HubLic MErsu^bi I and tfreirA *sLJ t5 _J E>USINEStJIJ 11 -7 HHE public men of the nation are little, if any, behind the proverbially resourceful American business man in the extent to which they are flow saving time and labor by means of mechanical aids and office appli ances. This tendency to economize In minutes and muscle is manifest to a surprising and constantly increas ing extent among men engaged in po litical, professional and even artistic pursuits—vocations that are not com monly supposed to quicken the quest for maximum efficiency with mini mum waste as does the fierce com petition of modern industrial, com mercial and mercantile life. Under the new order of things, however, the visitor to the office or study of the progressive statesman, lawyer, preacher, musician, artist, lecturer, physician, librarian or educator may sxpect to find the brain worker sur rounded by an array of filing sys tems, desk devices and other para phernalia of rapid-fire office adminis tration that would do credit to the most up-to-date capitalist, merchant or manufacturer. Whereas state and municipal head- Viarters in all sections of the coun try afford interesting object lessons as to the extent to which mechan ical time-savers and labor-savers have Invaded the conservative sphere of public affairs the most convincing proof of the revolutionary influence at work is to be found at the national seat of government. All branches of the federal government—the ex ecutive, legislative and judiciary— have improved and systematized the handling of detail under the spur of twentieth-century practice and twen tieth-century utilities. This is more notable in view of the oft-repeated charge by critics of the government that Uncle Sam, enmeshed in red tape, countenanced an extravagance, not to say wastefulness of time, la- bor and material in the discharge of his busi ness that would not be tolerated in any pri vate business. Naturally some sections of the governmen tal machine are much more advanced than others in their adoption of business aids and office appliances. For instance, there is the forest service, which under the direction of that human dynamo, Gifford Pinchot, is the peer of any private business establishment in the country in point of record keeping, ad ministration and celerity in the dispatch of business. Some institutions under the gov ernment are yet a long way behind this prize example in the matter of office equipment, but the point is that practically all of them have made a beginning in the right direction. With business men and corporation lawyers being drafted, as a matter of course for cabinet posts and the most important responsible po sitions under the government, there is every reason to expect that mechanical assistants will continue to make their appearance in in creasing numbers as aids in the discharge of the ever-increasing volume of government business. The presidential business establishment, for all that a certain dignity must be main tained in all procedure, is thoroughly up to date both in methods and equipment. The rule (and it 1s by no means a dead letter) that every communication sknU be answered on the same day on which it !»•< received might be adopted with advantage by many private business establishments that do business with far more fuss and (luster than the White House. A word should be said in favor of the White House system of securing the mail at frequent intervals during the day by special messenger and having all incoming letters opened by one man, who sorts the communica tions and so distributes them among the office force as to insure speedy response. The White House uses approved card index sys tems for a considerable portion of its record keeping and for its very important "mailing lists," including those of a social mature, car rying thousands of names and aMresses which are used in sending out invitations for the card receptions and other functions at the presidential mansion. Incidentally, it may be mentioned that the card index and its next of kin; the vertical file installation nre now in practically universal use in the government offices at Washington and no factors have helped more to simplify the whole routine of the telephone and telegraph In the transaction of business and few if any captains of indus try rival Uncle Sam's best-paid employes In the extent to which they make use of the wire less telegraph. This is but natural since practically all government vessels of any im portance are equipped with the wireless and the government maintains its own shore sta tions for wireless work at various points on the seacoasts and will ultimately have at Washington a station of 3,000 miles radius that will enable communication direct with almost any ship in the Atlantic. The federal government parallels the precautions of the most alert private business houses by having its own secret codes for telegraphic communi cations. There are more than half a dozen of these. The navy department and the war department each has several codes; the state department has one; and the president has a special secret code for his own use. These codes are changed if suspicion is aroused on the part of the officials that a key to a code has fallen into alien hands. At the White House offices there is a tele graph and telephone department that more than measures up against any of the similar adjuncts provided at the general offices of wealthy corporations having branches in wide ly separated localities. The president's "intel ligence office," as this communicative nerve center is called, is, first of all, the "central" for private branch exchange of a telephone system with upward of a score of stations at differ ent points in the White House building and grounds. Similarly it is the hub of a system that enables the president to talk confiden tially at any time with any of the members of his cabinet. Finally it is a clearing house for long-distance telephone and telegraph work handled by means of direct wires. Up ward of two dozen telegraph wires enter the White House offices and the expert telegra phers who, working in shifts, are on duty every minute of the 24 hours are enabled to secure a direct wire to any point at any time and to reserve it for executive business as long as may be desired. These White House telegraphers have, under stress of unusual press of business, employed some unique ex pedients. Graphophones of carefully gauged speed have been used to record long messages clicked off by the telegraph instruments —to be transcribed latereand, on occasion, long distance telephone messages have been re peated word for word as received to a grapho CAMERON COUNTY PRESS, THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 1910 Hon as it came over the wire. Speaking of the use of the talking machine ment the business phonograph is finding ex- the signature, "Fred W. Carpenter, Secretary to the President." This plan of signing corre spondence by proxy has also been employed by other high officials, notably army and navy officers of high rank, who are served in this capacity by aids, flag lieutenants, etc. A phase of governmental work which has called into requisition a great number of mod ern business aids, representing a wide diver sity of types, Is the issuance of the daily and weekly and monthly bulletins, announcements, reports, statements, etc., which constantly emanate from all government departments and the purpose of which Is to make notifica tion of changes in various branches of the public service, the condition of treasury funds, etc., etc. It has lately been proposed that Uncle Sam shall follow the example of various foreign governments by issuing a gazette or official daily newspaper. In which shall be published all of these governmental announcements of whatsoever character, but up to date there has been no other method than to allow each public official to make his announcements in his own way. Some of the daily statements of what Uncle Sam is doing in various lines of activ ity are now printed from metal type on ordi nary printing presses, just as circulars or pamphlets are printed, but for the most part these daily broadsides are prepared In the office where the information originates, by means of some one of those numerous new inventions for duplicating or reproducing typewritten sheets. Some of these impromptu printing outfits in the government ofllces are operated by hand, but for the most part they use electrical energy and this is often well nigh essential, since in many instances an "edition" of thousands of copies has to be printed within a few hours. In most instances young men set the type or prepare the wax stencils that are necessary for this duplicat ing operation, and since statistics figure in almost every one of these governmental an nouncements extreme care is necessary to insure accuracy. A close second to Uncle Sam's printing and duplicating equipment, both In number and variety, is the array of governmental ap paratus for handling the mailing lists to be used in sending out these various bulletins. That the machines for mechanically address ing envelopes and wrappers must ho qualified for rapid work may be appreciated from the fact that some of these government announce tensive employment. Many officiate now talk into phonographs all their replies to correspondence and even reports and public addresses pre pared in advance, thus effecting a clear saving of all that portion of the stenographer's time that would, un der the old plan, be devoted to the taking of dictation. One of the most Interesting exemplifications of the ad vantages to be derived from the use of this invention is found in the em ployment of the phonograph in the reporting of the debates of the senate and house of representatives. The expert stenographers who In the roles of official reporters make the short hand record of proceedings on the floor of each legislative chamber save much time by simply reading their notes to phonographs and then going back to their duties on the floor, leaving the record to be transcribed by typewriter onerators. The fountain pen, one of the most familiar of time-savers, is held in high esteem by every member of the president's cabinet and will probably continue to be so long as custom de» crees that the head of each govern ment department must sign in auto graph every letter dispatched from his office —a volume of correspon dence that reaches hundreds, mayhap as much as a thousand letters a day. Signatures in typewriting or by auto graph rubber stamp, such as are so common in the business world, are strictly tabooed in the higher offi cial circles. The president escapes this ordeal because of the fact that the great preponderance of the mail sent out from the White House bears ments are sent to more than 50,000 ad dresses In all parts of the United States. In ohe government office where envelopes are addressed by means of chain apparatus, employing links In which the necessary type Is'held, a young man devotes his entire time to setting up new addresses in the mov able rubber type as names are added to the mailing list, and in making cor rections of street addresses, etc., In the addresses already in type. Not only are envelopes mechanically ad dressed to Uncle Sam's regular corre spondents, but said envelopes, after their destified contents are in place, are sealed by electrically operated en velope sealing machines, each of which does the work of a dozen men. Our public men. if they used postage stamps on their official correspondence, would undoubtedly follow the example of pri vate business houses in utilizing me- chanical contrivances for moistening and af fixing postage stamps, but this is unnecessary because governmental mail is transmitted un der frank or in penalty envelopes, which are impressed at the time of manufacture with that "dead head" inscription in the upper right-hand corner which answers in lieu of postage stamps. It is significant that the demands of the government service for mechanical aids for economical business administration has be stirred many inventive minds among the fed eral employes. In some instances government officials have found it most satisfactory to have the manufacturers of book typewriters, adding machines and other standard office helpers simply vary or modify their stock models in order to meet the specific require ments of the government service, but in other cases men on Uncle Sam's payroll have in vented apparatus that was adopted in pref erence to anything evolved by outside experts. A notable case in point is the new style card punching machine invented by James Powers, mechanical expert in the service of the depart ment of commerce and labor —a type of semi automatic apparatus that will be employed for compiling the greatest card index in the his tory of the world, namely the federal census of 1910, which will require more than 90,000,- 000 individual cards. Other examples of the products of Inventive genius when bestirred in behalf of the government are found in the unique numbering machines at the United States bureau of engraving and printing—a sort of gigantic outgrowth of the familiar hand dating machine found on almost every office desk. The machines designed and con structed for the treasury department not only print in red ink but set their own type and number consecutively from 1 to 1,000,000,000. The flat-top desk, with its numerous con veniences, not to mention sanitary advan tages, is rapidly gaining vogue in officialdom as in the business world. As specimens of costly furniture the desks of most of our pub lic men will not bear comparison with the massive mahogany pieces to be found in some banks and in the offices of some wealthy cor porations, but your progressive public man has his desk equipped with all those attach ments which grease the grooves for high ten sion work. There is a swinging stand to shift the typewriter out of the way when the ma chine is not in use; a balanced arm, adjust able in all directions, that lifts the telephone aside when it is not needed; special desk lamps that focus their rays on the work while sheltering the eyes of the worker from the glare, and rubber stamps with clockwork attachment, which print not only the date but the hour at which each letter or report has been received or been given attention. The improved pencil sharpeners and the cutting devices which open a whole package of let ters at one sweep by clipping the ends of tha envelopes deserve mention in the same cate gory of time savers. So, likewise, do the vari ous forms of printing telegraphs which record orders or bulletins simultaneously at various points. The newest wrinkle in the conduct of Uncle Sam's business establishment—namely, the scheme for purchasing the supplies for all the government departments at Washiegton through one general purchasing agency—ls expected to bring to the attention of our pub lic officials many new office appliances and numerous improvements on old devices de signed to adapt them to governmental require ments. With Uncle Sam's purchases thus lumped, the contracts to be awarded will be enough to stir inventors and manufacturers to the greatest energy in producing novelties that federal officials will Include in their office installations. The central purchasing agency will also insure quality in all supplies by means of thorough tests. It is safe to say that under this new regime there will be no repeti tions of the experience of the official who re cently ruined more than si)o worth of rubber stamps through the use of a new "quick-dry ing" which he had not had an opportunity tc try out ere it was introduced in his offices. New York's Literary Girls. The young man who said he'd never eaten any, to somebody who asked him if lie liked Trollope, wf.<s outdone the other day in a Fifth avenue book store. A girl of 17 camo in and asked the clerk for "Prometheus," "by a man named Kelly or Sheets, or something liks that." "Oh," said the clerk, "Shelley's 'Prome theus Unbound'?" "Yes," replied the girl, "that's it. Hut, if you please, I'd rather have it bound. It's BO easy to lose the pages, you know, if it isn't." 90,000 AMERICAN SETTLERS GO TO CANADA THE YEAR 1903 HAS SHOWN AN INCREASE OF OVER EIGHTY PER CENT IN AMERICAN SETTLEMENT. Recent advices from Canada, our next door neighbour, the neighbourly country across the boundary line, are that upwards of ninety thousand settlers from the United States went into Western Canada during the past year, most of them for the purpose of taking up and settling upon the va cant lands, 160 acres of which are given free by the government, and lands adjoining held by railway and land companies are Belling at from nine to fifteen and twenty dollars per acre. Even if thirty and forty dollars per acre were paid, the price would be low, as the lands produce wonderfully, and at these higher figures there is a large interest on the money and labor Invested. The ninety thousand set tlers of last year, followed about sixty thousand of the previous year, and for Beveral years the number has been running into these large figures. There must be a reason for it. It may be found in the single phrase, "they are satisfied." Nothing attracts people more than the success of others, and the news of thi3 reaching other thou sands, causes them to investigate. The investigation in this case is always satisfactory. The splendid land of lowa, of Indiana, of Nebraska, Kansas, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio and other States has risen to a high value, and it is worth every dollar asked for it. But there is not room now for all on these lands. With the ever increasing demand for grain, there comes the ever increasing de mand for land. Canada is the only country on the continent in a position to supply it. Land there that costs, say fifteen dollars an acre, produces on a reasonable calculation, 25 bushels of wheat to the acre, or about $20.00. The most liberal calculation as to cost makes the cost to produce $7.50 per acre, leaving a balance of $12.50 per acre. The $7.50 carries good wages for the farmer, and all other conceiv able contingencies. With conditions like this, covering the entire area of about 500,000 square miles, it is read ily understood why 90,000 Americans should follow the sixty thousand of the previous year. Canadian Govern ment Agencies at different points in the Union are always ready to give in formation regarding the free home stead lands, ready to advise the set tler as to the districts which would suit him best. ALL SERENE. "De minister, he says dat at der last day every man will be judged by his works!" "Well, dat needn't worry us any. W« never worked!" The Worst of It. "Oh, she's awful. Whenever she tries to sing a song she simply mur ders it." "But that's not the worst of it. If she'd only murder it outright I wouldn't mind, but she tortures it so long." In Demand. "That's a very popular man." "Yes; he'll listen to the details of your summer trip without insisting on telling you about his own." Rheumatism Cured In a Day. Dr. Detchon's Relief for Rheumatism radically cures in 1 to 3 clays. Its action is remarkable. It removes the cause and the disease quickly disappears. First dosa greatly benefits. 75c Druggists. Nothing that was worthy in the past departs—no truth or goodness realized by man ever dies, or can die. —Carlyle. An Ideal Present NO STROPPING NO HONING BROWNE BRONCHIAL TROCHEE An immediate relief for Hoarseness, Couglu, Serf Throat, Bronchial and Asthmatic Troubles. Ax article of superior merit, absolutely free from auy harmful ingredient. Price, 25 cents, 50 cents and s>,oo per bo*. Sample mailed on request. JOHN 1. BROWN & SON. Bo,ion. M„. 3
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers