Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 15.djvu/542

 528 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

nicipal wastefulness is far beyond any justifiable figure, if any waste can be said to be justifiable. Mr. Clarkin made up his fifty millions by estimating the waste in the matter of salaries and wages not only in the way of unnecessary employees, but in the overpayment of even those who were necessary, at $20,ocio,ooo ; the waste in supplies of materials, $4,500,000; in repairs and replacements, $6,000,000; in condemnations, $4,000,000; in con- struction contracts, $10,000,000; loss on the Ashoken Dam bid, $2,000,000; loss in interest selling revenue bonds anticipating taxes, $3,000,000.

He arrived at these figures by estimating the loss on a total appropriation of $151,000,000 for these six items, at from 25 to 40 per cent, on each item. If his estimate is true, this waste equals the losses of the Baltimore fire, or the first cost of the Erie Canal, or the entire national expenditure of the kingdom of Sweden or that of the Dominion of Canada ; or, to put it another way, it is greater than Great Britain will require in the current year to pay its old age pensions. As Mr. Clarkin points out, it is a "waste of the energy of every tired strap-hanger, of the leisure which better transit facilities would yield the everyday worker; it is a waste of the wages of the poor; it is also a melan- choly waste of human life. The income from these wasted millions would stamp out not only tuberculosis but also typhoid and diptheria."

Pittsburgh is at work on the same problem through its civic commission and is discussing such questions as. What the tax- payer doesn't know about Pittsburgh, and How will the $6,- 775,000 bond issue be spent?

Boston has its finance commission, with a salaried president, always at hand to investigate any charge of overpayment or ex- cessive price in material or labor. Auditing officials in Washing- ton are at work upon the preparation of a model budget along the lines advocated by the National Municipal League. Greater New York has had a taxpayer's conference and exhibit, which has served to bring home in a graphic way to the people of the city the facts disclosed by the investigation of the Bureau of Municipal Research.