NO CREDIT ALLOWED FOR SERVICES RENDERED OTHER DEPARTMENTS.
If the department of public works in Chicago does a piece of bricklaying, concrete or other construction work for the police, fire, health or other department of the city government, or if it carts or hauls away some excavated material or razed debris for any of those other departments, the service rendered is made a charge by the department of public works against the department for which the service is rendered.
What is true in this instance in Chicago’s municipal government is true of every other city or incorporated town in this country that has its service departmentized.
If the County Commissioners of McCrackin county build a bridge or culvert for Ridgepole township in the county the cost of constructing that bridge or culvert (or a proportional share of it, if on a general highway), is made a charge against Ridgepole township.
If the transportation department of the United States Steel Corporation delivers the services of three steam tugs (services rated at $30.00 per day) to the corporation’s smelting or rail departments there is a credit of $90.00 given to the transportation department, and a corresponding charge made against the department for which the service is rendered, for each day’s service rendered.
That states a recognized business rule and practice among both private and public corporations. Its valid and just purpose is to prevent the loading upon one department (any one department) the expenses created or incurred by another.
Is it not a valid, fair and just method of business?
If it is not, then the largest merchants, the most productive and profitable manufacturing establishments, transportation companies, banking and other mercantile, industrial and financial institutions have not discovered the fact.
If the owner of an Egyptian hen ranch had a shrinkage in his castor bean crop, he would not think of charging the cost or loss on those castor beans up to his hens, would he? Hens do not eat castor beans. That is useless—well—yes, of course. Well, hens do not eat castor beans, anyway. So my ill-chosen illustration, though may stand—stand anyway until someone finds a breed of hens which likes castor beans.
But, if the hens of that hen-rancher invaded his vegetable garden, scratched up his set onions and seeded radishes, pecked holes in three hundred heads of his “early” cabbage and otherwise damaged the fruits of his labor, care and hopes—likewise disarranged his figures on prospective profits—if the hens did that, that hen-rancher would most certainly charge his loss to the hens, would he not?
That is, he would do so, if the hens had attended to their legitimate business as industriously as they looked after his vegetable garden and, by reason of that legitimate effort, showed a “profit balance.” The preceding is based, of course, on the assumption that the rancher has acumen enough to distinguish a hen from a rooster and a sunflower from a cauliflower. If he is so wised up, whether by experience and observation or by academic training, he will most certainly charge his loss on vegetables against those hens.
“What is the application of all this to the Postoffice Department deficits?” some one is justified in asking.
Well, my intended application of it is, first, to show a generally recognized and practical business method—a business method practiced by both public and private corporations and by individuals and firms, from the hen-rancher to the department store. My second purpose is to show that this almost universally recognized business method has been and is totally ignored in conducting the vast service affairs of the Federal Postoffice Department.