saw one in action, and our general idea of its operation would probably sound so ludicrous to one who really knows that we won’t attempt a·description at this time. We promise, however, to try to get accurate information on this subject and broadcast it at a later date. By the way, how many shoes did an ox wear? Who can answer that one?
people who recall in great detail the location and personnel of the old livery stables greatly outnumber the folks who have accurate recollections of the blacksmith shops. Charles Leroy Jones of 70 Elm Street has good reason to remember those stables, for he used their teams to court a girl in Oakland, a girl who became Mrs. Jones 46 years ago. As a matter of fact, I suppose that buggy-riding hireage is the relationship most men now over 50 once had with livery stables. My own such experience was with the somewhat rickety buggies and the sleek roan horses from Glover’s Livery Stable in Hebron. The usual ride was to South Paris, but occasionally we drove to Mechanic Falls, left the team there, and took the electric car line to Lewiston.
Mr. Jones mentions of course the Jim Pray stable on Silver Street, where the State Theater now stands. That seems to be Waterville’s best known stable, but it apparently was not the earliest. Mr. Jones says the first livery he recalls was the well known Elmwood Stables, back of the Elmwood Hotel, where the Jackson Dairy now stands. When Mr. Jones first knew the place, it was conducted by a Captain Jewell, whose successor was the famous hotel man, Charles Hill, brother of Dr. J. F. Hill and long the esteemed propietor of the Belgrade Hotel.
Ira Mitchell, who lived at 113 Silver street, had a livery also on Silver Street, near the present location of the Hathaway Company. So Mr. Jones remembers two stables very near each other on Silver Street. Charles Pillsbury, who lived at 220 Main Street, for a long time ran a stable just off Temple Street, in the rear of the former location of the Salvation Army. Chester Alley of Boutelle Avenue says there was once a livery stable in the alley back of where Dakin’s Store now stands on West Temple Street. We recall hearing of that stable in another connection. It was not far from Buzzell’s Restaurant, and legend has it that Roscoe Buzzell used to set his pies on a shelf outside the back door to cool. The fellows working at the livery stable took advantage of this opportunity to snitch an occasional pie.
I have no accurate information yet on Waterville stage coaches, but a listener has put us on track of a source where such information may be obtained. So that subject, too, must be deferred to a later broadcast.
Is it too hot in these summer months to think seriously about a billion dollars? Hot or cold, working time or vacation, a billion dollars is a lot of money and, believe it or not, this particular billion dollars is yours and mine. For I want to discuss with you for a few minutes tonight the report of the now famous Hoover Commission on organization of the executive branch of the federal government.
Everyone knows, or at least suspects, that the various government departments and agencies have so grown in numbers and size that they ~re almost hopelessly entangled in expensive duplication, exhaustless red tape, and dubious efficiency. In July, 1947, without a single dissenting vote in either house, the Congress created this commission. The choice of Mr. Hoover as its chairman was especially happy. Our only living ex-president, acknowledged as one of the ablest American administrators, he is the only man in the nation who knows from intimate, responsible knowledge the problems which confront President Truman.
The Commission has done a notable piece of work. Employed staff known as task forces gathered detailed, accurate information about what the commission defined as the 24 major problems of government and management. Based on these facts the commission has made its recommendations to eliminate some of the bureaus and offices, to combine others, to redistribute many into more logical departments. And here is the point: the new plan, if authorized and adopted, will save the taxpayers a billion dollars a year.
When Mr. Hoover was himself President, all departments and bureaus in the Executive Branch cost four billion dollars a year and employed 600,000 persons. Today they cost 42 billion a year and employ 2,100,000 persons. What is worse, they are set up in 1,816 assorted departments, bureaus, sections and divisions.
The result is not only duplication and waste; it is sometimes hopeless chaos. The report shows that exactly the same services can be better rendered with two hundred thousand fewer workers. One out of every ten employees is not necessary. When Mr. Hoover was asked if the present red tape prevents the discharge of inefficient government workers, he said: “The whole Civil Service has been surrounded with a mass of red tape that makes it extremely difficult to discharge anybody for sheer inefficiency. A supervising officer who wishes to remove a government employee for inefficiency must present documentary proof.
The employee then has four different appeals. The supervising officer must appear four times to prove his case, and the result is that few officers will take the time and trouble to do it. Why should he, as long as his own pay depends’ on the fact that one of the bases of salary classification is the number of employees under him’?”
The report shows how utterly impossible it is for the President to know what goes on in the agencies directly responsible to him. There are 85 agencies reporting directly to the President, not to any department or cabinet member. If the President gave them each a half hour a week, he would put in a 42i hour week on administrative problems in the agencies alone, with no time for the major problems of government policy.
So far most of the public’s attention, in respect to reorganization of government agencies, has been focused on the new Department of Defense. In light of Secretary Forrestal!s physical collapse and subsequent suicide, Mr. Hoover’s words, spoken several months ago I are interesting. He said: “Large areas of government work simply cannot be made to operate as now set up. I defy any man, as Secretary of Defense, to make that department operate economically or efficiently under the present law and the present set-up. It has already exhausted one man trying to do it.” Mr. Hoover could now appropriately strengthen that last sentence and say, “It has already killed one man trying to do it.”
At the start of this broadcast tonight we mentioned the franking privilege. Of course that privilege contributes heavily to the annual deficit in operating the postal service, but it is a minor contributing factor compared with the inefficiency of the whole postal set-up. The commission report pulls no punches in telling us what is wrong with the post office. Its structure is obsolete and over-centralized. A maze of outmoded laws, regulations and traditions freezes progress and stifles proper administration. Political appointment of postmasters and other officials produces inefficiency and reduces the incentive of promotion. How rapidly the post office is losing money is shown by a few impressive figures. In 1947 the deficit was 263 million dollars or 20% of the revenues. In 1948 it was 310 million dollars or 22% of revenue. In the fiscal year ending June 30, 1949 the deficit is expected to exceed 500 million or 30% of revenue.
The Hoover Commission shows clearly that the one most necessary reform is to take the post office out of politics. In the department, in spite of the Civil Service system, there are still 22,000 political appointments. Naturally the commission would do away with the obsolete procedure of the confirmation of postmasters by the Senate.
But the trouble lies not wholly in the appointment system; the whole policy of budget, accounting and audit must be overhauled. The post office is by nature a business that is revenue-producing and ought to be, like any other business, self-sustaining. It carries on numerous business-type transactions with the public. It must, therefore, be conducted from top to bottom by recognized, modern business methods.
The experience of the federal government in many of its business enterprises has already pointed the way to the solution of these problems in the Post Office. The Government Corporation Control Act of 1945 provides for a business form of budget, accounting and audit, and gives modern business flexibility to the management of those concerns. All that is necessary is to extend the provisions of that law to the Post Office.
So much for the Post Office. Let us return for a moment to the general, overall findings of the commission. Here they are:
“I. The executive branch is not organized into a workable number of major departments and agencies which the President can effectively direct, but is cut up into many agencies, which divide responsibility and can have no effective direction from the top.
“2. The line of command from the President down has been weakened, or actually broken, in many places and in many ways.
“3. The President and the heads of departments lack the tools to frame programs and policies and to supervise their execution.
“4. The Government has not taken aggressive steps to build a corps of administrators of the highest level of ability with an interest in the program of the Government as a whole.
“5. Administrative services, such as purchasing of supplies, maintenance of records, and the operation of public buildings, are poorly organized, resulting in extravagant waste.”
Well, what can you and I do about it? Remember it is our billion dollars that Mr. Hoover has shown us how to save. Let us see that our Maine Congressmen and Senators know how the people at home feel about it. Let us tell them that no selfish interests, no vested holdings of Washington brass, must get in the way of this needed reform.
Year: 1949