DEPARTMENTAL HUMBUG IN THE UNITED STATES.
Senator Oookrel 1 , referring to hisummer investigation of department* 1 methods, tays :— '« lhey r'oa't need legislation lo much as ordinary common sen*?.' Some of the disooveries he made art funny. For lnstanoe, when he looke ; into the ways of doing business at the office of the second auditor of thf Treasury, ho found that whenever any claim is presented there about any arm) pay acoount the routine mothod is t write a letter to the paym st ir-general'i office m the War Department, and ask foi the record of the account Too pay-master-general's olerks look up the reord' aod reply by letter. But when »h< senator went over to the paymaster general's cffloe and looked at these pay aooounta he found they were only c >piet of the originals. He set cn 1 ; to find th» originals, and whero did he find thf m ftfte inuoh searching ? Why, m the secouri auditor's offioe, and the second auditor h v for years been sending letters to the Wai Department for copies of official records whioh have been m his own cffloe all thf time* Trie senator found many olerVa of the War Department engaged m hunting up reoordß of service from muster rolls oi requests from the pension bureau. These muster rolls are folded ap separately, tted neatly with red tspa, and atowed away m innumerable p ! g?on«holes. The senst »r asked why the rolls were not spread uul flit by regiments or brigades, and bound or placed between ooveis, bo that they could he turned to m a moment- without all the trouble of gilngto the rack -f'tt'-ting down paokage after package, untying the tape, and unfolding each sheet. Nobody could answer save that the complicated and slower way was the old one. Then, again, the senator found that it it the custom to «cod out annually letters, du'y copied and endorsed, to BUch ext ffidal* as had not squired accoon'B with the Government. Io matter? not if the oBSci%J h'S been dead f t yearß, or, as was found m ona c«», the sum involved is only 15 cents, the letter goes out jaat the same as it did last year, the year before, and twenty years ago, He found land claims ' being carried along year alter year, which might be aeilkd by advertising near ih* location O'id turning ln f o the public domain Ml that were not adjusted within a t«peo fidd period B)ine of these unsettled land claims from Missouri d ued back to 1852. In oue c^ee the senator diacov rod t it* c a Missouri settier h»d Jbecn kept out of his p<pera for yoars, beoiuse at one poi^t m th>» long record a carelens olerk had written J>ne3 for Jdh All the copying after that was Jones, and so Mr Jonas' title to hto entry had never been perfected. In nearly every department the senator found such illuetratloas of olroamlooutlon as these. If some haaithy nrltlcialng io the report will lead to reforms, the senator will not have worked all summer In van — " Araorioan Paper."
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Ashburton Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 1746, 21 January 1888, Page 3
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518DEPARTMENTAL HUMBUG IN THE UNITED STATES. Ashburton Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 1746, 21 January 1888, Page 3
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