Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1904 edition. Excerpt: ... THE STATE If economy in the administration of a Government is one of the primary objects to be attained, the organization of the United States based upon a confederation between separate sovereignties is a mistake of gigantic magnitude. With this plan of political compact, a low rate of expenditure for maintenance of the machinery needed to carry on the business affairs of a nation is impossible. If in one State, disbursements for public expenses are carefully supervised, so that a dollar's worth of service or material is received for each dollar paid out, as in private business affairs, there will be found at least five for one where the opposite rule obtains, and where expenditures are made without any particular reference to the value received, and generally in direct violation of the commonest principles of honesty or business discretion. Rewritten in 1901. In public affairs, from the villages or the municipal political unit up through all grades to the Federal, one common result is visible and may be formulated in a very short sentence, viz., The largest possible expenditure for the smallest possible return. The Parties, Bosses, Politicians and elective officeholders while proclaiming in their platforms and other public declarations, the most lofty, ardent and patriotic desires for honest expenditures, usually ask and vote for the most extended and amplified schemes of, in part, dishonest extravagance. If the General Government builds a warship it costs at least a third more than elsewhere, and the repairs made to old ships often cost as much as new ones of the same class in other countries. If a State erects a Capitol building, the tax payers are often made to pay from two to four times its value. That at Albany, New York, was to...
