For Efficiency's Sake

In 1921 Congress decided that the executive department of the Government needed reorganization. In the process of natural growth bureaus and divisions had appeared within Departments and it was apparent that for efficiency's sake some straightening out was needed. So a Joint Committee on the Reorganization of the Administrative Branch of the Government was chosen. It worked on plans which were completed last year. Its plan aroused dissension in the Cabinet and never got so far as Congress. Other more pressing matters took its place. Now it has come to the fore once more.

The Joint Committee consists of Chairman Walter Folger Brown, lawyer, of Toledo, who represents the President; Senator Smoot of Utah (Republican), Senator Wadsworth of New York (Republican), Senator Harrison of Mississippi (Democrat), Representative Temple of Pennsylvania (Republican), Representative Moore of Virginia (Democrat), and one vacancy caused by the resignation of Representative J. Stanley Webster of Washington (Republican).

The chief features of Mr. Brown's plan: the merging of the War and the Navy Departments into a Department of National Defense, the creation of a Secretary of Communications to control the Post Office and supervise the telephones and telegraphs, the establishment of an Education and Welfare Department. Prohibition enforcement would be taken from the Treasury and given to the Department of Justice, and other similar transfers would be made.

The matter is now under consideration by the Cabinet with Mr. Brown defending his scheme. Already a Joint Board of Army and Navy officers, comprised of Generals Pershing, Hines and Wells, and of Admirals Eberle, Jackson and Shoemaker, has submitted an adverse report to the President on the proposal to unify the War and the Navy Departments. They believe that it might promote a certain economy in expenditure but at the sacrifice of mobility and speed, elements of high importance in military operations.

The President favors the general idea of reorganization for efficiency. The Cabinet will try to thresh the matter out with Mr. Brown. If any sort of an agreement can be reached, the plan will then go to the Joint Committee to be whipped into shape for presentation to Congress.