Public buildings.

Savings in the matter of public buildings are beyond the control of the Treasury Department, except in so far as it can reduce the cost of operating the Supervising Architect's office-a subject which has been engaging the department's attention. The Supervising Architect's office, however, looks like a small matter in comparison with the amounts expended on public buildings. I am by no means opposed to a liberal public building policy. I think it is quite right for the Government to occupy its own buildings whereever the need of an entire building exists-if they are of good enough architecture to build. And it is my hope to see during this administration another distinct advance in the artistic character of all the buildings, small and large, that the Government erects. The Government has the opportunity, and it has the duty, of aiding the architectural standards throughout the country. The artistic influence of a government building of high-class architecture is a great asset and should be conserved. This does not mean that all public buildings should be expensive. It certainly does not mean that a beautiful building is any more expensive than an ugly building. It is the lines and proportions of a building-it is the knowledge that goes into its design-that makes for beauty and art. It is not the money. But while I take this interest in public building, I think these buildings should not be authorized except from consideration for the Government's needs. They ought not to be put up merely to gratify a community. I do not mean that the wishes of the people of a locality should not be consulted and I do not mean that they should not be pleased as far as it is possible to please them consistently with the Government's interest and the interest of good architecture. I do maintain, however, that the authorization of a public building should be made from the point of view of the Government and not from the point of view of a locality.

CENTRAL POWER PLANT.

The Congress has authorized the erection of four buildings along the eastern boundary line of the White Lot for the Departments of State, Justice, and Commerce and Labor, and the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. The aggregate limit of cost is $10,000,000. The plans and specifications of the Bureau building are in the hands of professional estimators and will be released to competing contractors immediately; an architectural competition is being conducted in the case of the proposed homes for the three departments. Hence these four important building projects have been launched and the problem of supplying heat and power and light is pressing for solution.

I recommend to the Congress the establishment of a central power station at a point convenient to the present Bureau of Engraving and Printing. The practicability and economy of such a course have been determined. I am of the opinion that it is feasible and desirable, in making provision to serve the four projected buildings, to extend the service to such existing government buildings as may be supplied economically within the operating zone of the proposed power plant. It is estimated that the segregated heating and power plants in the dozen buildings of the executive group, adjacent to the White Lot and Mall, contain 85 boilers. These consume about 35,000 tons of coal annually and require the attention of 190 employees. The aggregate rating of the engines and other mechanisms is 3,500 horsepower. With the four new buildings in commission, it is probable that the equipment will increase 25 or 30 per cent.

It is possible by the concentration of the units of expense in a highly efficient plant, operated under competent direction, to secure unification of design and effect a material saving. At present there are heterogeneous requirements and installations, a heavy annual cost attending purchased lighting service, scattered locations of boilers throughout the independent buildings, resulting in the absence of continuous competent supervision, the transportation of fuel by stevedores, whereas it should be automatically delivered from cars to storage bins, the expense incident to the removal of ashes, and the occupancy by machinery and fuel of 600,000 cubic feet of valuable space in the department buildings. If the existing department buildings could enjoy practical freedom from smoke, noise and heat, and if the space now occupied by the machinery and fuel could be assigned to offices or converted into receptacles for archives, some rented buildings in the District of Columbia could be surrendered. I am of the opinion that the Congress could, with advantage, at once empower a department or a commission to design for the four department buildings a central power plant capable of indefinite progressive construction, and report to Congress an estimate of the amount required to extend the service to the existing buildings of the executive group.

MINOR INCREASES.

In considering efficiency and economy it must not be overlooked that these are not represented exclusively by reduction in appropriations. Economy and efficiency do not mean that in every case where there is a change the change shall be a reduction. There are undoubtedly many instances where the interests of the Government and the interests of efficiency in government require increases. It is true, in my judgment, that a large number of the salaries of the

people of such importance in the department that the effective work of the department must largely depend upon them should be raised. It is of extreme importance to the Government that it should constantly improve the individual rank and importance of the members of the permanent executive staff. The permanent staff of the Treasury Department deserves and needs men of high qualities and abilities, and to secure these men and retain them the salaries must be in some manner related to the qualities demanded. I feel the great importance of this consideration; and in the very midst and in the thickest atmosphere of the movement for reductions and economies, I feel that the interests of the Government are deeply involved in the question of a wise discrimination with respect to the salaries of these chief men.

THE BUDGET IDEA.

There was a promise in the air a year ago, to which I made reference in my annual report, of an organized coordination of appropriation bills among themselves, and of revenue estimates and other estimates with appropriation bills, and of an organized cooperation between the executive and the legislative departments, with a view to securing as far as possible the advantages other governments enjoy by reason of the budget system. I regret to say that the movement has not as yet gone far.

The expectation, therefore, that we were making progress toward such correlation of the separate appropriation bills as would make the appropriations of Congress practically one bill, has not yet been justified. Each executive department has held down or reduced its estimates under the direction or inspiration of the President, and phenomenal results on this line have been achieved. There has been, however, no permanent system of new control or new study of the relations of outgo and income established. That seemingly is impossible without full and established cooperation between the legislative and executive departments. As long as the system remains as it is, with the responsibilities for estimates and appropriations divided into as many atoms as there are executive departments and independent establishments and appropriating committees of Congress, there can be no permanent reform. The question of the expenditures of a great government like ours is altogether too large and too complex to be scientifically handled by anything but a thoroughly organized responsibility which shall represent both the legislative and executive departments. It would seem that there must be formed some kind of a budget board, or budget committee, representative of the two departments of government, which shall make the necessary studies and recommendations.

THE OLEOMARGARINE LAW.

There is a source of revenue awaiting the adoption of Congress and amounting to probably $2,000,000 a year, which would be a mere incident to the correction of a serious moral and economic condition, brought about by the failure of the present oleomargarine law. That law imposes a tax of 10 cents a pound on oleomargarine artificially colored, and one-quarter of 1 cent a pound on oleomargarine not artificially colored. The primary object of the law was to protect butter from the competition of an article that would resemble butter and be sold for it, and not for what it was. The extraordinary tax of 10 cents a pound was meant to equalize the difference between the cost of oleomargarine and the cost of butter; so as to prevent the sale of colored oleomargarine. It was taken for granted that, under this law, all the oleomargarine would be produced without color and could not be sold for butter.

The result as a revenue measure has been that the Government has not received from the tax much more than it has cost to make an unsatisfactory attempt to enforce a law that could not be enforced except here and there. Practically all of the oleomargarine produced has paid tax as an uncolored product at one-quarter of 1 cent per pound; and a large portion of this, after being artifically colored by a very simple and inexpensive process, has been fraudulently sold as butter. The law has therefore failed completely to protect the butter makers. It has raised up for them, indeed, a greatly aggravated competition.

The failure of the law to do anything but harm to the butter interests is, however, by no means the worst it has done. Its worst offense is that it has engendered and encouraged a large and very widespread and growing fraudulent traffic. It encourages so easy a fraud, and one so extremely profitable, that the law is a constant invitation to large numbers of people to become dishonest. The moonshiner needs a plant that costs practically nothing; and the cost of the coloring matter is practically nothing. The labor required to color the oleomargarine is of the lightest.

It is the size of the temptation, due to the mistaken policy of the law in making these two taxes, that is significant. If, therefore, in accordance with the plan that is now so widely accepted, a tax of 2 cents should be placed on oleomargarine, colored or uncolored, with simple and easy provisions already well understood by which oleomargarine would be sold as oleomargarine and not as butter, Congress would convert an unprofitable revenue into a profitable one, destroy a fraudulent competition for the butter makers, give the willing consumer of oleomargarine a cheap and wholesome food product, and

clean out and disinfect a wide circle of business corruption for which this law of the Federal Government is directly responsible.

These views have grown from the experience of the Treasury Department alone, and have not had the consideration of the Administration.

PUBLIC-HEALTH SERVICE.

Whatever action may be taken by Congress now or hereafter with regard to the proposal of associating other bureaus of the Government with the Public Health and Marine-Hospital Service, it is quite clear that the usefulness of this service along the lines of sanitation and public health should be continuously developed. This service has been greatly developed under the encouragement of Congress and this development should not be interrupted. The service is in a condition to rapidly increase its usefulness and its value to the nation both on its research side and on the side of its administration. It should be placed by Congress where it can compete for its personnel with the other institutions of the country which create such an active competition for the strong men in the professional lines it includes. It is of great consequence to the nation that this service should continue to be manned as ably as possible. These are considerations entirely detached from the question of the organization of a department of health, or the bringing together of various bureaus of the Government. The continuous important development of the present service would still be as necessary under a new association of bureaus as it is now; and development now would not in any way concern these other questions of organization.

REVENUE-CUTTER SCHOOL.

During the past summer the Treasury Department acquired possession of Fort Trumbull at New London, Conn., which the War Department had recently abandoned. The buildings are being transformed into a school of instruction for the Revenue-Cutter Service. The practice ship Itasca and fifty cadets have been transferred to the new station. This has enabled the department to gratify a cherished ambition of the service to enlarge and improve its facilities for instruction and extend its curriculum, and thus tone up its personnel. The long and creditable record of this well-disciplined service is secure in the hands of men of the right spirit, who are justly proud of the worthy traditions of the service.