Conference of Officers in Charge of Government Hospitals Serving Veterans of the World War

by Unknown

“Have you ever had a meeting of the heads of the agencies for the expenditure?”

“No.”

“Well, how do you know you are not duplicating facilities? How do you know there is any coordination between the establishments you are building in the securing of supplies, in the hiring of men?”

“We don’t know. We never have had, in this business organization, even a meeting to discuss the question of proper expenditure of money upon the standpoint of one corporation as distinguished from five separate departments of a corporation.”

Now what a ridiculous situation that is and yet that is what has pertained from the beginning of Government. We have forty-one independent governmental departments and establishments and each of them has been going on its own way and the result has been chaos in business, absolute chaos. It is a remarkable thing that here for the first time in the history of the Government you have got together the elements to determine the proper administration of this most important matter of the care of the sick and the disabled among the veterans of the war. For the first time it is possible, by this juxtaposition, to properly consider policies to prevent duplication, to devise ways and means and it is a comment upon the terrible conditions under which the business of this Government has been transacted, and that is the first instance where you could get them all together to discuss a coordinated policy. That has been so with everything. The meeting never would have gotten together, you never could have gotten together physically in connection with this thing unless you had been ordered together by the use of the Executive power of the President of the United States. Now don’t get that out of your head,—that underneath this reorganization of government, which is not to be effected, but which has been effected in this routine business, there is the idea of force, and if the idea of force was not there we would not have gotten anywhere in connection with the securing of these results, which small as they are, represent an immense advance upon the old situation. I speak now from the standpoint of the accomplishment of these coordinating boards,—not as predicting something that is going to be done, but of the result of that which has been done during the last six months through coordinating agencies such as your Federal Board, established by the President of the United States through the use of his authority and running the routine business of the Government for the first time upon a business basis.

I make this distinction (for Mr. Burke, for instance) as some misapprehension may be had in connection with this matter of policy. The Budget Bureau, is not concerned with policy save that of economy and efficiency. We are concerned with the routine expenditure of money, of proper conduct of routine business. It is our business to see that when money is appropriated by Congress along a certain line or policy with which we have nothing to do, that that money is spent as economically and as judiciously and carefully as possible in order to secure the greatest results along the line of the policy imposed by Congress.

If Congress as a matter of policy should pass a law to put garbage on the White House steps, it becomes our duty, regrettable as it might be, to advise Congress and the Executive as to how the largest amount of garbage may be most expeditiously and economically spread on the White House steps. And that is why we are safe in demanding what is absolutely necessary, in every business, in routine matters,—a centralized authority. There is no democracy in a properly organized business so far as routine business is concerned. It is a monarchy, and if the sense of responsibility on the part of the agent to the man at the head of the corporation, who is responsible for the policy, is lost, the business goes to pieces, and, if a private business, you go into the hands of the sheriff.

The trouble is that in the past the Presidents of the United States have not done their full duty and assumed the control of the routine business organization of Government. The result is, as is always the case, with a private or public organization, that when the money is spent by parties interested alone in spending the money, the plan of the unit over which the spending head presides takes precedence over the plan of the organization as a whole.

Now that has been exactly the situation in the United States up to this time, and in dollars and cents, to say nothing of the matter of the use of facilities, there has been a waste that is incalculable in the past.

Now, for instance, take this. All this is preliminary but it is very important. Let me talk about human nature in connection with this matter of taking order,—this matter of jealousy of prerogative. I sometimes think we ought all to take a course of study in human nature. I sometimes think that while in the A. E. F. charged by the Commander-in-Chief with this same job of coordinating separated services, the independent services of the Army in connection with the unified business plan of the A. E. F., and afterwards in trying to couple up the allies in the same line of endeavor, I had a better chance than most people to see in its full majesty,—if you choose to look at it that way—that desire for absolute independence,—that willingness to subordinate practically everything on earth to hold power which is characteristic of human nature.