Bureaus of Efficiency : Reforming Local Government in the Progressive Era [1 ed.] 9780874623475, 9780874620818

Citation preview

Bureaus of Efficiency

Reforming Local Government in the Progressive Era

Bureaus of Efficiency

Reforming Local Government in the Progressive Era

by

Mordecai Lee

Urban Life series No. 4 Thomas j. jablonsky, series editor © 2008 Marquette University Press Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53201-3141 All rights reserved. www.marquette.edu/mupress/ Founded 1916.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Lee, Mordecai, 1948Bureaus of efficiency : reforming local government in the progressive era / by Mordecai Lee. p. cm. — (Urban life series ; no. 4) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-87462-081-8 (pbk. : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-87462-081-3 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Civil service—Wisconsin—Milwaukee. 2. Civil service—Illinois—Chicago. 3. Political corruption—Wisconsin—Milwaukee—Prevention. 4. Political corruption—Illinois—Chicago—Prevention. 5. Industrial efficiency—Wisconsin— Milwaukee. 6. Industrial efficiency—Illinois—Chicago. 7. Progressivism (United States politics)—History. 8. Milwaukee (Wis.)—Politics and government—20th century. 9. Chicago (Ill.)—Politics and government—20th century. 10. United States—Politics and government—1901-1953. I. Title. JS1114.A2L45 2008 352.3'5216097309041—dc22 2008005190

cover design by Nick Schroeder. The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences— Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.

contents List of Tables ................................................................................. 9 Abbreviations .............................................................................. 10 Acknowledgements ..................................................................... 11 Introduction: Early Twentieth Century Bureaus of Efficiency .................... 15 1. The City of Milwaukee’s Bureau of Economy and Efficiency, 1910-1912 ................... 41 2. The Milwaukee Citizens’ Bureau of Municipal Efficiency, 1913-1921 . ....................... 67 3. The Chicago Civil Service Commission’s Efficiency Division, 1910-1916............................................. 95 4. The Chicago Bureau of Public Efficiency, 1910-1932............. 117 5. The Bigger Picture: Bureaus of Efficiency in Other Corners of America.............. 157 6. Summary and Conclusions..................................................... 195 Appendix A: Reports Issued by Bureaus of Efficiency in Milwaukee and Chicago...................................................... 217 Appendix B: Comparison of Advantages and Disadvantages of Sectoral Affiliation............................................................... 246 Bibliography............................................................................... 259 Index.......................................................................................... 277

T

DEDICATION

o the citizens of Milwaukee’s northwest side, my thanks for entrusting me to represent them for three terms in the Wisconsin Legislature’s State Assembly and two terms in the Senate (1977-89). The opportunity to fight for the public interest was a dream come true and one of the highlights of my life. An unintended consequence was that, for my later career as a professor of governmental affairs, I had seen from the inside how government really works. Therefore, if this volume provides any helpful insights about the public sector, then the credit should partly go to my former constituents.

LIST OF TABLES 1-1

Size of the MBEE

2-1

Size of the CBME

2-2

Implementation of the CBME Recommendations

3-1

Size of the Efficiency Division

4-1

Size of the CBPE

4-2

Subject Areas of the CBPE Reports

4-3

Frequency of the CBPE Reports

4-4

Scorecard of the CBPE Referenda Recommendations and



Voter Decisions

6-1

Sectoral Assessment: Theoretical Advantages and



Disadvantages of Sectoral Affiliation

6-2

Summary of Assessment of Sectoral Affiliation

ABBREVIATIONS BOE: bureau of efficiency (usually a generic term for organizations of this type; occasionally a proper name, such as the U.S. Bureau of Efficiency) CBME: [Milwaukee] Citizens’ Bureau of Municipal Efficiency CBPE: Chicago Bureau of Public Efficiency CSC: Civil Service Commission MBEE: Milwaukee Bureau of Economy and Efficiency NYBMR: New York [City] Bureau of Municipal Research

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

S

ometimes interesting research topics present themselves in the most serendipitous ways. For an earlier project about the United States Bureau of Efficiency (BOE), I was routinely searching digitized historical and academic databases. Naively, I assumed that the search term bureau of efficiency would zero me in on just what I wanted. Instead, I found myself having to wade through results that included references to bureaus of efficiency other than the federal one. What the heck are these, I wondered? I was curious enough to read some of those materials and learned that there had been bureaus of efficiency in some major American cities, including Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and even my hometown of Milwaukee. But the more I read, the more confused I became. As a faculty member teaching both public administration and nonprofit management, I immediately wondered about the sectoral affiliation of these metropolitan bureaus of efficiency. I could not easily tell if these organizations were part of city government or were nonprofit organizations. It was as though the answer was so obvious to the authors, some of them writing nearly a century ago, that they did not even feel a need to state it. However, by now, I had strayed far from my research about the federal BOE. Yet, I continued to wonder about these other bureaus of efficiency. This book is a result of wanting to scratch that historical itch. I gratefully acknowledge the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s Helen Bader Institute for Nonprofit Management for a faculty research grant that funded this inquiry. The grant program is part of the Institute’s Knowledge Management initiative, which is administered by the Center for Urban Initiatives and Research. My special appreciation to John Palmer Smith, executive director of the Institute, and Professor Stephen Percy, director of the Center. My thanks to Andrea Zweifel, my program assistant, who has exceptional skills

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as a proof reader. She has continually amazed me with her sharp eye for mistakes and has saved me from published embarrassments time and time again. Finally, my gratitude to the staff of Marquette University Press for helping improve the manuscript, especially series editor Professor Thomas Jablonsky who, by dedicating very generous amounts of time to the manuscript, improved it in a thousand ways, and to the Press’s director, Professor Andrew Tallon. I was delighted to have had an opportunity to interview Frank P. Zeidler on February 11, 2004. Zeidler had been Milwaukee’s last socialist mayor, serving from 1948 to 1960. He was able to recount to me the stories he had heard at the beginning of his own career from the preceding generation of socialist politicians about the Milwaukee Bureau of Economy and Efficiency and the Milwaukee Citizens’ Bureau of Municipal Efficiency. At age 91, he was sharp, funny, and engaging. His memory of Milwaukee political history was acute and perceptive. I was very appreciative for the opportunity. Zeidler died in 2006. For the twenty-first century researcher, the combination of the traditional interlibrary loan office of a library with the growing digital catalog WorldCat/OCLC (containing 54+ million entries) brings nearly a universal library to one’s front door. I was able to identify and then obtain almost all published materials I had sought, some very obscure and rare, located in dozens of U.S. public and university libraries. Similarly, the ProQuest digitized database of historical newspapers and NewspaperARCHIVE.com provided an unprecedented ability to locate coverage of specific organizations or people. Finally, the database JSTOR, comprising pre-digital era academic journals, greatly extended the capability to locate passing and obscure references in the early literature of American history and political science. As a researcher, these three tools were like gifts from heaven. A comparison of research techniques I used for my historical dissertation in the 1970s with those I could utilize for this book was akin to moving from stagecoaches to jets in a mere four decades. My generation of researchers has been extremely fortunate to benefit from these technological breakthroughs. They greatly extend the reach and scope of research in American history. History will be the richer for them. I can barely begin to imagine what even more powerful research tools the next generation of scholars will have at its fingertips.

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Archives are a more traditional source for historical research. I could never have pieced together the mosaic of this story were it not for the unfailing, cheerful, patient, and helpful assistance of dozens of librarians and archivists. They are truly the keepers of civilization and the best friends a researcher can ever have. Regrettably, the information professionals and specialists who helped me are too numerous to mention by name. Instead, I hope that each will accept this expression of utmost appreciation as individually directed. The archival sources for this study were (in alphabetical order): Chicago Historical Society, Research Center, Library and Manuscript Collection Chicago Public Library, Harold Washington Library Center, Municipal Reference Collection Detroit Public Library, Burton Historical Collection Kansas City (MO) Public School District, Archives Los Angeles County, Board of Supervisors, Executive Office, Records and Management Section [City of ] Los Angeles Public Library, Central Library, Social Science, Philosophy and Religion Department, reference (non-circulating) collection Milwaukee, City Clerk’s Office, Legislative Reference Bureau, Library and Clippings Collection [City of ] Milwaukee, Department of Administration, Business Operations Division, Printing and Records Center [City of ] Milwaukee Public Library, Humanities Room and Local History Collection Milwaukee County Historical Society Missouri State Archives, Secretary of State’s Office, Jefferson City New York City, Department of Records and Information Services, City Hall Library New York University, Elmer Holmes Bobst Library, Office of University Archives Northeastern Illinois University, Ronald Williams Library, Illinois Regional Archives Depository, Chicago Public Policy Forum, Milwaukee San Francisco Public Library, San Francisco History Center University of California-Berkeley, Main Library University of Chicago, Regenstein Library, Special Collections Research Center

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University of Illinois-Chicago, Daley Library, Special Collections University of Kansas, Spencer Library, Reference & Instruction Department, Lawrence University of Toledo, William S. Carlson Library, Ward M. Canaday Center for Special Collections, Ohio University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Golda Meir Library, Special Collections Wisconsin Historical Society, Pamphlet Collection and Archives, Madison The sources of unpublished archival documents cited in the text are identified in chapter endnotes.

INTRODUCTION EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY BUREAUS OF EFFICIENCY

T

he three decades from 1890 to 1920 have come to be called the Progressive Era, a shorthand term for the signal changes that in a compressed period modernized and transformed the economy, politics, and social life of the United States. Early in the twenty-first century, at the centennial of the Progressive Era, Professor Lewis Gould suggested it was the third most important period of constructive change in America, trailing only those of the founding of the United States and the New Deal.1 In 1990, Professor John Milton Cooper Jr. wrote that the impact of the Progressive Era “still dominates American life” nearly a century later.2 However, this was a complex period in American history, with a texture that does not lend itself to easy and one dimensional simplification. For example, the era should not automatically be viewed as another example of American exceptionalism. Its spirit was transnational, encompassing most of the modern western world.3 In the 1990s, Edward Stettner observed that “the progressive movement was such a broad reform movement that no one historian has fully succeeded in capturing its many parts.”4 The moniker of “progressive” reflected reformers’ optimism and the certitude that many aspects of America needed what they defined as progress: modern, positive, and forward-looking changes. However, the definition of progress remained quite vague. For example, progress to a non-unionized laborer exploited by a factory owner was different from progress to the businessman victimized by corrupt public officials seeking bribes for licenses and permits the business needed in order to operate. One of the causes of the Progressive Era was a shift from what late nineteenth-century economist Simon Patton called the “pain” economy to the “pleasure” economy, that is, the growing availability of leisure time to a larger proportion of the population.5 “In some ways, the Progressive Era emerged from a middle class that could not cope with its own affluence,” historian Michael McGerr concluded in 2003.6 Larger numbers of citizens had time to attend to social

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conditions. This, in turn, helped trigger a new form of journalism called “muckraking,” which focused on injustice and corruption that needed to be corrected.7 With more people reading newspapers, journalism and public relations emerged as tools of power and influence, ways to channel public opinion in specific directions.8

REFORMING GOVERNMENT DURING THE PROGRESSIVE ERA For some Progressive activists, government could be the solution to society’s problems. Their efforts were “essentially an attempt to employ the tools of government to restore a balance to society that rapid industrialization had knocked awry.”9 For other reformers, government was the problem. They sought to end corruption, patronage, political bosses, and urban machines. But there was also a middle ground. A disparate coalition of business leaders, academics, and women activists coalesced to press for significant reform of the public sector. They wanted “good government,” and all seemingly agreed on the need for efficiency in government.10 The holy grail of publicsector efficiency emerging during the Progressive Era continues to dominate the American political lexicon into the twenty-first century. This book is a study of an often-overlooked instrument called efficiency bureaus, which some Progressives used to pursue their goal of making government, especially city government, more efficient. In 1994, political scientist Eldon Eisenach described the broad consensus during the Progressive Era to reform government as “regime change.”11 Activists were interested in more than merely replacing one mayor with another or shifting control of city hall from one party to another. Rather, they wanted a major overhaul of the institution of government itself. These reformers hoped to create a new American state.12 Woodrow Wilson, as a former political scientist, brought to the White House a coherent and transformative philosophy suggesting how the federal government should function, one that differed from the nineteenth-century model.13 One category of government reforms called for expanding mass democracy through changes in the electoral process. These included direct election of U.S. senators instead of election by state legislatures (as established by the original Constitution), expansion of voting rights to women, primaries instead of conventions to choose party

Introduction

17

nominees for office, recall of elected officials, and the right of citizens to enact legislation through initiative and referenda. A different cluster of ideas was essentially anti-democratic or at least elitist. It sought to minimize the supposed harm of mass democracy through a “demobilization of American citizens.”14 These reformers viewed with particular alarm the mass of new immigrants who congregated in the major metropolises and were, reformers felt, subject to the temptations of machine politics and ethnic-oriented candidates. They had a “frenzied, almost hysterical tone” regarding the democratic threats the masses posed to American government.15 Sure, voters needed to be educated, but some firewalls still needed to be put in place just in case such citizenship training did not have the “correct” results. These reformers wanted to make local elected offices nonpartisan, to dilute direct political accountability through a commission form of government (modeled after the structure adopted during the rebuilding of Galveston after the 1900 hurricane), to eliminate scores of minor elected offices by shifting to a “short ballot,” and to establish quasi-independent city planning commissions. They also wanted formal and transparent budgeting, at-large voting for candidates in lieu of geographical districts, strict controls over voter registration, and enactment of “home rule” charters to protect municipalities from state legislative (that is, partisan or at least political) meddling.16 However, one approach to government reform largely transcended these differences of opinion among Progressive reformers and had nearly universal appeal: the goal of creating a permanent administrative branch of government that would be divorced from politics. Reformers believed it was possible to separate the ends of government from the means. Politicians would continue to decide government policies, but an administrative cadre would implement them. This led to the creation of a new profession and an academic discipline called public administration.17 “The Progressives conjured up an antiseptic form of government in which decisions would be made rationally by scholars, scientists, and experts,” wrote Ron Chernow in his 1998 biography of John D. Rockefeller Sr.18 The founders of public administration sought to create at all levels of government a permanent, merit-based, civil service system that would be beyond the reach of elected officials, would employ experts and technocrats to “advise” politicians of rational choices available to them, would

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professionalize government employment as a career, and would promote the city manager concept for municipal government.19

LOCUS OF Urban REFORM: MUNICIPAL RESEARCH BUREAUS VS. EFFICIENCY BUREAUS The relatively broad civic coalition seeking to reform local government led to the creation of local nonprofit organizations advocating for “good government” in their metropolis. (That is why the opponents of these activists sometimes called them, derisively, “Goo-Goos.”) In most major American cities, citizens joined to incorporate nonprofit agencies that were called municipal research bureaus or variations on that title.20 The most prominent of such organizations was the New York Bureau of Municipal Research (NYBMR). It was “[a]rguably the most influential of the reform organizations,” wrote Professors Anthony Bertelli and Laurence Lynn Jr. in 2006.21 In 1911, an offshoot of New York’s bureau went a step beyond promoting good government reform in New York. It founded the Training School for Public Service with the goal of preparing young men for the new profession. Its graduates were expected to go forth and staff—even found—similar bureaus throughout the country or work for local governments and promote reform from within. The template propagated by the New York bureau served as a model for similar organizations in most major urban centers.22 It is credited with having “transmitted the doctrine of efficiency to hundreds of American towns and cities.”23 The model called for “able and disinterested men,” experts in the study of government, to conduct surveys (the term used for what are now called audits) of city government agencies, collect objective information, and then recommend “scientific” approaches to improve efficiency in municipal operations.24 Such activities would simultaneously remove politics from public administration, increase productivity, and hold down costs. These nonprofit research bureaus have received a modicum of attention from historians, with much of the literature up to now focused on the bureau in New York City, although other studies have examined the bureaus in Chicago, Cleveland, and Philadelphia.25 As part of the movement by reformers to establish municipal research bureaus, there was a lesser known genre of agencies called bu-

Introduction

19

reaus of efficiency. Creation of a bureau of efficiency was one of the items on the short list of standard “cures proposed by Progressives.”26 But sometimes reformers were unclear if the two kinds of bureaus were similar or different kinds of organizations. While a professor at Columbia University, Raymond Moley wrote an article in 1932 for the New York Times on urban graft. He summarized the good government movement’s efforts as having “found expression in what is called ‘municipal research.’ A large number of ‘research’ or ‘efficiency’ bureaus have been established in American cities.”27 His description suggested that these were similar organizations, just with different titles. On the other hand, the New York bureau – a nonprofit organization – was relatively clear that bureaus of efficiency were to be entities within municipal government. A report summarizing the work of its training school after fifteen months noted that the students’ field work included “installation of efficiency bureaus” within city government.28 Based on Moley’s and the New York bureau’s statements, efficiency bureaus were sometimes in the nonprofit sector (similar to municipal research bureaus) and at other times in the public sector, making them inherently different from their nonprofit research bureau counterparts. This study explores the Progressive Era phenomenon of efficiency bureaus.

SCOPE Unlike the literature on municipal research bureaus, there is little published scholarly material on local bureaus of efficiency.29 The goal of this inquiry is to contribute to filling that gap. However, defining the scope of the study must be done with some precision to avoid confusion. During the Progressive Era, good government reformers created many entities reflecting the efficiency craze of the times. (A few continue to exist.) Some examples in the public sector included the Department of Efficiency in Washington state’s government, Kentucky’s Division of Personnel Efficiency, the Toledo (Ohio) Commission of Publicity and Efficiency, Maryland’s Commission on Efficiency and Economy in the State Government, the Department of Efficiency and Economy in New York state government, and “efficiency engineering units” in local budget bureaus.30 In order to identify, review, analyze, and compare similar agencies, this study focuses on efficiency bureaus, that is organizations which

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shared the common terminology of bureau and efficiency in their titles. Variations included bureau of efficiency, efficiency bureau, bureau of economy and efficiency, bureau of research and efficiency, and bureau of budget and efficiency. The generic terms used for such organizations throughout this study are bureau of efficiency and the generic acronym employed in the text is BOE.31 During the Progressive Era, there were public sector or nonprofit efficiency bureaus in many major American cities, including (in alphabetical order) Chicago, Des Moines, Detroit, Kansas City (Missouri), Los Angeles, Madison, Milwaukee, Muskegon, New York, Norfolk, Rochester (New York), Sacramento, and San Francisco. Of these, only two cities had both governmental and nonprofit efficiency bureaus. In Milwaukee, the two types existed sequentially, with the demise of one catalyzing the establishment of the other. From 1910 to 1912, there was a Bureau of Economy and Efficiency (MBEE) in city government. Then, from 1913 to 1921, local civic leaders established and supported a nonprofit Citizens’ Bureau of Municipal Efficiency (CBME). In 1921, it was renamed and continues to operate to this day as the Public Policy Forum. In Chicago, the public and nonprofit bureaus began at the same time and overlapped for a few years, operating simultaneously during part of their existence. The city government created within its Civil Service Commission (CSC) an Efficiency Division (often colloquially referred to as the Commission’s efficiency bureau). It existed from 1910 to 1916.32 Its nonprofit cousin, the Chicago Bureau of Public Efficiency (CBPE) existed from 1910 to 1932, when it merged into the nonprofit Civic Federation. (The latter organization exists at the time of this writing.) These four efficiency bureaus are at the heart of this inquiry, its purpose being to describe and analyze the role of efficiency bureaus in the urban reform movement. Three related issues are also under examination. First, what impact did these four bureaus have on city government? Second, with efficiency in all their titles, what did these agencies mean by that term as demonstrated by their record and actions? Finally, given that two were municipal agencies and two were nonprofit, did any interesting patterns or differences arise based on their sectoral affiliation?

Introduction

21

IMPACT Assessing the impact and quality of such bureaus is difficult. An earlier effort to do so focused on “effectiveness” as the criterion for evaluation, but then relied solely on self-reporting by bureaus, an admittedly flawed source of data if used without independent sources for corroboration.33 In the early twenty-first century, the emphasis on measuring performance in government has shifted from outputs to outcomes. The difficulty for a contemporary researcher is adapting such an outcomes-focused assessment to bureaus of efficiency that operated nearly a century ago. One could track the recommendations the bureaus made and then calculate the number enacted and the number rejected. However, such a direct approach would beg the question of whether recommendations were meritorious and whether any criticisms made at the time of the recommendations had merit. Certainly, in some cases, the municipal government may have declined to enact a recommendation, but that could have been for a variety of reasons. For instance, the recommendations may have been wise but politically explosive, in which case the BOE should be given positive credit for its work even though nothing came of it. Given such situations, how should a bureau’s recommendations be “scored”? On the other hand, one cannot assume that all rejected recommendations were good ones. Perhaps suggestions were trivial, misdirected, or inappropriate, deserving of a negative assessment. Conversely, approving and implementing recommendations does not necessarily indicate that the suggestions were significant and worthwhile. (Of course, what constitutes a “good” or “bad” recommendation is perhaps in and of itself so value laden as to be beyond the ken of fair historical assessment.) So scoring whether recommendations were enacted by government bodies has distinct drawbacks. After all, governmental decision-making is not a sequential or even rational process. When decisions are made, it may be many years (even decades) after some original studies were released. Sometimes related developments can occur along parallel paths, not necessarily formally interacting with each other. Similarly, policymaking is a group process; final decisions comprise strands originating from many sources. It is usually impossible to credit the contribution of one particular organization or person.

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Nonetheless, in some cases, it is possible to track policy recommendations to their final disposition. Those instances make the scoring of the agency’s effectiveness relatively straightforward. In many cases, newspaper coverage or reports in the journals of the good government movement are informative about policy determinations that were significant locally or nationally. Therefore, this evaluation will identify the impact and possible real-world outcomes that occurred as a result of recommendations made in a bureau’s report. This provides a substantive evaluation. The availability of such information varies by locality, circumstance, and decade. Still, for each of the four agencies studied in depth, an effort will be made to accomplish a substantive review and assessment. However, sometimes a substantive approach can be inadequate or at least incomplete. As British scholar William Robson noted in 1927, a bureau “is not to be judged merely by results produced up to date.”34 In general, the good government movement believed the public sector would be improved if efficiency bureaus and municipal research bureaus contributed rationality, disinterest, research-based information, and honesty to governmental decision-making. Therefore, a second evaluation criterion will assess whether the agency played an instrumental role in the public policy arena of the metropolitan area, as intended by the Progressive reformers. Did the bureau help set the agenda for reform, regardless of whether its recommendations were adopted or rejected? Was it relevant or irrelevant? Was it viewed as an important voice when issues proceeded through the city’s policymaking process? Did its recommendations carry significant or little weight in subsequent deliberations? So, for example, did decisionmakers refer to the bureau’s work often, or did its reports seem to sink into a political bottomless pit and disappear? In general, did the efficiency bureau have an identifiable role, even if its recommendations may not have been adopted? Developing and applying these two outcome criteria, regarding substance and role, permits an overall evaluation of each agency’s outcomes. The last section in each of the first four chapters is titled “Impact: Assessing the Bureau’s Work.”

Introduction

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WHAT DID “EFFICIENCY” MEAN FOR EFFICIENCY BUREAUS? In 1895, businessman Frederick Winslow Taylor presented a paper at a conference of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers suggesting that industrial production systems needed to focus singlemindedly on the efficiency of the process, in this case the piece rate work of labor. In a compilation of his writings, he later wrote that his first goal was to point out “the great loss which the whole country is suffering through inefficiency in almost all of our daily acts.”35 From that modest beginning emerged what was called “scientific management,”36 a mind set that defined efficiency as a supreme and value-free goal with the search for efficiency expected to yield scientific principles of the one best way of doing just about anything.37 Taylor’s impact was global.38 For example, in Great Britain, some leaders talked of creating a party that would be called the National Efficiency Party.39 Taylor’s ideas continue to be prominent today.40 His thinking, writes Robert Kanigel, “so permeates the soil of modern life we no longer realize it’s there… Taylor’s credo of national efficiency has burned its way into the modern mind.”41 In 1887, Woodrow Wilson was a prominent political scientist. That year he published an essay that was essentially the founding document of American public administration. Wilson presaged Taylor’s focus on efficiency by stating in his essay’s opening paragraph that the goal of the new profession was to discover “how it can do these proper things with the utmost possible efficiency and at the least possible cost of either money or of energy.”42 That statement set the tone for governmental reform during the Progressive Era.43 In 1998, Jos Raadschelders, a historian of public administration, observed that “efficiency dominated in the pursuit to modernize existing services according to principles of scientific management.”44 Efficiency was an exclusive criterion for all managerial decision-making and organizational operations, especially because it was viewed as a universal and value-free yardstick. So, during the Progressive Era, when citizens and elected officials alike judged how well this new breed of civil servants implemented politicians’ decisions, the measure they used was how efficiently enacted policies had been executed. Urban reformers turned to efficiency as the key to accomplishing their goals. Writing in 2006, Professor Peter Charles Hoffer observed

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that “[f ]aced with urban decay and dissolution, Progressives demanded improvements rooted in efficient management” of government.45 In particular, the phenomenon of establishing efficiency bureaus reflected this shared goal of making government more efficient. As defined by their titles, municipal research bureaus engaged in various forms of research to improve government. But with “efficiency” in their titles, bureaus of efficiency had the pursuit of efficiency as their raison d’étre. Yet for all the broad endorsement of accomplishing efficiency in government, what exactly did the good government reformers of the Progressive Era mean by that term? The precise meaning varied from reformer to reformer.46 Samuel Haber wrote a history of scientific management in the Progressive Era. He suggested a typology of four approaches to efficiency used in that period: mechanical, commercial, personal, and social.47 In a mechanical appraisal, efficiency related to output-input ratios wherein reformers viewed government as a vast machine that needed to be made more efficient. Commercial efficiency was calculated based on the difference between price and cost; here reformers said that if government were run more like a business it would be more efficient.48 Personal efficiency related to hard work, thrift, and will power, which resonated with reformers interested in measuring the efficiency of civil servants through what they called efficiency ratings. Finally, Haber’s typology identified social efficiency, which related to improving the efficiency of society by reducing disparities, injustices, and immorality. For social activists supporting government reform, efficiency meant using the power of government to help citizens in need of employment, housing, hygienic conditions, or education. In other words, efficiency could mean just about anything to anybody. Without specifying which of these four categories of efficiency they meant, writers and reformers of the era talked confidently about promoting efficient citizenship, efficient democracy, hospital efficiency, efficient civic leadership, the ultimate efficient state, legislative efficiency, public health efficiency, and educational efficiency.49 Yet they avoided ever clearly defining what they intended. As a result, bureaus of efficiency could pursue varying, even conflicting, definitions of efficiency as reflected in Haber’s typology. For example, a Hull House activist criticized some Chicago reformers because he thought their vision of government efficiency resulted in “glorified bookkeeping, or the saving of trivial sums by honest but unimaginative and unpro-

Introduction

25

gressive officials.”50 On the other hand, conservatives worried that some reformers were expanding the definition of efficiency to justify an interventionist “big government” that meddled in the free market economy. At a Jackson Day speech in Washington in 1932, John W. Davis (the Democratic Party’s nominee for president in 1924) criticized this trend toward activist government and identified efficiency bureaus as part of the Progressive movement. He said, “Governments were not created to serve as efficiency bureaus, market guides, or holders of everybody’s bag.”51 It would seem, then, that just about any activity a BOE engaged in could be defined as within its mission of pursuing efficiency. Given the vagueness of this term, the following pages will examine what efficiency meant based on the concrete actions of efficiency bureaus. This could then create an operational and retrospective definition of efficiency based on the track records of efficiency bureaus during the Progressive Era. What did these bureaus do to promote efficiency in government? Such an approach should yield a more tangible meaning to the term efficiency.

NONPROFIT VERSUS GOVERNMENTAL EFFICIENCY BUREAUS As noted earlier, the nonprofit status of municipal research bureaus was a central tenet of good government reformers, especially based on the very influential model of the New York Bureau of Municipal Research. Yet when confronted with the existence of reform bureaus in the public sector (mostly called efficiency bureaus), reformers dismissed the difference in sectoral affiliation as unimportant.52 This was evident when a public administration professor wrote in 1933 about the role of the U.S. Bureau of Efficiency in relation to Congressional efforts to reform the municipal government of the District of Columbia. Trying to explain to the readers what the federal Bureau of Efficiency actually did vis-à-vis the city’s government, Leonard White wrote that it “acts in the capacity of a bureau of municipal research for the District of Columbia.”53 He was blithely traversing sectoral boundaries to explain the workings of a public sector organization by equating it to the work of a nonprofit one, suggesting that sectoral affiliation was irrelevant. Or even more importantly, he implied that a government agency would be best understood by viewing it as

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though it were a nonprofit organization. The unstated implication was that if a public sector agency wanted to be effective in pursuing municipal reform, then it needed to act like a nonprofit one. A 1922 letter to the editor in the New York Times reflected the same attitude. The Times had published an editorial critical of the federal Bureau of Efficiency.54 A senior staffer at the Detroit research bureau wrote a letter to the editor defending the U.S. Bureau of Efficiency, depicting it as merely a public sector cousin of nonprofit research bureaus that existed in most major U.S. cities.55 According to C. E. Rightor, “[i]n about forty large cities throughout the United States there are bureaus of municipal research functioning every day in the same manner that the Bureau of Efficiency does, and certain interesting conditions apply alike to both the Federal and the local bureaus.”56 To the letter writer, the sectoral affiliation of a bureau that promoted good government was irrelevant, whether relating to the public sector U.S. Bureau of Efficiency or a nonprofit local agency. These comments about the sectoral affiliation of good government organizations raise a secondary and interesting difference between municipal research bureaus and efficiency bureaus. While the former were almost always nonprofit organizations, efficiency bureaus straddled both sides of the line between the public and nonprofit sectors.57 Some local bureaus of efficiency were units within municipal government whereas others were nonprofit organizations. As noted earlier, of the four bureaus of efficiency that are at the heart of this case study, two were governmental and two were nonprofit. The bi-sectoral identity of local bureaus of efficiency appears to be an unusual phenomenon, little noted up to now. Here was an organizational entity that could seemingly exist on either side of the boundary between government and the nonprofit sector, and still have the same organizational goals and work processes. This phenomenon challenges the premise that public administration and nonprofit management are different. For example, most American institutions of higher education have different departments or schools for public administration and nonprofit management training (and, for that matter, business administration). The assumption of this organizational approach in universities is that the differences between the sectors (and their management) are greater than their similarities. The bi-sectoral identity of bureaus of efficiency challenges assumptions about the alleged distinctiveness of these sectors, at least for this

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particular time, place, and purpose. How is it possible that the same organization could seemingly exist in two different sectors? This focus on nonprofit versus government efficiency bureaus also raises a terminological issue. The commonly used twenty-first century nomenclature of “nonprofit” (used as an adjective and a noun) did not exist in the Progressive Era. Harvard’s Peter Dobkin Hall describes nonprofit sector as a neologism “invented” between 1950 and 1980.58 He did not mean nonprofits as entities were new; in fact, they preceded the creation of the United States.59 Rather, the perception gradually coalesced that nonprofit organizations constituted a discernible sector different from public and for-profit sectors. At the time of the events covered in this narrative, the commonly used term to describe such organizations was “private.”60 However, the problem with that term is that it confuses the notion of for-profit corporations (owned by stockholders) with non-stock, not-for-profit corporations (“owned” by no one).61 The lack of uniform and widely accepted nomenclature is exhibited by the range of terms used in the first half of the twentieth century to describe the nonprofit status of research and efficiency bureaus. This includes the following: • privately financed, privately-sustained, private association, private auspices, private organization, private agency, and privately-supported62 • citizens’ bureau, citizen agency, citizen organization, citizen-supported agencies, and citizen-sponsored63 • unofficial organization, unofficial civic agency, unofficial bureau, and unofficial agency64 • independent non-political body, independent unofficial bureau, and independent agency65 • corporation not for profit, non-profit making agency, and corporation not for pecuniary profit66 • voluntary association, voluntary agency, and voluntary organization67 • local civic reform agency68 • direct citizen agencies69 • investigative bureau70 • not connected with business or charitable institutions71 • quasi-public agencies72 • non-governmental73 • external agency74

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There was simply no uniform or universal terminology.75 The lack of a universal term was sometimes used by opponents of these bureaus to raise suspicions and make insinuations that would create doubts about them. Chicago Mayor William Hale Thompson sneeringly challenged the legitimacy and disinterestedness of the Chicago Bureau of Public Efficiency by describing it as a “self-constituted association.”76 On another occasion, he said: “What is this bureau? Is it a corporation? Does any one know? Is it a voluntary association? If so, who are the associates? Does any one know?”77 Imposing nomenclature retrospectively can have misleading effects, as exemplified by the mock headline “World War I breaks out.” However, such vocabulary provides clarity and simplifies the contrast with public sector bureaus of efficiency. Therefore, for consistency’s sake and to avoid any confusion, the term nonprofit will be used throughout this inquiry when referencing bureaus of efficiency that were not governmental agencies.

AUDIENCES FOR THE BOOK This inquiry should be of interest to audiences in history, urban affairs, public administration, political science, nonprofit studies, organization theory, and management history. As a case study of America during the Progressive Era, it seeks to contribute to American history, specifically urban history. Several social science disciplines may also find this inquiry relevant. Public administration (sometimes called public affairs) has recently experienced a renewed interest in historiography, especially historical research about the Progressive Era, a time period when the discipline was founded.78 At that moment, public administration had a particular focus on city government, paralleling the interests of good government reformers of the Progressive Era.79 Political scientists may also find utility in the book, if they specialize in urban politics, political history, or the emerging sub-field of American political development.80 Nonprofit studies is a fairly new professional discipline in the academy. Increasingly, American institutions of higher education are offering programs and degrees in what is variously called philanthropy, civil society, voluntary action, the third sector, or nonprofit management. (Outside the United States, another common term is non-govern-

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mental organization [NGO].) The history of the American nonprofit sector has been one focal point for this growing field.81 Finally, this book is relevant to the fields of organization theory and management, both of which are developing a body of knowledge that is supra- or tri-sectoral.82 Believing that government, business, and the nonprofit sector have more commonalities than dissimilarities, these scholars research the organization and management of all such entities, irrespective of sector. Therefore, this study can be useful to the fields of management and organization theory because it examines the operation of organizations dedicated to improving the management of municipal departments and because some of these reform organizations were nonprofit and some were governmental. Management theorists are increasingly interested in history. For example, the Academy of Management has a section on management history and the journal Management and Organizational History is dedicated to this subfield.83 A particular indicator of the resurgence of interest in management history was the re-launch in 2006 of the refereed Journal of Management History as a stand-alone publication after five years of its being subsumed within a general management journal.84 According to the journal’s homepage, the publisher’s decision to revive it was “due to the increasing popularity” of the subject.85

PLAN OF THE BOOK The next four chapters present histories of each of the four governmental and nonprofit efficiency bureaus that existed in Milwaukee and Chicago at the beginning of the twentieth century. These chapters provide baseline information unavailable until now. Each chapter includes a history of one BOE from birth to death, a description of its reports and studies, and an analysis of its work products. Then, based on three issues identified above, each BOE is analyzed (1) to identify the degree of impact it had, (2) to discern what its definition of efficiency was, and (3) to explore the importance of its sectoral affiliation. Following the histories of public and nonprofit efficiency bureaus in Milwaukee and Chicago, the fifth chapter provides brief summaries of other bureaus of efficiency existing in the Progressive Era or shortly thereafter. These summaries help document how widespread

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the phenomenon of such bureaus was and provide a larger context for this inquiry into urban bureaus of efficiency. They also add texture to the meaning that the term bureau of efficiency grew to have: the diversity, missions, sectoral affiliations, and activities of other efficiency bureaus in the first part of the twentieth century. For example, public sector efficiency bureaus existed in other city governments besides Chicago and Milwaukee, as well as in county government, public school districts, and the federal government. Similarly, there were nonprofit sector bureaus dedicated to promoting government efficiency like the ones in Milwaukee and Chicago. There were also private efficiency bureaus, some in business associations and some in private corporations, equally dedicated to enhancing efficiency in that particular industrial sector. Finally, there were private and nonprofit bureaus of efficiency with little or no commitment to promoting operational efficiency, whether in government or business. This chapter provides a broader perspective on the efficiency bureau phenomenon of the Progressive Era and beyond. The final chapter summarizes briefly the role that bureaus of efficiency in government reform had during the Progressive Era. Then, as discussed earlier in this introduction, it provides a summary of and conclusions about the impact these efficiency bureaus, what efficiency meant to them and whether their sectoral affiliation was important. The chapter ends with observations about whether the tale recounted here has any relevance to contemporary times.

notes 1 Lewis Gould, America in the Progressive Era, 1890-1914 (Harlow, UK: Longman/Pearson Education, 2001), 81. 2 John Milton Cooper Jr., Pivotal Decades: The United States, 1900-1920 (New York: W. W. Norton, 1990), xiii. 3 Arthur A. Ekirch Jr., Progressivism in America: A Study of the Era from Theodore Roosevelt to Woodrow Wilson (New York: New Viewpoints, 1974). 4 Edward A. Stettner, Shaping Modern Liberalism: Herbert Croly and Progressive Thought (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1993), 4. 5 Quoted in Eldon J. Eisenach, The Lost Promise of Progressivism (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1994), 88. 6 Michael McGerr, A Fierce Discontent: The Rise and Fall of the Progressive Movement in America, 1870-1920 (New York: Free Press, 2003), 42.

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7 Mark Feldstein, “A Muckraking Model: Investigative Reporting Cycles in American History,” Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics 11:2 (Spring 2006), 105-20. Theodore Roosevelt, himself something of a reformer, coined the word and intended it pejoratively. The term stuck, but sans the negative connotation. 8 Katherine H. Adams, Progressive Politics and the Training of America’s Persuaders (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1999); Larry Tye, The Father of Spin: Edward L. Bernays & the Birth of Public Relations (New York: Crown, 1998); Kevin Stoker and Brad L. Rawlins, “The ‘Light’ of Publicity in the Progressive Era: From Searchlight to Flashlight,” Journalism History 30:4 (Winter 2005), 177-88; Gerald J. Baldasty, E. W. Scripps and the Business of Newspapers (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1999); Eric F. Goldman, “Public Relations and the Progressive Surge: 18981917,” Public Relations Review 4:3 (Fall 1978), 52-62. 9 H. W. Brands, The Reckless Decade: America in the 1890s (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995), 341. 10 Dwight Waldo, The Administrative State: A Study of the Political Theory of American Public Administration (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 2007 [1948]), Ch. 10; Martin J. Schiesl, The Politics of Efficiency: Municipal Administration and Reform in America, 1800-1920 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977); Samuel Haber, Efficiency and Uplift: Scientific Management in the Progressive Era, 1890-1920 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1973 [1964]); Raymond E. Callahan, Education and the Cult of Efficiency: A Study of the Social Forces That Have Shaped the Administration of the Public Schools (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962); Dennis J. Mahoney, Politics and Progress: The Emergence of American Political Science (Lanham, MD: Lexington, 2004). 11 Eisenach, 18. 12 Stephen Skowronek, Building a New American State: The Expansion of National Administrative Capacities, 1877-1920 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1982); Daniel P. Carpenter, The Forging of Bureaucratic Autonomy: Reputations, Networks, and Policy Innovation in Executive Agencies, 1862-1928 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001); Richard J. Stillman II, Creating the American State: The Moral Reformers and the Modern Administrative World They Made (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1998). Skowronek’s research perspective helped spawn a new interdisciplinary field of American Political Development. 13 Brian J. Cook, Democracy and Administration: Woodrow Wilson’s Ideas and the Challenges of Public Management (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Uni-

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versity Press, 2007); Ronald J. Pestritto, Woodrow Wilson and the Roots of Modern Liberalism (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005). 14 Matthew A. Crenson and Benjamin Ginsberg, “Citizens into Customers: How America Downsized Citizenship and Privatized Its Public,” Thomas H. Stanton and Benjamin Ginsberg, editors, Making Government Manageable: Executive Organization and Management in the TwentyFirst Century (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004), 15. 15 Joan C. Tonn, Mary P. Follett: Creating Democracy, Transforming Management (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2003), 133. When some of these reformers gave up on education as a strategy, they shifted to advocating restrictions on immigration (Tonn, 127). 16 Ernest S. Griffith, A History of American City Government: The Progressive Years and Their Aftermath, 1900-1920 (Washington, DC: University Press of America for the National Municipal League, 1983); Erik Larson, Isaac’s Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History (New York: Crown, 1999), 265-66; Bernard Hirschhorn, Democracy Reformed: Richard Spencer Childs and His Fight for Better Government (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1997); Jon A. Peterson, The Birth of City Planning in the United States, 1840-1917 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003); Jonathan Kahn, Budgeting Democracy: State Building and Citizenship in America, 1890-1928 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1997). 17 Whether the politics-administration dichotomy is truly operational is a separate question. The contemporary consensus answers the question with a resolute no. But trends come and go. 18 Ron Chernow, Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. (New York: Random House, 1998), 551. 19 Griffith, Ch. 11; Mahoney, Ch. 9; Pestritto, Ch. 7; Skowronek, Ch. 6. 20 During the Progressive Era, the research bureau approach was not limited to public administration reform efforts. For example, a similar effort was tried in the emerging profession of city planning (Peterson, 283). 21 Anthony M. Bertelli and Laurence E. Lynn Jr., Madison’s Managers: Public Administration and the Constitution (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006), 21. 22 Stillman, Creating the American State, 114. 23 Melvin G. Holli, “Urban Reform in the Progressive Era,” Lewis L. Gould, editor, The Progressive Era (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1974), 145.

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24 The Chicago Bureau of Municipal Efficiency; June, 1910, 8, Folder 5, CBPE Minutes 1910-13, Box 1, Civic Federation Papers, CHS. 25 Lorin Peterson, Day of the Mugwump (New York: Random House, 1961); Norman N. Gill, Municipal Research Bureaus: A Study of the Nation’s Leading Citizen-Supported Agencies (Washington, DC: American Council on Public Affairs, 1944); Schiesl, Ch. 6; Daniel W. Williams, “Measuring Government in the Early Twentieth Century,” Public Administration Review 63:6 (November/December 2003), 643-59; Camilla Stivers, Bureau Men, Settlement Women: Constructing Public Administration in the Progressive Era (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2000), Ch. 2; Kahn, Ch. 2; Hindy Lauer Schachter, Reinventing Government or Reinventing Ourselves: The Role of Citizen Owners in Making a Better Government (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997), Ch. 2; Hindy Lauer Schachter, “When Political Science Championed Public Service Training: The American Political Science Association Campaign for Professional Public Administration,” American Review of Public Administration 37:3 (2007), 362-75; Hindy Lauer Schachter, “Scientific Management and Social Responsibility: Evidence from the Role of Women in the New York Bureau of Municipal Research,” Journal of Management History 6:6 (2000), 272-82; Laurence J. O’Toole Jr., “Harry F. Byrd, Sr. and the New York Bureau of Municipal Research: Lessons from an Ironic Alliance,” Public Administration Review 46:2 (March/April 1986), 11323; Jane S. Dahlberg, The New York Bureau of Municipal Research: Pioneer in Government Administration (New York: New York University Press, 1966); Stillman, Creating the American State, 111-14; Haber, 111-13; Kenneth Finegold, Experts and Politicians: Reform Challenges to Machine Politics in New York, Cleveland, and Chicago (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995); Hindy Lauer Schachter, “Philadelphia’s Progressive-Era Bureau of Municipal Research,” Administrative Theory & Praxis 24:3 (September 2002), 555-70. 26 Larkin Sims Dudley, “Enduring Narratives from Progressivism,” International Journal of Organization Theory and Behavior 7:3 (Fall 2004), 315-40, 328. 27 Raymond Moley, “Behind the Graft in Our Cities,” New York Times Sunday Magazine (April 10, 1932), 18. In 1933, Moley was one of the original members of Franklin Roosevelt’s Brain Trust, but he eventually broke with FDR after the first term and became a conservative critic. 28 “Young Men Fitted for Public Office,” Boston Globe, February 16, 1913, 41.

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29 Finegold, Ch. 11; Schiesl, 123-26. 30 Mordecai Lee, “When Government Used Publicity Against Itself: Toledo’s Commission of Publicity and Efficiency, 1916-75,” Public Relations Review 31:1 (March 2005), 55-61; Robert Paige, “Official Agencies for Governmental Research,” Governmental Research Notes 1:4 (April 1939), 3. 31 The BOE acronym was not used at that time. For example, the U.S. Bureau of Efficiency was never referred to as BOE, in a way that would have paralleled the commonly used abbreviation BOB for the Bureau of the Budget. For purposes of brevity and to avoid repetition, this author used the BOE acronym in his volume on the U.S. Bureau of Efficiency. Mordecai Lee, Institutionalizing Congress and the Presidency: The U.S. Bureau of Efficiency, 1916-1933 (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2006). 32 Admittedly, the inclusion of the Efficiency Division (rather than bureau) of Chicago’s CSC goes against the scope of this study. One justification for the slight exception is that the entity was commonly and broadly referred to as the efficiency bureau. This occurred sometimes in official documents and frequently in major daily newspapers. Similarly, the Division was referred to as a BOE in the national publications of the reform movement and by some academic researchers. Another rationale for this minor deviation was the benefit of the symmetry of studying two pairs of efficiency bureaus that existed in the same city in the same decade, one in the public sector and the other in the nonprofit sector. The advantage of having such symmetry seemed to outweigh this modest variance in the scope of the historical study. 33 William A. Robson, “Municipal Research Work in America,” Economica 21 (December 1927), 359. 34 Ibid., emphasis added. 35 Frederick Winslow Taylor, The Principles of Scientific Management (Norcross, GA: Engineering & Management Press, 1998 [1911]), 7. 36 For a concise contemporary summary of scientific management, see Tonn, 394-97. 37 Daniel Nelson, Frederick W. Taylor and the Rise of Scientific Management (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1980); Stillman, Creating the American State, Ch. 6. 38 Robert Kanigel, The One Best Way: Frederick Winslow Taylor and the Enigma of Efficiency (New York: Viking, 1997).

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39 Bernard Semmel, Imperialism and Social Reform: English Social-Imperial Thought, 1895-1914 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1960), 72-82. 40 Stephenie C. Payne, Satoris S. Youngcourt and Kristen M. Watrous, “Portrayals of F. W. Taylor Across Textbooks,” Journal of Management History 12:4 (2006), 385-407. 41 Kanigel, 7, 10. 42 Woodrow Wilson, “The Study of Administration,” Political Science Quarterly 2:2 (June 1887), 197. The landmark status of this article was demonstrated when it was republished by the same journal in 1941 and by subsequent articles analyzing his original piece. Richard J. Stillman II, “Woodrow Wilson and the Study of Administration: A New Look at an Old Essay,” American Political Science Review 67:2 (June 1973), 582-88; Marshall E. Dimock, “The Study of Administration,” American Political Science Review 31:1 (February 1937), 28-40. Oddly, as president, Wilson exhibited little interest in management and public administration reform. Lee, Institutionalizing Congress and the Presidency, 42. 43 Callahan; Peterson, 267; Kanigel, 489; Stettner, 59. 44 Jos C. N. Raadschelders, Handbook of Administrative History (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 1998), 147. 45 Peter Charles Hoffer, Seven Fires: The Urban Infernos that Reshaped America (New York: Public Affairs, 2006), 187. 46 Schiesl; Haber, Ch. 6. 47 Haber, 11-12, 57-60. 48 Leonard D. White, The Republican Era: 1869-1901; A Study in Administrative History [Vol. 4] (New York: Macmillan, 1958), 387-88. 49 Henry Bruère, “Efficiency in City Government,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 41 (May 1912), 19; William H. Allen, Efficient Democracy (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1912), Ch. 6, 270, 274; James W. Garner, “Executive Participation in Legislation as a Means of Increasing Legislative Efficiency,” Proceedings of the American Political Science Association 10 (1913), 176-90; Rufus E. Miles, “The Relation of Health Budgets to Health Efficiency,” Public Health Papers and Reports 33:Part I (1908), 204-08; Callahan. 50 Victor S. Yarros, “Chicago’s Politics – Present and Future,” National Municipal Review 10:9 (September 1921), 468. 51 “John W. Davis Calls for the Ending of Privilege Set Up Through the Levying of Taxes,” New York Times, January 9, 1932, 11.

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52 Throughout this study, the adjective sectoral will be used, since it reflects common and modern-day usage. However, most dictionaries list sectorial as the preferred form. Even though it is more correct etymologically, it probably looks wrong to readers. Certainly, usage patterns strongly reflect a preference for sectoral over sectorial. The database “America: History and Life,” for example, lists 44 entries with sectoral in the title, while only one using sectorial. In ProQuest, there were 411 peer-reviewed articles with sectoral in the title and only 10 using sectorial. Similar lopsided results occurred when searching EBSCOhost, CSA and WilsonWeb. Yielding to this modernism, sectoral is be used here. 53 Leonard D. White, Trends in Public Administration (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1933), 322. 54 “Inefficient Efficiency” (editorial), New York Times, August 7, 1922, 10. 55 For a review of the work of the U.S. Bureau of Efficiency, see Lee, Institutionalizing Congress and the Presidency. 56 C. E. Rightor, “Bureau of Efficiency” (letter to the editor), New York Times, August 27, 1922, 90, emphasis added. 57 The only exceptions to the generalization that municipal research bureaus were always nonprofit that this researcher has found were bureaus of municipal research in the city governments of Boston (circa 1909-10) and Milwaukee (1912-17). 58 Peter Dobkin Hall, “Inventing the Nonprofit Sector,” Peter Dobkin Hall, editor, Inventing the Nonprofit Sector and Other Essays on Philanthropy, Voluntarism, and Nonprofit Organizations (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992), 13-83. 59 Kathleen D. McCarthy, American Creed: Philanthropy and the Rise of Civil Society, 1700-1865 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003), Ch. 1. 60 Edward M. Sait, “Research and Reference Bureaus,” National Municipal Review 2:1 (January 1913), 50. 61 A board of directors only oversees the operations of a nonprofit agency. There are no stockholders who own the corporation, profits cannot be distributed to any individuals (even members of the organization), and, if the nonprofit were to dissolve, its remaining assets cannot be given to any individuals. Mutual corporations and cooperatives are different from nonstock nonprofit corporations. 62 John E. Treleven, “The Milwaukee Bureau of Economy and Efficiency,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 41 (May

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1912), 278; Myrtile Cerf, “Bureaus of Public Efficiency: A Study of the Purpose and Methods of Organization,” National Municipal Review 2:1 (January 1913), 42; Sait, 50; Charles Austin Beard, American City Government: A Survey of Newer Tendencies (New York: Arno Press, 1970 [1912]), 78; Clinton Rogers Woodruff, “Municipal Research Effects Set Forth,” Christian Science Monitor (July 31, 1914), 5; Gustavus A. Weber, Organized Efforts for the Improvement of Methods of Administration in the United States (New York: D. Appleton, 1919), 22; David B. Truman, “The Educational Functions of the Municipal Research Bureaus,” (unpublished Master’s thesis, University of Chicago, 1936), 14; Gill, 171-72. Haber used a more cumbersome, but related, term. He wrote that these municipal research bureaus “lived off subscriptions of private benefactors” (Haber, 147). 63 New York Bureau of Municipal Research, A Report on a Preliminary Survey of Certain Departments of the City of Milwaukee (Milwaukee, WI: Committee of Citizens, 1913), 128; n.a., “Introduction; Citizen Agencies for Research in Government,” Municipal Research 77 (September 1916), iii; R. Fulton Cutting, compiler, The Credentials of Governmental Research (New York: Governmental Research Association, 1928), 2; William E. Mosher, “Reflections on Governmental Research,” National Municipal Review 28:10 (October 1939), 725-27; Alice B. Stone and Donald C. Stone, “Early Development of Education in Public Administration,” Frederick C. Mosher, editor, American Public Administration: Past, Present, Future (University, AL: University of Alabama Press, 1975), 21. 64 Clinton Rogers Woodruff, “Municipal Review 1909-1910,” American Journal of Sociology 16:4 (January 1911), 510; “Row Over Revision of Salaries; Experts Get a Little Peeved,” Milwaukee [WI] Daily News, October 25, 1916; Draft of form letter for potential funders, n.d. (probably 1920), Box 199, CGRB History file, Public Policy Forum (hereafter PPF); Truman, 14; Paige, 1. 65 “Women Tonight Begin Long Watch on Councilmen,” Chicago Tribune, July 21, 1913, 1; n.a., “A National Program to Improve Methods of Government,” Municipal Research 71 (March 1916), 22; Gill, 158. 66 Rufus E. Miles, “The Ohio Institute for Public Efficiency,” Municipal Research 77 (September 1916), 66 (apparently a legal term used in Ohio state law); Citizens’ Bureau of Milwaukee, 1924 Annual Report (Milwaukee, WI: Citizens’ Bureau of Milwaukee, 1925), 1; Minutes of Trustees’ Meeting, June 17, 1932, 2, Folder 10, CBPE Minutes 1928-32, Box 1,

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Civic Federation Papers, Chicago Historical Society (hereafter CHS) (apparently a legal term used in Illinois state law). 67 “Voters’ League Reports Council in Partisan Grip,” Chicago Tribune, January 28, 1914, 4; Griffith, 101; Stone and Stone, 21. 68 Robson, 357. 69 Robert T. Crane, “Research Agencies and Equipment: Bureaus of Political Research,” American Political Science Review 17:2 (May 1923), 296. 70 Weber, 22. 71 Austin F. Macdonald, American City Government and Administration (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1929), 353. 72 Gill, 164. 73 Bayrd Still, Milwaukee: The History of a City (Madison: State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1948), 537. 74 Truman, 3. 75 Conversely, writing in the early 1960s, Haber struggled with nomenclature to describe the difference between a nonprofit BOE and one that was in the public sector. He settled for “government-owned” (Haber, 147). This is also an awkward term since the Milwaukee BOE he was referencing was simply part of municipal government. His term was more suggestive of a legally separate and distinct public sector entity existing outside the municipal corporation. For example, on the federal level, there are entities such as the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (created in 1967) that are formally categorized as “government-owned” corporations. This is a very different kind of entity than a public sector BOE. 76 William Hale Thompson, “Mayor Urges Voters to Back Bigger Force,” Chicago Tribune, September 8, 1919, 18. 77 “Some of Mayor’s Remarks on Bureau of Efficiency” (“Hot Shots” column), Chicago Tribune, July 18, 1918, 13. 78 Hindy Lauer Schachter, Frederick Taylor and the Public Administration Community: A Reevaluation. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989; Hindy Lauer Schachter, editor, “Symposium: The Importance of the Progressive Era in Public Administration Today,” Administrative Theory & Praxis 24:3 (September 2002), 437-570; Dudley; Pamela A. Gibson and Gregory B. Stolcis, “Reenacting, Retracing, and Rediscovering History: Making a Connection in the Public Administration Curriculum,” Journal of Public Affairs Education 12:1 (Winter 2006), 80; Stivers. 79 Bertelli and Lynn, 19, 22.

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80 The American Political Science Association has a Section on Politics and History and another on Urban Politics. “APSA Organized Sections,” retrieved June 21, 2007: http://www.apsanet.org/section_300.cfm. American political development was referenced in the Skowronek endnote earlier in this chapter. 81 David C. Hammack, editor, Making the Nonprofit Sector in the United States: A Reader (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998); McCarthy; Dwight F. Burlingame, editor, Philanthropy in America: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2004). 82 Mintzberg has argued that cooperatives are a fourth and distinct form of organization, qualitatively different in ownership than private, public and nonprofit entities. Henry Mintzberg, “Managing Government[,] Governing Management,” Harvard Business Review 74:3 (May-June 1996), 76. 83 Management History Division of the Academy of Management, retrieved June 20, 2007: https://www.baker.edu/departments/leadership/ mgthistory/index.html; “Aims and Scope,” Management & Organizational History homepage, retrieved June 18, 2007: http://www.sagepub. com/journalsProdAims.nav?prodId=Journal201714. 84 David Lamond, “Management and its history: the worthy endeavor of the scribe” (editorial), Journal of Management History 12:1 (2006), 5-11. 85 “News and Information,” Journal of Management History homepage, retrieved June 22, 2007: http://www.emeraldinsight.com/info/journals/ jmh/jmh.jsp.

I THE CITY OF MILWAUKEE’S BUREAU OF ECONOMY AND EFFICIENCY, 1910-1912

I

n many respects, Milwaukee’s history in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries paralleled national trends. Political machines often controlled municipal governments and were primarily interested in forms of governance that perpetuated their power. This led to patronage and no-show jobs, diversion of contracts to friendly corporations offering kickbacks, and symbiotic relationships with organized crime. The mayoralties of David Rose (1898-1906 and 1908-1910) and Sherburn M. Becker (1906-1908) were particularly corrupt, tolerant of open gambling, prostitution, and other forms of vice. In response, as part of the larger Progressive movement, “good government” reformers sought to clean up city governments with such standard reforms as a civil service system, competitive bidding, annual budgets, and reorganization of government structure. For example, in late 1908, a broad group of civic leaders coalesced to create the Milwaukee City Club, a forum to identify, debate, and push for reform of government. Its founding members included the “usual suspects” of Republican-leaning captains of industry, but also religious leaders from outside the mainline Protestant establishment (such as a rabbi), a former Populist Party candidate for mayor, and Socialist Victor Berger.1

HISTORICAL CONTEXT The most unusual twist in the historical pattern in Milwaukee was that the Socialist Party gradually became the fulcrum for implementing reform in city government. In part, this was largely the result of circumstances. At the same time that the Socialist Party was growing and seeking to succeed electorally, no other organized vehicle existed for citizens to impose reforms on the municipality since the leaders of both the Republican and Democratic Party machines were tied to the corrupt practices of government. The first Socialists were elected to the city’s Common Council in 1904 and were very much the local voice of the national Progressive movement, urging reform in city

42

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government.2 Gradually, the Socialist Party in Milwaukee increasingly argued publicly that only by electing its candidates to municipal offices could corruption be eliminated in city hall. The focus on corruption was not pure political expediency. Rather, the ideology of American socialists was more than just Marxist in orientation. Instead, it recognized that a broad program of reform in American society must include clean and efficient government. For example, one of the slogans of Milwaukee Socialists was “the best government for the cheapest cost.” This approach, clearly, was in the best interests of workers. The crucial detail embedded in this slogan was how it differed from the (often unstated) slogan of “cheapest possible government” championed by Republican and business-leaning reformers.3 Socialist Mayor Emil Seidel also argued that city government needed to be put in order before any socialist reforms could be pursued. Using the analogy of the skilled trades, he said that a worker “first must put his tools in proper condition” before delving into a project.4 It is also important to emphasize that the support for accomplishing efficiency in government (as well as in other aspects of American society) was one that transcended the usual left-right political ideologies. The teachings of Frederick Winslow Taylor and the so-called scientific management movement were initially endorsed enthusiastically by the left and right alike.5 So implementing efficiency was a goal that had broad support, entirely consistent with socialist ideology as with more conservative ones. The 1910 campaign for Milwaukee’s mayor became the showdown between the status quo and the reformers/Socialists. The latter placed great emphasis on the need for honesty in government and the elimination of corruption. One issue their candidates focused on was the toleration by city government and the police department of prostitution. Reformers estimated that 1,000 women were employed as prostitutes in the city. This topic helped mobilize support among middle-class women for a Socialist victory, significantly enhancing the legitimacy of the party with the middle class and broadening its base to nontraditional constituencies.6 Even though women did not get the right to vote until 1920, by this time they were already emerging as a political force in the Progressive Era due to their civic activism. Their activities were not limited to the suffragist movement but also were involved in civically oriented projects. While the movement for creating bureaus of municipal research was largely male dominated,

1 1 Milwaukee’s Bureau of Economy & Efficiency

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women also agitated for civic reform through their involvement in the settlement house movement and other related projects.7

CREATION On April 5, 1910, Emil Seidel was elected Milwaukee’s first Socialist mayor.8 In his initial message to the newly elected Common Council (which had a large contingent of Socialists and other reformers, but not a majority) on April 19, 1910, he discussed the need for reform, including the creation of a bureau to spearhead the effort. In a section of his address titled “Sound Economics,” he said, “An expert should be called in to advise with you on this subject. The first object of this [new] bureau should be to make a municipal survey, to furnish accurate and adequate knowledge of social, industrial and economic conditions leading to specific and practicable plans for city betterment.”9 Quickly following up, a week later Socialist alderman Victor Berger10 introduced a resolution to fund a Bureau of Municipal Research.11 However, as redrafted by the Common Council’s Finance Committee, the proposal’s focus was shifted to providing $5,000 for the Finance Committee to oversee an investigation leading to “recommendations for rendering more efficient and economical the administration of the city.”12 The resolution was approved in mid-June. Berger then approached University of Wisconsin (Madison) economics professor John R. Commons to ask if he would lead the project.13 By 1911, Commons was famous for his commitment to reformulating the study of economics away from the orthodoxy that supported an unfettered pro-business economic system and opposed any governmental role in macroeconomics (such as dealing with recessions) or in regulating businesses. He was especially interested in labor economics and labor history, fields he and his mentor, Richard T. Ely (also then a professor at the University of Wisconsin), practically invented. Commons was often attacked and criticized by conservatives for academic writings that showed sympathy to the interests of workers. Parallel to his pioneering academic work, Commons also was a trailblazer in his commitment to breaking out of the abstract and theoretical role preferred by most academics and instead acted to translate his research into real-world change. He worked to convert

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his ideas into legislation, often serving as an advisor to reform-oriented Wisconsin Governor Robert M. LaFollette Sr. during the first decade of the twentieth century. By the time Berger contacted him in mid-1911, Commons was already prominent as a pro-labor and reform-oriented academic. He was the perfect person for what Berger and Seidel had in mind. For Commons, “It was exactly the kind of project in which he delighted: attempting to solve a complicated, practical set of problems by mobilizing a large, knowledgeable team under his own direction.”14 According to Commons, the goal of the project as presented by Berger was “reorganizing it [the city government] on an efficiency basis.”15 He quickly prepared an outline of his “Plan for Municipal Survey,” enumerating eleven discrete topics for the survey. Ten subjects related to broad social conditions, which fit in Commons’s definition of efficiency. He viewed efficiency as a call for a productive society that protected the needs of the workers and their families, a condition that would subsequently lead to an efficient economy. Reformers viewed the focus of scientific management on efficiency as meaning more than mechanical, business, or personal efficiency. Rather, they grafted their values onto efficiency and recast it as “social efficiency.”16 This added morality and social justice to the Taylorist goals of an efficient economy, society, and nation. To Commons, the term efficiency was not synonymous with cutting spending. Rather, under some conditions, increased spending might be needed to avoid false economy and to attain social efficiency.17 Only one topic in his eleven-point proposal reflected the narrower business orientation to efficiency: he called for “a complete cost-keeping system for every municipal department.”18 However, even though he was very interested and eager to accept the offer to run such a bureau, Commons did not have the time to direct the effort on a day-to-day basis. As a full-time professor, he would have time on weekends and vacations to dedicate to the work, but could not make a commitment to Berger that would conflict with his teaching responsibilities. It took almost six months to find someone that Commons trusted to take charge of the project. Eventually, Commons heard that former student Dr. Benjamin M. Rastall, who was then with the University of Wisconsin-Extension, was willing to resign his position and move to Milwaukee to run the efficiency investigation under Commons’s direction and overall

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supervision.19 Thus, in late 1910, was born the Milwaukee Bureau of Economy and Efficiency (MBEE), with Commons as director and Rastall as associate director.20

ORGANIZATION AND OPERATIONS The Bureau’s offices were in City Hall.21 Its first annual budget for 1911 allocated $18,000 for operations, with Commons authorized to certify payroll payments.22 Even though he was the agency’s director, Commons was neither an employee of the city nor at the Bureau on a full-time basis. It only had few full-time permanent employees in the traditional sense. Besides Rastall, who directed its efficiency studies, the small staff included secretary John E. Treleven and accountant Percy H. Myers, who also functioned as editor of all Bureau publications. Finally, deputy city comptroller Leslie S. Everts was involved in so many projects that he was considered an assistant director of the Bureau, equal to Rastall. Commons divided the agency’s agenda into three broad areas. The first subject area entailed a comprehensive social and economic survey of the city. Originated in part by women activists in settlement houses, a social survey was akin to a modern-day audit, investigation, or study. It collected, often for the first time, comprehensive data about a subject, giving a factual view of the totality of the topic. Used both by social and municipal reformers, a survey was the first step in identifying concrete steps for change to correct the problems identified in the survey.23 From the reformers’ perspective, “the social survey is based on the theory that one measure of the efficiency of government is the extent to which it promotes the welfare of the citizens.”24 Clearly, this was a definition of efficiency far different from the meaning given it by scientific management and the business sector. Two Bureau officials described how a social survey could be applied: “In its social survey the bureau aimed to discover to what extent, for example, housing laws were enforced.”25 Commons was particularly interested in this project, given the gradual broadening of his perspective from labor issues to urban social issues. He wanted to replicate in Milwaukee the pioneering and comprehensive Pittsburgh Survey that had been conducted a few years earlier by Paul U. Kellogg.26 That project, used as a platform for social reformers, justified governmental efforts to rectify the living,

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working, and educational condition of the lower class. It embodied the concept of social efficiency. As would be expected, Pittsburgh’s business elite viewed the Kellogg survey as an attack on their world view and moved to squash efforts to implement the report’s recommendations. That conservative reaction to the survey meant that for “western Pennsylvania, the brief progressive era was nearing its end.”27 To avoid similar criticism of roving too far afield from the operations of city government, Commons’s social survey of Milwaukee was not paid for with city funds that had been allocated to the Bureau. Instead, it was funded through contributions from citizens, but mostly from in-kind services and staff from nonprofit social service organizations and (mostly non-city) government agencies that were interested in some specific social topics related to their mandates.28 However, even with that external support, Commons’s rather grandiose plan for the survey was too broad ranging to implement. Instead of a comprehensive social survey, Commons and the Bureau conducted “a series of social studies, each of which should be directly related to some problem of state or municipal administration or legislation, and each of which should result in definite constructive suggestions from the betterment of social conditions.”29 Second, the Bureau conducted an “efficiency survey” of municipal government.30 Like the social survey, this project was subdivided into discrete projects, largely organized around either a policy area or a city department. Each study focused on administrative and managerial issues, such as organization, operation, accounting, finance, and what were called “business methods.” These studies were staffed by teams, some of them generalists (like Commons’s graduate students), some city staffers with particular expertise in that subject, and some outside consultants from other municipal research bureaus, academe, and business. The third area of the Bureau’s work was the creation of a uniform cost-based accounting system for all city departments. This seemingly eye-glazing topic was actually part of the Socialists’ reform platform to regularize municipal budgeting and disbursements.31 The Common Council resolution creating the Bureau (which had been originally drafted by Berger with help from Socialist city attorney Daniel Hoan) was specific in describing the goal of establishing “a complete system of uniform accounts, vouchers and other forms that

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may be necessary…and shall show in detail, according to appropriate standard units of product or service, the cost per unit, based on standardized equipment, stores, contracts and specifications.”32 Staff from the city comptroller’s office were heavily involved in creating the new accounting system, especially deputy city comptroller Leslie Everts. According to William Bennett Munro, a leading political scientist at that time, the limited funding provided to the Bureau was “devoted exclusively” to this project. A year later, when reviewing this overall program and the initial reports being generated, Munro favorably described it as “virtually an administrative survey of Milwaukee.”33 Although the Bureau was organized by late 1910, there was an inevitable time lag to conduct and release its initial studies. During that time, there was some grumbling about the delay.34 Its first report was released in June 1911, a year after the Common Council had approved funding for it. Then it began issuing reports in rapid succession, with sixteen substantive reports issued between June 1911 and April 1912, about one every three weeks. Placated by these tangible demonstrations of Bureau’s work, the Common Council continued funding the agency beyond the original $5,000. For 1912, its budget increased to $15,000.35 In total, during its two-year existence, the Bureau received $38,000 and spent about $33,000.36 During 1911, the Bureau also reorganized its internal structure. By late 1911, the titles of senior managers had been changed: Commons, Rastall, and Everts were listed with the co-equal title of Director. During its existence, the Bureau’s network used three kinds of staffers. First, it hired “regular” employees who were akin to traditional civil servants who were full-time and presumably permanent. Second, it employed “Special Investigating Staff,” who were often employed by other organizations and who were briefly affiliated with particular aspects of the Bureau’s Social Survey. Third, the Bureau engaged “Consulting Experts,” who had full-time positions elsewhere. They were to provide ongoing expertise in their professional areas, often covering more than one of the Bureau’s reports. (Table 1-1 offers a detailed review of the size of the Bureau’s staff on an annual basis.)

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May 1911 June 1911 September 1911 November 1911 December 1911 January-April 1912

Regular Staff (unknown) 13 13 13 13 8

Special Investigating Staff (unknown) 14 11 12 11 2

Consulting Experts 5 11 11 11 11 11

OUTPUTS: AGENCY REPORTS Once the reports started coming out, Commons developed a standard operating procedure for the consideration of each report’s recommendations. On Saturday afternoons, when the Socialist Party’s elected officials and leaders would routinely caucus, Commons would make a presentation and answer questions. His political ideology and romantic notions about the working class were apparent in his description of those meetings. “Nearly all of those present were mechanics and trade-unionists. Never before, even in England, had I met such a capable and rational body of men in charge of a city government. I soon discovered their goal was Efficiency coupled with Service to the poor and the working classes of the city.”37 Usually, his recommendations would be approved. Because of the highly disciplined and organized structure of the party, the caucus’s decisions were considered binding on all party members and supporters, especially all of its elected officials. In total, during its two-year life (1910-1912), the Milwaukee Bureau of Economy and Efficiency issued nineteen reports, sixteen of which were reports calling for changes in government and policy (see Appendix A, Tables 1-3).38 Besides these sixteen reports, in its final summary report the Bureau stated that it had also created a standardized cost accounting system along with monthly data reporting for six other city activities: water department; street sprinkling, flushing and oiling, and sidewalk repair; house drain and plumbing inspection; sewers; bridges and public buildings; and the city engineer’s office.

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As of mid-April 1912, besides the sixteen substantive reports (and three non-substantive ones), the Bureau was in the midst of a larger work plan with many studies in the pipeline. It had six completed reports that had not yet been published, including four relating to the health department (for example on ash and rubbish collection)39 and one more for its series on the water works (electrolysis of water pipes).40 At that point, the MBEE also had nine reports that were partially finished (including labor efficiency of ward crews and personal efficiency of water works staff). Finally, the Bureau’s work plan indicated twenty-one more studies that were in progress or planned. Some were continuations of its series on specific departments and others were on new topics, including city administrative organization and the need for a municipal reference library. In general, these unissued reports and uncompleted projects tilted to the narrower concept of efficiency studies and cost accounting, but a few continued the Socialists’ view of social efficiency and social surveys as a governmental function.

DENOUEMENT With municipal elections held every two years, the 1912 elections shaped up as a grudge match of the 1910 elections.41 Once again, the conflict was between the Socialists (this time with an incumbent mayor) and the regular two-party system. However, in preparation for the election, the Democratic and Republican parties created a “unity” ticket, thus assuring that the voters would have only a twoway choice--between the Socialists and the fusionists--as opposed to a three-way election. This greatly increased the unity ticket’s chances of defeating the Socialists, since it would force the pro-labor party to obtain a majority—rather than a plurality—to win the April election.42 In the run-up to the 1912 elections, the Bureau of Economy and Efficiency became a political issue. To the Socialists’ opponents, the Bureau was part and parcel of a “Red” (and therefore un-American) agenda that was being imposed upon the city. For example, critics complained that the Bureau’s studies of social conditions had roamed widely, far beyond the responsibilities of city government and were a waste of money. Also, opponents claimed that the Bureau was an illegal city agency, never having been formally created by ordinance.

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Instead, its entire validity was based on an allocation to the Common Council’s Finance Committee to engage in some studies. That also meant the Bureau staff, although paid from that appropriation, were not really city employees in the conventional sense. The political strategy of fielding a unity candidate on behalf of the two mainstream political parties worked. On April 2, 1912, Seidel lost his reelection bid to Gerhard A. Bading, the conservative-leaning nominee of the Democrats and Republicans.43 Similarly, the Socialists lost ground in the Common Council. The future of the Bureau was now a pressing issue. The interregnum between the elections and Bading’s inauguration (as well as for the new Common Council) was a short one, only two weeks. In an effort to save the Bureau, the reform-oriented City Club quickly released a committee report on April 8. As a nonprofit organization committed to good government reform, it is not surprising that the committee’s report concluded the Bureau had been “a valuable agency in promoting economy and efficiency in municipal affairs …[and] has already demonstrated its value to Milwaukee.”44 The report recommended that the legality of the Bureau be put on firmer footing, that it be made a permanent city agency, be protected from political manipulation, and be funded adequately. However, as an indication of the distinction between reformers and Socialists, the report was careful to endorse the management efficiency work of the Bureau, not the social survey reports. Similarly, it did not acknowledge the role of the Socialists in creating the Bureau.45 The Club accepted the committee report and sought to publicize as widely and quickly as possible its positive view of the Bureau. The same night that the City Club released its report, the lameduck Common Council held a special meeting with only one agenda item: the Bureau of Economy and Efficiency. At the meeting, the council approved a report submitted by the Finance Committee hailing the value of the Bureau’s work and approving final payments to staff and contractors.46 Three days later, the council’s (and mayor’s) term ended. Neither the views of the City Club nor those of the outgoing council held sway with the “regulars” who had just regained control of the city hall. They wanted to shut down the Bureau of Economy and Efficiency. To opponents of the Socialist Party, the Bureau had become one of the most visible symbols of the Socialist administration’s

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broad approach to government, the embodiment of so-called social efficiency. At the first meeting of the new council on April 16, the just-inaugurated Mayor Bading sent it a message outlining his goals. One of the fourteen subject headings in his address was dedicated to the Bureau. He stated that it “as constituted at the present time has no standing under the law” and requested that the Bureau’s work be investigated to ascertain its value.47 Later during the same meeting, a resolution was submitted to promote “economy and efficiency in strictly municipal affairs” by investigating the legality of the Bureau of Economy and Efficiency.48 As could be expected by the shift in political power, the results of the “investigation” a month later presented four predictable conclusions. First, the Bureau “was not legally created and at no time was maintained according to law.” Second, its “heavy expense” and the results of its work “did not justify the large public appropriation.” Third, the work of the Bureau was “unscientific.” Fourth, while part of the Bureau’s work was “practicable and serviceable, but taken as a whole,” it was not.49 With that, the Bureau of Economy and Efficiency was terminated. Two of its professional staffers were hired by the (nonprofit) Chicago Bureau of Public Efficiency and one shifted to full-time status with the Wisconsin State Board of Public Affairs in Madison.50 To insure that the mayor’s and council’s action killing the MBEE would not be interpreted to mean that the new administration was viewed as “anti-efficiency,” the council promptly created another entity. An early draft would have named it the Bureau of Municipal Efficiency and Accounts, but ultimately it was called the Bureau of Municipal Research.51 The mission of this second Bureau was to conduct research “to apply tests of efficiency of departments and persons in the service of the city” and other similar activities.52 This definition of efficiency was clearly more narrowly targeted to operational issues and not social concerns. Also, it suggested a personnel-oriented focus on (what were then called) efficiency ratings systems for civil servants, an approach being developed around the country at that time.53

IMPACT: ASSESSING THE BUREAU’S WORK Based on the approach described in the Introduction, the Milwaukee Bureau of Economy and Efficiency’s work will be assessed based on

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its substantive impact and role, on the meaning it gave to efficiency, and on its sectoral affiliation. Regarding substantive impact, the published testimony of people affiliated with the Bureau (from both inside and outside the agency) generally provided a relatively consistent record confirming the Bureau’s success, including implementation of most of its recommendations. Joseph Bell, a member of the City Club, wrote: “It may be fairly stated at this time that the Milwaukee bureau of economy and efficiency … has fully justified its existence in increased efficiency and direct savings to the city already effected.”54 John Treleven, the Bureau’s secretary offered: “The recommendations of the bureau have at all times been given careful consideration. In general they have been adopted without modification. Some have been adopted in part only, and some few have failed to receive the approval of the department heads or the council.”55 As Bureau director, Commons said: “Practically all of our recommendations and cost systems were installed by the socialist administration, and I have been told that they have remained to the present day.”56 Finally, Daniel Hoan, a Socialist and city attorney before becoming mayor, wrote: “In time numerous changes were recommended to effect economies and improve service.”57 Two men from New York, who were recognized as experts at that time, also testified to the value of the MBEE’s work. William H. Allen, one of a triumvirate who established the New York Bureau of Municipal Research, said in an interview with the New York Times that newly established university training programs in public administration were requesting copies of the reports issued by bureaus of municipal research and efficiency bureaus, specifically mentioning—besides his own—only those in Philadelphia, Cincinnati, and Milwaukee.58 Charles A. Beard, professor of political history at Columbia University and a supporter of municipal reform efforts, wrote that “no library of municipal progress is complete which does not contain the reports of the Milwaukee institution, illustrating municipal research methods at work.”59 Similarly, third-party histories by sympathetic writers repeat the same observations. Edward Kerstein’s favorable 1960s biography of Daniel Hoan wrote, “Mayor Seidel succeeded in doing what the law allowed him to do. For example, he established a bureau of economy and efficiency… It paid off,” especially regarding reduced mortality

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rates.60 Elmer Beck’s 1982 history of the Wisconsin Socialist Party (funded in part by a grant from an estate controlled by former Socialist mayor Frank Zeidler) observed that “the effect of the bureau’s work was pervasive.” He concluded that its installation of a unit system of cost accounting throughout city government “was perhaps the most significant contribution of the bureau of economy and efficiency.”61 However, former MBEE staffers John Treleven and Percy Myers were more circumspect about the implementation of the Bureau’s recommendations when they wrote about the agency only a few months after its demise. Systematically encapsulating each of the Bureau’s reports, few of their summaries mentioned recommendations that had been implemented. One success related to the water department. The Bureau’s suggestions for reorganizing the municipal water utility, “with the exception of a few points necessitating legislation, went into operation January 1, 1912, upon the order of the Railroad Commission of Wisconsin.” In another instance, they said the mayor had appointed temporary citizen commissions to recommend policies relating to social problems analyzed in some Bureau reports. This, of course, refers to a process result from a Bureau recommendation rather than enactment of substantive policy. The circumspection of the authors is fully visible in an ambiguously stated summary of the Bureau’s work in the third to last paragraph in the article: “Many times it was found possible to make consolidations and reorganizations effecting an immediate money saving, and at other times future savings were made possible through capital expenditures, but such savings were considered as a by-product to efficiency.”62 Stated in the past tense and in a passive construction, it is hard to discern whether the sentence refers to recommendations that were implemented or merely suggested as “possible.” The opaqueness of this passage suggests that outright implementation of the MBEE recommendations was quite limited. Similarly, a leading Wisconsin reformer at the time viewed the work of the Bureau more negatively than some of the glowing tributes it had received. Charles McCarthy, a key reformer, became head of the state’s pioneering Legislative Reference Bureau in 1901. Commons had suggested to Wisconsin governor Francis McGovern that state government would benefit from having a body similar to the Milwaukee Bureau. In 1911, when McCarthy was drafting legislation

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to create the state Board of Public Affairs, he visited Milwaukee to review the work of the local Bureau. He was disappointed. McCarthy concluded that the Bureau of Economy and Efficiency was “suggestive but not constructive,” partly because it tried to conduct “too much work at once.” Later, Commons arranged for Benjamin Rastall (the associate director of the Milwaukee Bureau) to be hired by the Board of Public Affairs as its director. But McCarthy, the “de facto director of the Board in its strategy and planning,” eventually developed a negative view of Rastall’s work. According to his biographer, “McCarthy complained that Rastall just sat at his desk whenever he was at Madison and did no directing. While Mac[Carthy] thought Rastall had been adequate in his work at Milwaukee, he soon became convinced that the director was unsuited for the work of the Board of Public Affairs.” On January 22, 1912, McCarthy stated that “Mr. Rastall is not capable of carrying the thing out, and the end of it will result in a great deal of waste of time and energy before next September.”63 This eyewitness account carries credibility, given McCarthy’s sterling reputation within national and state Progressive circles.64 It raises some doubts about the glowing reports from partisans of the Milwaukee Bureau. Most credible, of course, are judgments of disinterested researchers who are also separated by time from the events in question. For example, according to historian Bayrd Still in 1948, “the common council was soon enacting [the Bureau’s] voluminous recommendations into law.”65 Similarly, historian Frederick Olson concluded in his 1952 Harvard dissertation that implementing “these reforms brought city service to a high level of efficiency despite the opposition’s charges to the contrary.”66 A history of municipal reform published by the National Municipal League in 1974 credited the MBEE with many substantive successes, including reorganizing city agencies, installing a uniform accounting system, creating a comprehensive budget system, revising water rates, inventorying city property, and adopting borrowing policies that linked the duration of the debt to the lifespan of the capital project.67 Finally, John Gurda, a local historian, wrote in 1999 that the Bureau “generated a blizzard of reports and recommendations, most of which found their way into municipal practice.”68 Historian Martin Schiesl reached similar conclusions in the 1970s: “By 1912 the common council was enacting many of the Bureau’s

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recommendations into law and city officials were reorganizing departments, installing techniques of cost accounting, and introducing segregated budgets.” However, his sources were only Commons’s autobiography and various publications by authors affiliated with the Bureau.69 This suggests that Schiesl was relying on their assertions and not independently verifying them (which would be, admittedly, a difficult task). More recently, social scientist Kenneth Finegold stated a generalization about the Socialist urban reformers. While explicitly naming the Bureau, he expressed no specific conclusion about the impact of its work: “Socialist city governments eliminated graft, improved administrative methods, and built better parks and sewers. Milwaukee Socialists even established a Bureau of Economy and Efficiency, headed by John R. Commons.”70 A different way to identify the MBEE’s substantive impact is based on the factual material included in the Bureau’s reports that refer to enacting some of its earlier recommendations. For example, Bulletin #10, Plumbing and House Drain Inspection, contains a Supplementary Report that provides detailed information (including a new ordinance adopted by the Common Council) partially implementing the Bulletin’s recommendations.71 Similarly, Bulletin #12, Reorganization of the System of Garbage Collection, concludes with a section titled “Progress Toward Adoption of Recommendations of the Bureau.”72 At least two other Bureau bulletins (#13 and #15) contain similar information. According to the director of the nonprofit Milwaukee Citizens’ Bureau of Municipal Efficiency (see next chapter), the MBEE’s reports on the Health Department had been “partially adopted” by early 1914.73 A contemporary concluded, based on these reports, that the savings enacted or suggested were substantial for the city and secured “the greatest efficiency,” even with the recommendations for increased spending.74 Other documentary evidence of the adoption of individual recommendations includes an action by the Common Council toward implementing the Bureau’s cost-accounting system.75 At its special post-election, lame-duck meeting on April 8, 1912, the Common Council approved a summary report of the Bureau’s work. The summary listed in concrete terms (and the past tense) recommendations that had been implemented.76 Similarly, Commons provided detailed enumeration of the adoption of Bureau recommendations in the Bureau’s final Bulletin #19, Eighteen Months’ Work of the Milwaukee

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Bureau of Economy and Efficiency. Certainly, both documents could be tainted by political circumstances, an effort to put the Bureau’s accomplishments in the most positive light with an eye to both history and the next election. Nonetheless, these sources are credible because they identify detailed recommendations already implemented. Therefore, the general conclusion is that the recommendations of the Bureau were often enacted. Shifting from a substantive focus to that of its role, is it possible to ascertain if the MBEE played an instrumental role in the decisions of city government during its existence? There is no doubt that its mere existence was considered important, if only from the frequency of mention in various histories. For example, the New York Times’ obituary for Mayor Seidel singled out four major accomplishments during his administration, including creation of the Bureau and “a scientific accountancy system [that] was introduced for the city budget,”77 a system MBEE had helped to develop. Even discounting self-serving statements by partisans, the evidence suggests that the Bureau was instrumental in decision making and policy setting in Milwaukee’s municipal government between 1910 and 1912. Some recommendations were implemented, and even those that were not provided important documentation and authoritative reports for the larger sphere of civil society. The reform-oriented (and non-Socialist) City Club concluded that the contributions of the Bureau had been worthwhile and recommended that it be made a permanent part of city government. Whether loved by the Socialists and reformers or hated by the regulars and party machines, the MBEE was a player. Its recommendations could not be ignored. The political murder of the agency as soon as the Socialists lost the 1912 elections is another strong indicator of its instrumental role. In summary, the City of Milwaukee’s Bureau of Economy and Efficiency can be judged to have been a success substantively and an important player in the governance of the city.

THE MEANING OF EFFICIENCY Although some of the nineteen numbered bulletins that the Bureau issued during its two-year life covered more than one category, five related to social issues, ten to operations of city agencies, one to costaccounting, and three were non-substantive. Also, two other reports

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about social issues were published in cooperation with the Bureau, but neither was formally issued as a numbered Bureau Bulletin. Thus, the Bureau issued about twice as many organizational reports as social ones. The bulletins on social conditions were all “front loaded,” issued mostly in the first half of the Bureau’s life, with the last published in November 1911 (except #17, the recreation survey, which is both a social and efficiency survey). Conversely, most of the management audits were “back loaded,” with nine published from December 1911 to April 1912. The symmetry is quite stark. It is almost as if the Bureau changed horses in mid-stream, shifting from an early interest in social efficiency to a later interest in management efficiency. It is possible that these changes in priorities reflect a subtle adjustment due to political criticisms from the opposition, which had suggested that the Socialist administration was using the Bureau to promote its “Red” agenda. Certainly, Commons’s original plan, submitted to Berger in April 1911, was almost exclusively interested in conducting a grand scale social survey and had only minor interest in so-called efficiency surveys. Furthermore, bulletins focusing on operational efficiency were not exclusively focused on cutting costs and saving money through increases in efficiency. Only about half of those reports explicitly identified dollar savings that would be accomplished by implementing recommendations. Rather, many reports called for increasing the efficiency of the operations of city government by improving and expanding the work of a particular department. This suggested that efficiency could mean far more than cutting costs and staffing. Shortly after the Bureau’s demise in 1913, a professor of government at Columbia University considered these “the most important” of the Bureau’s reports.78

NONPROFIT VS. GOVERNMENTAL EFFICIENCY BUREAUS Regarding its sectoral placement, the MBEE had to be in the public sector. Its sectoral affiliation was directly related to the ideology underlying its creation. The political platform of the local Socialist Party was that municipal government needed to be transformed in two ways. First, it needed to be made honest, in part by assuring that

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public funds were used as efficiently as possible in the management and expenditures of city departments. A bureau of efficiency was one way to implement this commitment. It would study agency activities in minute and technical detail to identify tangible ways to manage city government more efficiently. The taxpayers would get their money’s worth, in contradistinction to the waste, corruption, and inefficiency of preceding regimes. Second, the Socialists believed that government could be a force for progressive reforms, in the same way that in preceding years it had been an instrument for advancing the interests of the business sector. For Milwaukee’s Socialists, efficiency encompassed a human dimension whereby the government used factual studies to identify societal problems that the municipality and society-at-large wished to address. Those studies could then be used by other city departments and outside civic and political groups as blueprints to ameliorate these problems. As a government agency, a BOE had a better chance of becoming a permanent feature of government rather than a transitory one. It could have been an ongoing engine of reform. Generally, once established, government agencies become fixtures in the political landscape. They develop bases of support and benefit from the tendency toward incremental rather than fundamental changes in policy. Therefore, the Socialists hoped they were leaving a permanent legacy for ongoing reform of city government. (Of course, they were wrong.) In their view, an in-house BOE would be in a better position to work with city agencies to assure the implementation of changes and to provide oversight of reforms after they had been adopted. The Bureau would be part of a “team,” able to develop collegial relationships with department heads. In that sense, for the Socialists, a municipal sector bureau of efficiency would be more efficient at accomplishing its goals than an outside group. Finally, from the perspective of economics, Socialists had limited financial means. The cost of operating a nongovernmental BOE was too expensive for them to assume. Their BOE had to be financed by the taxpayers. This was the opposite of nonprofit bureaus of efficiency financed by the business sector to promote its kind of efficiency in city government (see Chapters 2 and 4). Hence, the political ideology of the party was to embed an efficiency bureau within municipal government as one step toward keeping the promises made in its platform. A bureau of efficiency, as an inte-

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gral component of city government, would institutionalize the kinds of reforms that Socialists promised the voters, whether the monetary efficiency of the municipal corporation or the social efficiency of the city itself. The BOE would be a permanent feature of city government, a perpetual motion machine that would implement the goals of the party once it took over city government. For all these reasons, the sectoral placement of the Milwaukee Bureau of Economy and Efficiency in the public sector was inherent in its ideological raison d’être. Given the rationale for its existence, the MBEE could only be a government agency.

notes 1 Roger Roy Keeran, “Milwaukee Reformers in the Progressive Era: The City Club of Milwaukee, 1908-22” (unpublished Master’s thesis, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1969), Chapters 1-2. 2 Frederick I. Olson, “The Milwaukee Socialists, 1897-1941” (unpublished PhD dissertation, Harvard University, 1952), 187-88. 3 Interview with former socialist mayor Frank P. Zeidler (1948-60), February 11, 2004. 4 John Gurda, The Making of Milwaukee (Milwaukee, WI: Milwaukee County Historical Society, 1999), 216. 5 Kanigel. 6 Zeidler interview. 7 Stivers; Tonn. 8 For a summary of Seidel’s background, see Still, 516n. 9 Proceedings of the Common Council of the City of Milwaukee for the Year Ending April 10, 1911, 3. 10 Berger was a prominent leader of the Milwaukee Socialists, sometimes considered the person who contributed the intellectual gravitas to the Socialists’ platforms and plans. He was later elected to Congress, but initially denied his seat due to his opposition to World War I. Eventually, he was seated for three terms in the 1920s. For a short biography, see, Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, retrieved 15 June 2007: http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=B000407. 11 Proceedings of the Common Council of the City of Milwaukee for the Year Ending April 10, 1911, 51, 86. 12 Ibid., 317.

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13 John R. Commons, Myself: The Autobiography of John R. Commons (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1963 [1934]), 151. Although the Common Council had appropriated $5,000, Commons wrote in his memoirs that Berger offered him $6,000, which was expected to cover his personal expenses as well. 14 Jack Stark, “The Wisconsin Idea: The University’s Service to the State,” State of Wisconsin 1995-1996 Blue Book (Madison: Wisconsin Legislative Reference Bureau, 1995), 119. 15 Commons, 151, emphasis added. As would be expected due to his prolabor and pro-union leanings, Commons disagreed with the definition of efficiency that business used when trying to apply scientific management on workers. John R. Commons, “Organized Labor’s Attitude Toward Industrial Efficiency,” American Economic Review 1:3 (September 1911), 463-72. 16 Haber, 11, 58; Schiesl, 126. 17 John R. Commons, Eighteen Months’ Work of the Milwaukee Bureau of Economy and Efficiency, Bulletin No. 19 (Milwaukee, WI: Milwaukee Bureau of Economy and Efficiency, 1912), 22. 18 Ibid., 31. Appendix A of that report contains the entire April 11, 1910 plan that Commons submitted to Berger (ibid., 31-34). 19 Treleven, 271. 20 John E. Treleven and Percy H. Myers, “The Milwaukee Bureau of Economy and Efficiency,” National Municipal Review 1:3 (July 1912), 420; n.a., “Documents and Reports,” American Economic Review 1:2 (June 1911), 425. The Bureau was sometimes referred to with incorrect names. In most Common Council documents, the Bureau’s title is reversed, usually listed as the Bureau of Efficiency and Economy. Proceedings of the Common Council of the City of Milwaukee for the Year Ending April 10, 1911 (Milwaukee, WI: Phoenix Printing Company, 1911), 1376, 1419, 1430, 1439, 1465. The American Economic Review referred to it as the “Efficiency division.” “Documents and Reports,” 426. Then City Attorney Daniel W. Hoan, also a Socialist, referred to Commons’s project as the “Bureau of Research.” Daniel W. Hoan, City Government: The Record of the Milwaukee Experiment (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1936), 130. This error might be related to Berger’s original proposal (which was drafted with the assistance of the city attorney’s office) for a Bureau of Municipal Research. Hoan later was elected mayor, serving 24 years (1916-40), the second longest duration in Milwaukee history.

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Hoan’s mayoralty overlapped with the Milwaukee Citizens’ Bureau for Municipal Research (see next chapter). 21 Joseph McC. Bell, “Milwaukee Bureau of Economy and Efficiency,” National Municipal Review 1:1 (January 1912), 90-91. 22 Proceedings of the Common Council of the City of Milwaukee for the Year Ending April 10, 1911, 1376. Writing in February 1911, political scientist William Bennett Munro reported that the budget was $25,000 for the year. “Current Municipal Affairs,” American Political Science Review 5:1 (February 1911), 98. The cause of this discrepancy is unclear. 23 Williams, 649-50; Daniel W. Williams, “Before Performance Measurement,” Administrative Theory & Praxis 24:3 (September 2002), 466-67; Schiesl, 117-18; Bertelli and Lynn, 21, 29. 24 Treleven, 272, emphasis added. 25 Treleven and Myers, 421. 26 Clarke A. Chambers, Paul U. Kellogg and the Survey: Voice for Social Welfare and Social Justice (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1971). 27 David Cannadine, Mellon: An American Life (New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 2006), 218-19. 28 Treleven, 270-72. 29 Ibid., 271. 30 Treleven and Myers, 421. 31 Zeidler interview. 32 Proceedings of the Common Council of the City of Milwaukee for the Year Ending April 10, 1911, 317. 33 Munro, 98; William Bennett Munro, “Current Municipal Affairs,” American Political Science Review 6:1 (February 1912), 96. In Milwaukee, the city comptroller was an elected official. A Socialist won the office in the 1910 elections. 34 Commons, Myself, 152. 35 Proceedings of the Common Council of the City of Milwaukee for the Year Ending April 14, 1913 (Milwaukee, WI: Keogh Press and Wetzel Bros. Printing Co., 1913), 10. 36 Commons, Eighteen Months’ Work, Appendix E. 37 Commons, Myself, 152. 38 The three non-substantive reports were akin to annual reports and other general summaries of the work of the bureau. Therefore, they were excluded from this book’s analysis of the outputs of the Bureau. One of the non-substantive reports was No. 9, Guide to Exhibit and A Review of

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the Bureau’s Work which was distributed during the City of Milwaukee’s Budget Exhibit, November 27–December 3, 1911. For a broader discussion of the origination of budget exhibits as a reform tool during the Progressive Era and its subsequent metamorphoses, see Daniel W. Williams and Mordecai Lee, “Déjà vu All Over Again: Contemporary Traces of the ‘Budget Exhibit’,” American Review of Public Administration, 38:2 (June 2008). 39 The municipal Bureau of Municipal Research, viewed as a successor to the Bureau of Economy and Efficiency, released a study in 1915 on the city’s ash problem: Bureau of Municipal Research, City of Milwaukee, Ash Collection in Milwaukee (Milwaukee, WI: Bureau of Municipal Research, 1915). While it makes no mention of the MBEE’s 1912 draft report, it is possible that the 1915 report benefited from the files and records left over from MBEE’s unpublished 1912 report. 40 The nonprofit Chicago Bureau of Public Efficiency released a report on electrolysis of underground municipal pipes in July 1911. Presumably it stimulated the preparation of this report in Milwaukee. 41 Now Milwaukee’s municipal elections are held every four years. 42 By the time the 1914 elections occurred, the state legislature had changed election laws so that municipal offices were nonpartisan instead of partisan. This was supposedly a good government reform, advocated nationally by reformers to remove partisanship from local government. Their mantra was that “there is not a Republican way to pick up garbage and a Democratic way to pick up garbage; only an efficient way and an inefficient way.” However, in the context of Milwaukee politics, the shift to nonpartisan municipal elections meant that voters were not easily able to identify which candidates were Socialists, thus making it harder for Socialists to continue winning elections. For the Democrats and Republicans in the state legislature, this legislation was a cynical maneuver to restore their own power in Milwaukee’s city hall, all while under the sanctimonious camouflage of pursuing “reform.” Nonetheless, in 1916, Socialist Daniel Hoan won the election as mayor and held office continually for 24 years. 43 For a thumbnail biographical sketch of Bading’s background, see Still, 521n. 44 City Club of Milwaukee, Report Of the Committee Appointed to Examine the Bureau of Economy and Efficiency, City Club Papers No. 1 (Milwaukee, WI: City Club of Milwaukee, 1912), 5. 45 Keeran, 29-30.

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46 Proceedings of the Common Council of the City of Milwaukee for the Year Ending April 11, 1912 (Milwaukee, WI: Keogh Press, 1912), 1439-40. 47 Proceedings of the Common Council of the City of Milwaukee for the Year Ending April 14, 1913, 3. 48 Ibid., 11, emphasis added. 49 Ibid., 105. Only a few months after its termination and from the perspective of half a continent away, the head of the San Francisco BOE proposed a different theory for the demise of the Milwaukee BOE. He suggested that the Milwaukee BOE had been over-funded: “They had so much money that they felt impelled to force things. They discovered many wrongs which they aired in the newspapers and attempted to right from the outside instead of from the inside.” E. R. Zion, “San Francisco’s Bureau of Efficiency,” [San Francisco] Chamber of Commerce Journal 1:11 (September 1912), 14. However, this explanation appears nowhere else and is not consistent with the historical record. It is more likely that the head of the underfunded San Francisco BOE was trying to put the best face on his own situation by suggesting his bureau’s small budget gave it better chance of success, rather than being a disadvantage. See Chapter 5 for a description of San Francisco’s BOE. 50 George C. Sikes, “The Chicago Bureau of Public Efficiency,” National Municipal Review 1:3 (July 1912), 456; Edward A. Fitzpatrick, McCarthy of Wisconsin (New York: Columbia University Press, 1944), 141. 51 Draft ordinance prepared by the city attorney, August 1912, microfilm of Milwaukee Common Council files, Computer record 8620, Vault location 909-B, City Records Center, City of Milwaukee. 52 Proceedings of the Common Council of the City of Milwaukee for the Year Ending April 14, 1913, 646. This created a public sector municipal research bureau, in contradistinction to the nearly universal template throughout the United States of nonprofit bureaus of municipal research. 53 The initial motivation by Congress for creating the Division of Efficiency in the U.S. Civil Service Commission in 1913 was to establish an efficiency ratings system for federal employees. Three years later, the Division became the independent U.S. Bureau of Efficiency with an efficiency mission broader than just implementing efficiency ratings. Lee, Institutionalizing Congress and the Presidency, 29-31, 37-41. 54 Bell, 90. 55 Treleven, 275. 56 Commons, Myself, 152.

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57 Hoan, 130. 58 Edward Marshall, “New York’s Government is Fast Becoming a Model,” New York Times Sunday Magazine, July 21, 1912, 9. Allen later played a role in the creation of the nonprofit Milwaukee Citizens’ Bureau of Municipal Efficiency. See next chapter. 59 Beard, 83. 60 Edward S. Kerstein, Milwaukee’s All-American Mayor: Portrait of Daniel Webster Hoan (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1966), 35. 61 Elmer Axel Beck, The Sewer Socialists: A History of the Socialist Party of Wisconsin 1897-1940, Vol. One, The Socialist Trinity of the Party, the Unions and the Press (Fennimore, WI: Westburg Associates, 1982), 73. 62 Treleven and Myers, 423-25. Notwithstanding its name, the Railroad Commission was the regulatory body of Wisconsin state government for all common carriers and utilities, not just railroads. In 1931, it was renamed the Public Service Commission, a name that continues to this day. 63 Fitzpatrick, 141n, 142n, 147. 64 For example, former president Theodore Roosevelt wrote the introduction to McCarthy’s book on The Wisconsin Idea (New York: Macmillan, 1912). 65 Still, 516. 66 Olson, 208. 67 Griffith, 162-63. According to the New Republic in 1997, the Milwaukee Bureau had “rationalized municipal accounting, inventoried all city property and cut the cost of street paving from $2.40 to $1.35 per square yard.” Peter Beinart, “The Pride of the Cities: The New Breed of Progressive Mayors,” New Republic 216:26 (June 30, 1997), 18. However, Beinart provides no source for his observation. 68 Gurda, 215. 69 Schiesl, 125, 219. 70 Finegold, 19, emphasis added. 71 Pages 32-33. 72 Pages 23-24. 73 Minutes of the Meeting of the Board of Trustees, January 13, 1914, 9, Annual Minutes 1914-1939 Book, Minutes Books drawer, PPF (Public Policy Forum, successor agency to the Milwaukee Citizens’ Bureau of Municipal Efficiency – Chapter 2). 74 John A. Fairlie, editor, “Milwaukee Bureau of Economy and Efficiency,” National Municipal Review 1:3 (July 1912), 460.

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75 Proceedings of the Common Council of the City of Milwaukee for the Year Ending April 11, 1912, 1325. 76 Ibid., 1439-40. 77 “E. Seidel, Ex-Mayor of Milwaukee, 82,” New York Times, June 26, 1947, 23. 78 Sait, 52.

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ome histories of Milwaukee’s two efficiency bureaus blandly characterize the establishment of the nonprofit Citizens’ Bureau of Municipal Efficiency (CBME) in 1913 as an effort by good government reformers to carry on the work of the governmental Bureau of Economy and Efficiency (MBEE) after it had been abolished in April 1912. Writing in 1948 (before being appointed to head the CBME), political scientist Norman Gill noted that after “the discontinuance of the bureau, the City Club determined to stir up interest in the organization of an independent research bureau. Funds were raised for a preliminary survey, which was made by the New York Bureau of Municipal Research. In 1913 the present Citizens’ Bureau was organized.”1 Similarly, local Milwaukee historians writing in the 1940s and 50s described the CBME as “a non-governmental counterpart of the Bureau of Economy and Efficiency” and as a “private counterpart” to the city’s Bureau of Economy and Efficiency.2

HISTORICAL CONTEXT The origins and purposes of Milwaukee’s nonprofit BOE are more complicated than these descriptions. Milwaukee-based political scientist Donald Vogel captured the thread of developments by describing the CBME in 1987 as having been “created to counter the Social-Democratic center of reform.”3 It will be recalled (from the preceding chapter) that after the Socialists’ electoral defeat in 1912, the reform-oriented City Club of Milwaukee released a report urging retention of the municipality’s Bureau of Economy and Efficiency. Nonetheless, newly elected Mayor Gerhard Bading and the restored majority of Democratic and Republican Party regulars on the Common Council abolished the Bureau, claiming it had not been legally created. To avoid criticism that they were “anti-efficiency,” in the fall of 1912, they suggested creating, in lieu of the Bureau of Economy

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and Efficiency, a new governmental agency to be called the Bureau of Municipal Research (BMR).4 During that interval, the City Club continued to agitate for ongoing efforts to improve and reform city government. It invited William H. Allen, a founder and director of the influential, trend-setting nonprofit the New York (City) Bureau of Municipal Research (NYBMR), to speak in Milwaukee. In November 1912, Allen gave a talk before Club members titled “Progress of Efficiency in Public Business.” His remarks prompted the idea of creating in Milwaukee something similar to NYBMR: a nonprofit bureau, quite different from the not-yet-opened BMR at City Hall.5 However, “owing to the difficulties attendant upon financing such a proposition, the City Club decided not to undertake the plan.”6 Such a decision was understandable. After all, the City Club had a broad membership of citizens interested in good government. Socialist Victor Berger had been involved in it, as were clergy and activists from a broad political spectrum.7 These reformers were motivated by a common definition of efficiency that did not carry left-right ideological connotations. As such, many of the members were not wealthy. The City Club operated on a shoe-string budget and had to let its only staffer go when he could not raise enough money to cover his salary.8 The City Club did not have the financial wherewithal to create and maintain a nonprofit bureau of municipal research such as the one Allen co-directed in New York City. With the City Club unable to fund a local bureau, some wealthy businessmen of Milwaukee began talking among themselves about pursuing a similar project. After all, they would not have the problem the City Club had; they would be able to solicit adequate funding from within their small circle. However, with this shift in the center of action, a subtle but important ideological shift took place. The City Club had been interested in continuing the efficiency work of the Socialists’ Bureau of Economy and Efficiency because it viewed such efforts as reforms that would lead to good government. Considering the broad membership of the City Club, all could support a vague and undefined goal of efficiency. For the wealthy business elite of Milwaukee, reforming government to achieve efficiency had a different meaning. Certainly, they wanted honest government. And the Socialists had helped reestablish that in City Hall. What these businessmen wanted even more was a

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government that did not interfere in the operation of their companies, a government that was less expensive, and a government that lowered taxes. In short, they wanted conservative government. For them, efficiency meant cutting the scope and costs of government. Efficiency work moved in only one direction: contraction. This was far different from the vision of John Commons and the Socialists. For the latter, efficiency could just as easily go in the other direction by expanding city operations and responsibilities (see preceding chapter). The titans of industry decided to pick up the gauntlet laid down by Allen’s talk to the City Club. They decided to raise money to pay the NYBMR to conduct a survey of Milwaukee’s city government.9

CREATION As a first step, an informal citizens’ committee made up of three prominent businessmen decided to contribute funds to engage Allen’s organization for a general survey of Milwaukee’s municipal government. The meaning of survey in this context was much different from Commons’ social survey of Milwaukee. For the businessmen and the leaders of the NYBMR, a survey had a narrower scope. It would focus solely on the internal operations of city government, with a view to improving efficiency. In contemporary terms, it was an organizational and financial audit of city government. It would not look at social problems, only at operational and technocratic issues. Its reform orientation connoted eliminating corruption and no-show patronage jobs, expanding civil service reforms, competitive bidding, and increasing accountability to “civic leaders.” This was administrative reform, not social reform. The New York Bureau sent three of its staffers (called investigators) to Milwaukee for a week in April 1913 to conduct a “brief, preliminary” survey. Working under the supervision of another prominent co-director of the New York Bureau, Henry Bruère, they covered nineteen of the city’s departments and bureaus, skipping twelve others. The New York Bureau submitted its report in June to the Milwaukee funders. The 135-page report presented dozens of specific recommendations for changes in budgeting, record keeping, contracting, hiring, and line operations.10 Its key recommendations, however, focused on the future of municipal reform in Milwaukee.

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The NYBMR urged the citizens’ committee to establish a “Citizens’ Bureau of Public Efficiency,” similar to the New York Bureau, to push for municipal reform and efficiency.11 It urged Milwaukee’s civic leaders to raise $12,000 a year for five years to fund the new agency. Finally, the report identified seven major reforms topics that the new local bureau could pursue.12 Even before the NYBMR’s investigators came to Milwaukee for their survey, the three members of the local citizen committee and about ten of their peers had already decided to create a nonprofit organization to promote “efficient municipal administration.” They prepared and published a pamphlet titled Getting at the Facts and on April 7, 1913, sent it to several dozen of their peers, acquaintances, and colleagues. The informal group announced publicly they were taking steps to establish a “Citizen’s Bureau of Public Efficiency” (the same title the NYBMR would formally recommend in its report two months later) and in a cover letter to potential supporters sought financial commitments to fund this program.13 However, when the NYBMR’s report was ready for submission in June, the Milwaukee businessmen were not yet ready to incorporate this new organization.14 So the committee of three formally accepted the report on behalf “of the proposed Milwaukee Citizens’ Bureau of Municipal Efficiency.”15 Historical sources do not indicate why the businessmen decided to change the title of the incipient organization from “Citizens’ Bureau of Public Efficiency” (the term used by the three-member committee in its April 7, 1913 cover letter accompanying the Getting the Facts brochure and by the NYBMR in its June report to the committee) to “Citizens’ Bureau of Municipal Efficiency,” used in the incorporation documents in June.16 It is possible that the civic leaders were simply more interested in city government than in other levels of government (county, state, or special districts). In that respect, they would be continuing the municipal focus of the Socialists’ Bureau. It should also be remembered that, because of its leadership role, the title of the New York Bureau of Municipal Research might have had an inadvertent influence similar bureaus subsequently created across the United States. The New York City area did not have a separate county government. The city’s five boroughs were vestiges of county governments that had previously existed, but had eventually been absorbed into a consolidated municipal government in the

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late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Therefore, since there was no county government in New York City for the NYBMR to monitor, the Bureau’s city-only orientation might have influenced (by default) the entire bureau reform movement to disregard county government. Finally, it is also possible that the Milwaukee businessmen changed the title of this organization from “public efficiency” to “municipal efficiency” to minimize potential confusion with its counterpart just eighty miles south, the Chicago Bureau of Public Efficiency (see Chapter 4). The names would have been similar and the initials identical. The new Citizens’ Bureau of Municipal Efficiency was incorporated with the filing of papers with Wisconsin’s secretary of state in the summer of 1913.17 The first meeting of the corporation took place on November 14, 1913. The thirteen men who were “members of the corporation” reflected the economic aristocracy of Milwaukee, men who headed tanneries, manufacturing plants, breweries, and utilities. They included August Vogel, Arthur Gallun, Albert Elser, and Charles Allis. According to the articles of incorporation, the new Bureau would have three major goals. First, it would “promote the adoption of scientific methods of managing and supervising municipal affairs and the accounting and reporting on details of municipal business.” Second, it would seek “[to] cooperate with and facilitate the work of public officials.” Third, the organization would “collect, classify and analyze, correlate, interpret, and publicize facts as to the administration of municipal governments and schools.”18 At its founding meeting, a six-man board of trustees was elected to run the corporation. The trustees, in turn, created a membership status called “Associate members” who were committed to helping fund the Bureau. Thirty-nine such associates were named at the first meeting. These associates came from the same socio-economic demographic as the “members” of the corporation. The initial fund-raising goal included $2,500 for expenses already incurred by the incipient Bureau, presumably related to the NYBMR survey. Finally, the board appointed Thomas Hinckley as director at a salary of $4,000 a year.19 He was brought to Milwaukee after graduating from the Training School for Public Service, a program established by the NYBMR in 1911 to create a class of professional men to work in reform bureaus across urban America.20 Graduates were inculcated with the NYBMR’s view of efficiency and municipal reform.

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ORGANIZATION AND OPERATIONS One of the tenets of the municipal reform movement as developed by the NYBMR concerned publicity. Publicity by nonprofit bureaus could serve as a vehicle for reform in two ways. First, the power (or threat) of negative publicity would theoretically help pressure government officials to adopt recommended reforms. Second, publicity would help educate the citizenry so that public opinion and, by implication, voters would support reform and oppose politicians hostile to reform.21 However, the Milwaukee businessmen who founded the Citizens’ Bureau of Municipal Efficiency did not fully subscribe to that modus operandi. Their disinclination toward robust publicity was a crucial, even strategic, stance that affected CBME’s history. This theme was clear from the first board of trustees’ meeting in November 1913. Toward the end of the meeting, the newly appointed director, Thomas Hinckley, was asked to make a statement. In the second paragraph of his speech he said that he already understood from early conversations with his new bosses that the “first” of several “key notes” for the new organization was “co-operation” with city government rather than the adversarial approach inherent in pro-active publicity.22 He captured an important organizational value chosen by the founders. For example, right after his comments were concluded, the final policy decision of this first meeting was that “any information with reference to the Bureau be given to the press on authority of the President or Secretary” only.23 Publicity was to be tightly controlled by those who paid the bills, not by the professional staff. The founders preferred to work quietly, constructively, and behind-the-scenes to push their efficiency-oriented suggestions for city government. They opted not to follow the NYBMR template of using publicity to bludgeon recalcitrant political leaders to accept reforms. Nothing in the record explains the rationale for this decision. However, several explanations seem reasonable. First, the political context is important. In the April 1912 elections, the Socialist mayor had been defeated for reelection by a fusion candidate representing both the Democratic and Republican parties. As businessmen who were scared of the “Red menace,” founders of Milwaukee’s Citizens’ Bureau did not want to do anything that would help restore the

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Socialists to power. So publicly criticizing the new mayor was to be avoided to the maximum extent. Second, most Milwaukee newspapers were partisan and ideological, and their political preferences influenced news coverage, not just the editorial page. Industrialists who funded the new Bureau wanted to pursue their goals only through “respectable” institutions. At the time, the professionalization of journalism, the emergence of “objective” journalism, the stronger separation of news and editorials, and the growth of academic schools of journalism were just beginning. For example, only three years before these events, Marquette University in Milwaukee was the first Catholic school in the United States to establish a journalism training program.24 Third, there was an anti-democratic strain underlying portions of the progressive and reform movements. Voters (any male who was a citizen—women did not get the right to vote until 1920) could not be automatically trusted to make good decisions. Therefore, by professionalizing municipal administration and sharply drawing the line between politics and administration, reformers were trying to insulate city management from political influences. In that case, there was no need for publicity. Reforms could be arranged quietly among the various metropolitan elites. Finally, for these businessmen, this was their standard operating procedure. Important decisions were made in downtown clubs and corporate boardrooms. Translucency, let alone transparency, was abhorred. The attitude that the trustees had toward elected officials and against publicity was epitomized by an exchange during the annual corporate meeting in early 1915. When director Hinckley complained about a lack of cooperation by the (elected) city comptroller, one member of the corporation (that is one of the “owners” of the nonprofit corporation) dismissed Hinckley’s concern. After all, this member remarked, the problem was with the deputy comptroller, not the comptroller. (That the deputy served at the pleasure of the comptroller did not seem important.) Besides, he said, we have to be patient. The most important thing was “that to enable us to accomplish matters we must retain the good-will of the men in office, even if we must make such endeavors again and again.”25 His viewpoint was institutionalized two months later in the Bureau’s first major publication, its annual report for 1914. In an insert intended for other businessmen who might consider contributing to the CBME’s

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work, readers were informed that the agency wanted to accomplish “cheaper government” but “without arousing the antagonism of your city officials.”26 This encapsulated the organizational dead-end the Bureau’s founders were headed toward. The trustees did not wish to be public agitators for change and did not want to alienate the city’s elected officials (many of whom they had financed to put into office to rid city government of the Socialists). However, the abhorrence of publicity was untenable, not just because in the abstract it dissented from the dogma of the NYBMR. Rather, it was an internal organizational contradiction that could not be sustained. After all, external pressures for reform were premised on changing the status quo and being willing to fight publicly in the civic arena for those changes if necessary. Yet challenging the status quo—and publicly at that—simply did not appeal to these economic aristocrats. There is an interesting parallel between this aversion to publicity by local business leaders in Milwaukee and a similar issue occurring almost at the same time in New York City. As discussed previously, the NYBMR played a leadership role in the founding of similar nonprofit organizations across the country. One of the fundamental principles of its operations was the importance of publicity. For William Allen, one of its three co-directors and whose talk to the City Club had sparked the creation of the CBME, publicity was critical to the success of the reform movement. However, in 1914, John D. Rockefeller Sr. offered the New York Bureau a major ongoing donation but only under certain conditions. One was that the Bureau lower its public profile and be seen as less contentious and controversial. It should instead pursue reform through behind-the-scenes work by data-driven, disinterested, and dispassionate experts. Ignoring Allen’s protests, the Bureau’s leadership accepted Rockefeller’s offer. Allen was out.27 The NYBMR’s new “quiet” approach to municipal reform and professionalizing public service had dawned.28 Rockefeller’s dislike of using publicity to promote reform resembled the founders of the Milwaukee Bureau. Perhaps this anti-publicity reform modus operandi was a shared normative value for major contributors from the private sector. Perhaps they were intrinsically uncomfortable with public controversy. If so, this would suggest that support for the use of publicity as a tool for imposing reform on government might have an inherent appeal to the professional staffers of such bureaus who

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would not care about the consequences of public conflict in the same manner as the financial elite. In that case, the standard operating procedures of such local nonprofit bureaus of efficiency (and municipal research) would depend on which actor was truly in charge of the organization, the funders or the staff. Staff-dominated municipal research bureaus seemed to focus on a robust publicity effort to accomplish reform while donor-dominated bureaus of municipal research were more interested in quietly obtaining constructive results. This reluctance to use publicity manifested itself throughout all aspects of the Bureau’s operations. The CBME issued few public bulletins and reports throughout its existence, almost none in its first two years. Of the few publications the CBME issued, the name of the series was Co-operative Citizenship, suggesting a focus on voluntary cooperation rather than using the threat of negative publicity to accomplish reform. The subtitle of the series similarly expressed the mission and orientation of the Bureau, namely “For Efficiency in Government through Co-operation with Government.”29 In a rare press statement, the Bureau’s summary of improvements in municipal administration included this observation: “There are a number of things going on in the city government, of which citizens may or may not be informed; things which lead to better and more sufficient government.”30 In other words, the quiet, behind-the-scenes work of the Bureau was ongoing. Publicity was not necessary to inform the citizens of all the Bureau’s projects. At the November 1914 meeting of the board, the trustees restated their view “that no bulletin should be given out without an opportunity having been given to the Trustees to pass on the same.”31 Finally, a CBME brochure about its accomplishments in 1914-15 stated, “Owing to our policy of active cooperation and constructive effort, no systematic scheme of publicity has been organized, although such a course has been discussed and would, under certain conditions, undoubtedly increase the effectiveness of our work.”32 The aversion to publicity was a major “sin” in the orthodoxy of government reform as preached by the NYBMR before the decision to rely upon Rockefeller funding. Thomas Hinckley, the CBME’s first director and a graduate of the New York bureau’s training school, continuously chafed under the restrictions imposed by the board. For example, in his first report to the board in January 1914, he proposed that the Bureau’s operations should include “a publicity service.” The

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costs for such an activity were “well within the Bureau’s means, and the value of controlled publicity can not be overestimated.”33 At that meeting, the trustees adopted a tepid publicity program, which was much less robust than recommended by the director. But they also adopted policies going in the opposite direction. They proposed changes to the by-laws “governing the regulation of publicity” and creating a board advisory committee on publications.34 Specifically, before any Bureau report could be issued publicly, it had to be shared with all trustees, approved for release by the president and/or secretary, given to the head of the relevant city agency, and then only released publicly “after it has been considered advisable to make such report public.”35 A year later, in January 1915, Hinckley’s annual report to the board focused on the negative effects—in his view—of the board’s tripartite policy of (1) cooperation, (2) no publicity, and (3) tight reins on his own freedom of action. He said that the city comptroller was not cooperating with the Bureau and attributed that resistance “partly to the lack of adequate publicity.” In Hinckley’s opinion, unless he would be permitted to deal more publicly with lack of cooperation, the Bureau “will become classed as a ‘white-washing’ agency” because there would be no public and political price to pay for resisting changes it advocated. In general, he complained about the paucity of power the board had delegated him. For example, he not only needed to get advance approval from the board in such areas as publicity, but also was undermined because the comity of board members led to “one adverse opinion being sufficient to halt action.”36 By the end of 1915, it was clear that Hinckley and the trustees had contradictory conceptions of how to pursue governmental reform. In November, one insider wrote another that Hinckley “either has resigned or is about to do so.”37 Six weeks later, at the board’s annual meeting, Hinckley concluded his report by stating, “Employment of a Director in whom all members may repose that confidence which is essential to the success of any undertaking of this sort is, of course, a first essential.”38 He was gone within two months. In all, Hinckley and his publicity-oriented NYBMR style had lasted slightly more than two years as the CBME’s director.39 Hinckley’s conflicts with the board and eventual departure brought to the fore several other problems besides the use of—or aversion to— publicity. The disadvantages of having a small circle of businessmen

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who organized, funded, and governed the Bureau were becoming increasingly apparent. First, most of the original nine trustees were not actively involved in the external work of the Bureau. They attended most meetings of the board, but when staff arranged a meeting with city officials, only three trustees attended.40 Their absence conveyed to senior public officials that most trustees cared little about specific reforms, certainly not enough to attend a meeting. Although they said they backed the Bureau staff, most trustees were apparently not willing to throw their own (considerable) political weight behind the staff by being present at meetings with city officials. Hinckley stated it bluntly: attendance by trustees at such meetings conveyed the crucial “element of local interest and support.”41 However, with only nine trustees, all of whom led busy professional lives (and had other civic, social, charitable, and religious commitments), it was unrealistic to expect ongoing and high levels of attendance at working meetings at City Hall. The operational model preferred by the trustees simply could not be sustained if the Bureau was to be vigorous and effective. Second, and related to that, there was a fund-raising problem inherently connected to having a small group control the Bureau. The founders wanted to encourage others to get active in the Bureau, to become “associates,” and most importantly, to contribute to the costs of maintaining the agency. However, it would follow that these donors would then want some role in the CBME’s decision-making. The founders wanted to have it both ways. They wanted to run the Bureau but with substantial funding from others. That was not realistic. At the beginning, to avoid this problem, the founders essentially funded the CBME with their own contributions and only a minor portion came from others. This put a heavy financial burden on a small number of people. Although these were men of means, there were limits to their civic generosity. The Bureau had not even existed for a full year and already in the board of trustees meetings were extended discussions about possibly needing to reduce the CBME’s operating expenses to match the lower-than-expected revenue.42 By January 1916, they were openly asking “if the Bureau [should] be continued after” June of that year.43 After all, there was no rule that a nonprofit organization needed to exist indefinitely. In 1913, the founders had made a commitment to fund such an endeavor for about three years. Whether the Bureau should be continued after

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that period was an open question. Yet even in that situation, the founders decided against diluting their legal control of the Bureau.44 In other words, they would not give up their power, even at the risk of the CBME dissolving. They decided to engage in increased fundraising for what they called subscribers (as opposed to members, who might expect some role in decisions about “their” organization) and to try to fund the Bureau with an annual budget of about $10,000. The founders committed to finance it—whether through their own contributions or fund-raising—for “another three-year period.”45 The bad experience with Hinckley as the CBME director led the trustees to change the organizational structure as part of the transition to the new director, John F. Putnam, who was promoted from his previous position as staff accountant. From the perspective of the trustees, he worked out much better. After a year, they pronounced themselves pleased with his work.46 The trustees also decided that the board’s president receive a stipend of $1,500 per year and, in return, be actively involved in the work of the Bureau, especially maintaining close oversight of the director and publicity.47 With one of their own as an active president and with a new director they were beginning to trust, the board gradually loosened its control of the agency.48 The Bureau began issuing public reports with greater frequency and, related to that, increased its press releases. It even boasted in an annual report that it had been quoted in the press nineteen times!49 In 1917, it began issuing a monthly bulletin under the running title of Co-operative Citizenship.50 However, this form of publicity was far from the proactive approach advocated by acolytes of the New York Bureau’s old approach. For example, in the CBME’s 1919 annual report, its leadership confessed that it was still of two minds about the subject: “The problem of publicity is truly a delicate one for an organization such as ours. It is agreed that no marked change should be made from our present policy. However, … it seems that one of the main functions of every bureau is educational. We have not functioned along this line except indirectly for years… It is our belief that a change in policy was never so necessary as now.”51 Still, these modest publicity activities helped raise the Bureau’s public profile. The CBME was now seen as more of a player by the press and public-at-large, not just by insiders such as the economic elite and public officials.

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Also, efforts at expanding the funding base of the Bureau were slowly showing results, starting with thirty-nine contributors in 1913, growing to fifty-seven in fall 1917, seventy-nine at the end of that year, 250 in 1918, and 216 in 1919.52 By then the organization was getting closer to becoming a permanent body. The annual report for 1918 stated that the Bureau “is now adequately financed up to the end of 1920 and there are revenues available for carrying out a much broader program than hitherto.”53 The financial success was partly due to hiring an out-of-town professional fund-raiser to conduct a campaign.54 Other factors also played a part. Donors were now sometimes referred to as members (or as associate members) rather than just subscribers.55 This suggested they had more integral role in the Bureau. Similarly, outreach activities such as luncheons and frequent mailings to members helped convey a sense of involvement and identification with the CBME.56 Clearly, the Bureau was establishing itself as a permanent fixture in the civic landscape. In and of itself, that was a significant accomplishment.57 A review of the CBME’s budget and staffing from its creation in 1913-14 until it changed its name to Citizens’ Bureau in 1921 (Table 2-1) indicates stability. This too, reflects a degree of institutionalization. Still, as measured by its finances and employees, the CBME was a modest operation, essentially the inverse of a normal hierarchical organization. In most corporations (whether for-profit or nonprofit), the number of employees is greater than the size of the board of directors. In that respect, the shape was pyramidal, broader at the bottom and narrower at the top. However, for the CBME (as well as the CBPE, see Chapter 4), the pyramid was upside down, with a board of directors greater in number than professional staffers. Table 2-1 Size of the CBME Date 1913 1914 1915 1916 1917 1918 1919 1920 1921

Budget $2,40058 $12,331 $13,379 $12,499 $11,496 $12,600 $14,371 * *

Permanent Staff (FTE) NA 3 3 * 4-759 3 4 * 3

* Could not be determined

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The permanent staff, sometimes referred to as “agents,” conducted the bulk of the agency’s work.60 Depending on the agenda, staffers were at times configured based on particular expertise, rather than treated as generalists. For example, as an accountant, director Putnam worked closely with city agencies on a long-term project creating a systematic accounting system for all of city government. Sometimes he worked so closely with a particular office that he was practically an extension of that municipal agency, as when he was described as having “installed” the new accounting system in the Bureau of Sewers.61 Another staffer, Willits Pollack, had the title of “purchasing investigator,” indicating a specific—even narrow—expertise.62 The staff sometimes acted as the secretariat to various advisory bodies appointed by the mayor and other officials, such as his Advisory Committee on Finance.63 At other times, the CBME hired consultants to provide specific analyses and reports, such as professor of engineering L. S. Smith of the University of Wisconsin (Madison) who assessed pavement construction policies of the city’s Department of Public Works, and a financial specialist from the NYBMR.64 Other examples included J. L. Jacobs of the defunct Efficiency Division of the Chicago CSC (see next chapter), hired to critique the proposed civil service classification plan developed by the city’s Bureau of Municipal Research (the putative successor agency within the municipal government to MBEE), and engineer Ray Palmer to study various proposals for street illumination.65 On several occasions, the CBME’s role traversed the line separating the public and nonprofit sectors. At least once, it paid the salary of a clerk in the city’s civil service office to update its records and filing system.66 Several times, the CBME staff “prepared examinations for a number of [civil service] positions and have likewise acted as examiners in correcting papers.”67 Once, when the Common Council did not provide funding to staff the new Central Board of Purchases that had been mandated by state law, the CBME provided one of its staffers, who essentially served as the de facto executive secretary of the board.68 These instances show a complete blurring of the boundary between the public sector and a nonprofit organization.

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OUTPUTS: AGENCY REPORTS Like all efficiency bureaus and municipal research bureaus, the Milwaukee Citizens’ Bureau of Municipal Efficiency issued reports recommending specific reforms in government operations. However, the archival record of the CBME’s outputs is spotty.69 In all, only thirteen of its substantive reports could be located for this inquiry (see Appendix A, Table 4).70 These reports reveal the CBME’s agenda for civic reform and cleaning up city government. It advocated reducing political interference in departmental operations, professionalizing public administration, and creating a merit-based civil service system. The Bureau wanted government to conduct itself in a more business-like fashion. Five reports focused on centralizing and reorganizing duplicative or closely related activities. Two reports sought a major restructuring of city government. A pair of reports and portions of two more advocated installing a systematic accounting system. Adopting a civil service system was the focus of one report and was mentioned in three others. In particular, the focus on cutting (or at least controlling) spending is omnipresent in almost each of the thirteen reports. Hence, the CBME’s outputs reflected the larger reform trends in American society at the time as well as the work of peer organizations in the bureau movement. They glorified efficiency, promoted a supposed “scientific” approach to management, advocated reducing political influence in municipal operations, and promoted cutting the costs of government.

DENOUEMENT By the early 1920s, the CBME had institutionalized itself. It had broadened its funding base and employed a professional staff at a stable level. The trustees gradually developed confidence in the staff and reduced their tight control of agency operations. Several events prompted the leadership to rethink the organization’s title. First--probably inevitably--the CBME found itself interested in reforming other local units of government besides city government. For example, the annual report for 1919 noted that up to then the CBME “had taken no part in county activities.”71 Then it began expanding its scope of attention to Milwaukee County government, including its Civil Service Commission, Board of Administration,

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County Auditor, and Register of Deeds. This meant that the title of the organization, which focused on municipal efficiency, was no longer accurate. Second, the CBME’s title was relatively long and “found unwieldy.”72 More and more frequently, in its publications, the agency referred to itself as the “Citizens’ Bureau” rather than repeating the full title. For example, the annual report for 1917 repeatedly used that shortened phrase throughout the text.73 Third, Bureau staff sometimes felt the weight of what they called the efficiency man’s burden.74 Although perhaps stated partly in jest, the term played on the racist term white man’s burden then prevalent and widely used in imperialist circles. It certainly invoked, perhaps wearily, an unpleasant duty and obligation. The staff was sometimes referred to as the efficiency boys, often not as a compliment.75 Staffers felt that they were not merely promoting efficiency and that this term pigeonholed them with an image that was not an accurate reflection the Bureau’s true scope of interest. So in early 1921, members of the corporation and the board of trustees, probably at their conjoined annual meetings in January, voted to change the name of the organization.76 They “wished to change the name as little as possible” and therefore decided to shift from Milwaukee Citizens’ Bureau of Municipal Efficiency to Citizens’ Bureau of Milwaukee.77 By the end of the year, the new name was fully installed and the previous name disappeared from use.78 This narrative history concludes at this point since the organization had self-consciously evolved beyond its origins as an efficiency bureau. It survives to this day, having changed its name twice more, in 1946 to Citizens’ Governmental Research Bureau and in 1987 to Public Policy Forum.

IMPACT: ASSESSING THE BUREAU’S WORK How effective was the Citizens’ Bureau of Municipal Efficiency during its existence from 1913 to 1921? Based on the evaluation approach presented in the introduction, the first criterion focuses on the adoption of substantive recommendations (Table 2-2). This is neither easy to document nor an accurate measure of the validity of the recommendations. Nonetheless, as a first step, it is possible to track in part the implementation of recommendations contained in

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CBME’s thirteen major reports. The major defect of this documentation is that much of it originates from the Bureau itself, thus raising the possibility of coloring the results with the most positive interpretation possible. Still, a public assertion by the Bureau that one of its recommendations was adopted is likely to be essentially accurate. Table 2-2 Implementation of the CBME Recommendations Report Preliminary Survey of Certain Departments of the City of Milwaukee Consolidation of the Building Inspection, Boiler Inspection and Smoke Inspection Services Cost Accounting System, Department of Public Works Certain Features of Administration of the Milwaukee Fire Department Reorganization of the Bureau of Purchases and Supplies, Department of Public Works The Street Lighting Question: A Summary and Street Lighting Reports: A Pamphlet of Reference Central Control of Motor Vehicles Review of Movement for Standardization of Public Employments A More Effective Form of Municipal Organization for Milwaukee A Proposed Organization to Consolidate the Accounting, Stenographic, Clerical and Filing Work of the Department of Public Works A Discussion of the Referendums Relating to the Re-organization of the Common Council (Bulletin No. 8) Accounting System, Department of Health A Method of Controlling Food Consumption in Milwaukee County Institutions

Implementation By 1928, “approximately 70% of these recommendations have been adopted”79 Not adopted80 Installed81 Accounting-related recommendation implemented82 Partial adoption83 NA, since the report did not endorse any specific proposal Adopted “with some modifications”84 Adopted85 Not adopted Not adopted86 The option the Bureau supported did not win. The voters chose another reorganization approach.87 Adopted88 Could not be determined by this author

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In summary, of thirteen major reports, three were fully adopted, four were partially adopted, four were not adopted, and the remaining two could not be determined. This is a creditable result considering the inherent context of the CBME’s approach. It was proposing changes in the status quo to an entrenched political establishment. That is always, by definition, an uphill battle. Therefore, the results of the application of the criterion of substantive success should probably be viewed positively. Beyond a substantive evaluation, another question arises: did the CBME play a discernible role in creating public policy in Milwaukee during its existence from 1913 to 1921. Some indications are that it was a full-fledged participant in the governmental process in Milwaukee. Several actions by city elected officials suggest this. In response to the NYBMR’s study of Milwaukee’s city government, Mayor Bading wrote to the founders of the CBME indicating general endorsement of the report’s recommendations.89 The mayor’s January 1917 message to the Common Council cited the stance of CBME to bolster his position on a specific issue.90 A representative of the CBME was appointed to the mayor’s Advisory Committee on Finance and later to the mayor’s Civic Advisory Committee.91 Similarly, whether the view of aldermen toward the CBME was positive or negative, their actions confirm a central role for the Bureau. For example, the Common Council’s finance committee directed the city attorney to consult with the CBME when drafting an ordinance on uniform compensation rates for civil servants.92 An alderman asked the CBME to provide a proposal for centralizing the managing of the city’s motor vehicles. At other times, city politicians publicly criticized the CBME for the positions it advocated, a signal of some degree of import and clout.93 Regarding city agencies and city policies, the CBME partnered with the city government’s BMR in specific projects.94 It convened a conference to discuss conflicting proposals for installing street lighting, and all major parties to the controversy attended voluntarily.95 The CBME also received letters of appreciation from several department heads for the assistance it provided in installing improved management practices in their departments.96 Finally, Milwaukee daily newspapers occasionally printed the Bureau’s press releases and columns (the latter akin to contemporary op-ed features). For example, on January 26, 1914, the Milwaukee

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Free Press printed the CBME’s column titled “Progress in City Government.”97 In 1916, there was extensive newspaper coverage of the CBME’s opposition to a personnel standardization plan developed by the city’s BMR.98 These examples demonstrate that the CBME played an instrumental role in Milwaukee public affairs during its existence.

THE MEANING OF EFFICIENCY The Milwaukee Citizens’ Bureau of Municipal Efficiency used a definition of efficiency that evinced the values of the businessmen who formed it. As is reflected in the studies it generated (Appendix A, Table 4), the Bureau focused narrowly on improving management practices in city government. The titles of those reports included such terms as consolidation, cost accounting, effective, reorganization, central control, and standardization. These were terms that grew out of engineering and scientific management. The CBME’s approach to efficiency was the opposite of the public sector Milwaukee Bureau of Economy and Efficiency that had preceded it. The CBME’s doctrine differed from the Socialists’ bureau in that the ideology of businessmen focused on promoting efficiency in city government. To these men, efficiency meant cutting spending, holding down taxes, and eliminating waste. The pursuit of good government meant small and cheap government that was as efficient as business. Productivity and cost effectiveness were CBME’s goals, not social justice. Hence, the concept of efficiency used by CBME was the conservative definition of efficiency as contrasted by the left-wing definition used by MBEE and John Commons. The Bureau’s right-of-center approach to efficiency, derived from engineering and scientific management, gradually became deeply embedded in the American political economy and its political culture. For example, a century later, NASA’s slogan was “cheaper, better, faster.”

NONPROFIT VS. GOVERNMENTAL EFFICIENCY BUREAUS The Milwaukee Citizens’ Bureau of Municipal Efficiency was an example of a nonprofit local bureau of efficiency. Given the definition of efficiency that informed its work, the Bureau’s placement outside

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government reflects a natural choice. The CBME’s sectoral affiliation was a logical result of its raison d’être. Just as the Milwaukee Bureau of Economy and Efficiency had to be in the public sector due to its goals and purposes, the CBME could only be a nonprofit organization in order to pursue the goals of its founders and funders. The mercantile and industrial elite of the city wanted the municipal corporation to operate as efficiently as their own businesses. This advocacy had to come from the outside, preventing politicians from controlling the agenda. Furthermore, the Bureau had the trappings of a private corporation, the only difference being that it could not make a profit and the members of the corporation could not benefit financially from its operations. In Milwaukee, the sectoral membership of its two bureaus of efficiency provided just about all the information necessary to understand the purposes, goals, and ideology of the two organizations. In short, for these two case studies, sectoral affiliation was a fundamental choice that dictated the inherent nature of an organization.

notes 1 Gill, 18. By writing about fund-raising in the passive tense, Gill was able to avoid identifying the fund-raisers, the contributors, and whether that initiative was indeed by the City Club or not. 2 Still; Frederick I. Olson, “City Expansion and Suburban Spread: Settlements and Governments in Milwaukee County,” Ralph M. Aderman, editor, Trading Post to Metropolis: Milwaukee County’s First 150 Years (Milwaukee, WI: Milwaukee County Historical Society, 1987), 79. 3 Donald B. Vogel, “Supervisors, Administrators, and the Executive: The Governing of Milwaukee County,” Ralph M. Aderman, editor, Trading Post to Metropolis: Milwaukee County’s First 150 Years (Milwaukee, WI: Milwaukee County Historical Society, 1987), 106. “Social-Democratic” was the formal title of the Socialists’ municipal slate. 4 Proceedings of the Common Council of the City of Milwaukee for the Year Ending April 14, 1913, 645-46. 5 “Introduction; Citizen Agencies for Research in Government,” v. 6 John F. Putnam, “The Milwaukee Citizens’ Bureau of Municipal Efficiency,” Municipal Research 77 (September 1916), 74. 7 Keeran. 8 Ibid., 40.

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9 Putnam, 75. 10 New York [City] Bureau of Municipal Research, Report on a Preliminary Survey of Certain Departments of the City of Milwaukee. 11 Ibid., 128. The new nonprofit bureau in Milwaukee was precluded from having the identical title as the NYBMR since there was already a Bureau of Municipal Research in Milwaukee, the agency within city government that was created to supposedly replace the work of the Socialists’ Bureau of Economy and Efficiency. 12 Ibid., 128-31. 13 “City to Have a Public Bureau,” Christian Science Monitor, March 13, 1913, 10; letter from Walter Stern to George P. Miller, April 7, 1913, 1913-1914 Minutes (loose-leaf binder), Minutes Books drawer, Public Policy Forum (the contemporary name of CBME). (Hereafter PPF.) 14 A meeting called for June 24, 1913, to found the Bureau was cancelled due to lack of attendance. Minutes of Meeting of November 14, 1913, 1, 1913-1914 Minutes (loose-leaf binder), Minutes Books drawer, PPF. 15 NYBMR, Report on a Preliminary Survey of Certain Departments of the City of Milwaukee, 5. 16 “Articles of Incorporation,” Stevens Point [WI] Journal, June 7, 1913, 3. An early draft of the 1912 ordinance creating the city’s Bureau of Municipal Research (as the putative successor to the socialists’ MBEE) called it the Bureau of Municipal Efficiency and Accounts. Draft ordinance prepared by the city attorney, August 1912, microfilm of Milwaukee Common Council files, Computer record 8620, Vault location 909-B, City Records Center, City of Milwaukee, emphasis added. It is possible the phrase municipal efficiency appealed to the citizens’ committee. Since the term was ultimately not used in the title of the new municipal entity (eventually called the Bureau of Municipal Research), the term was available to be used in the name of the new nonprofit efficiency bureau. 17 “Articles of Incorporation,” Stevens Point [WI] Journal, June 7, 1913, 3. 18 Quoted in Norman N. Gill, “Notes from CGRB History,” 1987, 2, Box 199, PPF. CGRB are the initials for Citizens’ Governmental Research Bureau, one of CBME’s later names. 19 These titles are somewhat archaic (even confusing) based on nonprofit sector nomenclature circa early twenty-first century. A board of trustees is nowadays usually called board of directors. The title of the head of the staff has generally shifted from director to executive director and then to CEO, president, or executive vice president.

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20 Alexander Kayssar and Ernest R. May, “Education for Public Service in the History of the United States,” John D. Donahue and Joseph S. Nye, editors, For the People: Can We Fix Public Service? (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 2003), 231. 21 “National Program to Improve Methods of Government,” Ch. 10; Harry H. Freeman, Twenty Years of Municipal Research (New York: Governmental Research Conference, 1927), 13; Gill, Ch. 4; Kahn, Ch. 4; Daniel W. Williams, “Evolution of Performance Management Until 1930,” Administration & Society 36:2 (May 2004), 153-54. 22 Minutes of meeting of November 14, 1913, 10, emphasis added, 1913-1914 Minutes (loose-leaf binder), Minutes Books drawer, PPF. 23 Ibid., 11. 24 Thomas J. Jablonsky, Milwaukee’s Jesuit University: Marquette, 18811981 (Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press, 2007), 77. 25 Minutes of the Annual [Corporate] Meeting, January 12, 1915, 19, emphasis added, Annual Minutes 1914-1939 Book, Minutes Books drawer, PPF. 26 Citizens’ Bureau of Municipal Efficiency, A Report to the Public [Annual Report for 1914] (Milwaukee, WI: Citizens’ Bureau of Municipal Efficiency, 1915), insert, emphasis in original. The insert was a half-page typescript sheet addressed to “Mr. Citizen” (underlining in original) and placed immediately after the Table of Contents. The insert was in the copy of the annual report in the pamphlet collection of the Wisconsin Historical Society (hereafter WHS). It was not in copies located in other collections. 27 Allen then founded his own Institute for Public Service in New York City and used it as a platform to promote his views on government reform. But the Institute never attained the influence that the NYBMR had. Allen continued expressing his opinions in the Institute’s newsletter (called Public Service) through the early 1960s. He died in 1963 (“Page 7 of a Summary of the News During Period of the New York Newspaper Strike: Obituaries,” New York Times, April 1, 1963, 35). 28 Kahn, 133-37; Alasdair Roberts, “Demonstrating Neutrality: The Rockefeller Philanthropies and the Evolution of Public Administration, 1927–36,” Public Administration Review 54:3 (May/June 1994), 221– 28. 29 For example, see number 6 in the series. Citizens’ Bureau of Municipal Efficiency, What City Officials Think of The Work of the Milwaukee Citizens’ Bureau of Municipal Efficiency (Milwaukee, WI: Citizens’ Bureau

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of Municipal Efficiency, 1917), front cover, emphasis added. The term mission statement is, of course, derived from the strategic planning vocabulary of the 1990s. Although imposed retrospectively in this historical narrative, such a usage in this case is intended to contribute to clarity of meaning. 30 “Progress in City Government,” [Milwaukee, WI] Free Press, January 26, 1914. 31 Minutes of the Meeting of the Board of Trustees, November 17, 1914, 53, 1913-1914 Minutes (loose-leaf binder), Minutes Books drawer, PPF. 32 Citizens’ Bureau of Municipal Efficiency, Helping Milwaukee: A Record of Co-operation with Government, 1914-15 (Milwaukee, WI: Citizens’ Bureau of Municipal Efficiency, 1915), 7, emphasis added. 33 Minutes of the Meeting of the Board of Trustees, January 13, 1914, 4, Annual Minutes 1914-1939 Book, Minutes Books drawer, PPF, emphasis added. 34 Ibid., 11. 35 Ibid., 13. 36 Minutes of the Annual Corporation Meeting, January 12, 1915, 1718, Annual Minutes 1914-1939 Book, Minutes Books drawer, PPF. 37 Letter from Erich C. Stern to Albert Friedmann, November 24, 1915, Box 199, PPF. 38 Minutes of the Annual Meeting, January 11, 1916, 35, Annual Minutes 1914-1939 Book, Minutes Books drawer, PPF. 39 Hinckley went on to work for the American City Bureau and the Middletown (Connecticut) Chamber of Commerce. “Governmental Research Conference Notes,” National Municipal Review 10:8 (August 1921) 441-42. In 2007, the American City Bureau described itself as “the oldest, continually operating, full service fund-raising consulting firm in the world of philanthropy,” having been founded in 1913, retrieved June 10, 2007: http://www.acb-inc.com/about.html. The .com suffix suggests that it is a for-profit corporation, since most nonprofits have a .org suffix in their URLs. 40 Minutes of the Annual Corporation Meeting, January 12, 1915, 1820, Annual Minutes 1914-1939 Book, Minutes Books drawer, PPF. 41 Ibid., 18, emphasis in original. 42 Minutes of the Meeting of the Board of Trustees, October 8, 1914, 45, 1913-1914 Minutes (loose-leaf binder), Minutes Books drawer, PPF.

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43 Minutes of the Annual Corporation Meeting, January 11, 1916, 43, Annual Minutes 1914-1939 Book, Minutes Books drawer, PPF. 44 Ibid., 41. 45 Putnam, 82. 46 Minutes of the Annual Corporation Meeting, January 9, 1917, 56, Annual Minutes 1914-1939 Book, Minutes Books drawer, PPF. 47 Minutes of the Annual Corporation Meeting, January 29, 1918, 85, Annual Minutes 1914-1939 Book, Minutes Books drawer, PPF; Letter from Erich C. Stern to Albert Friedmann, November 24, 1915, Box 199, PPF. 48 The paid president stepped down at the beginning of 1918. Minutes of the Board of Trustees’ Meeting, January 29, 1918, 93, Annual Minutes 1914-1939 Book, Minutes Books drawer, PPF. At least one other president accepted the stipend. Minutes of the Annual Meeting of the Board of Trustees, January 27, 1919, 95, Annual Minutes 1914-1939 Book, Minutes Books drawer, PPF. 49 CBME, Helping Milwaukee, 9. 50 Minutes of the Annual Corporation Meeting, January 29, 1918, 83, Annual Minutes 1914-1939 Book, Minutes Books drawer, PPF. 51 Citizens’ Bureau of Municipal Efficiency, Annual Report [for 1919] of the Milwaukee Citizens’ Bureau of Municipal Efficiency (Milwaukee, WI: Citizens’ Bureau of Municipal Efficiency, 1919), 20-21. 52 Citizens’ Bureau of Municipal Efficiency: What the Milwaukee Citizens’ Bureau of Municipal Efficiency Is Doing For The City And Some of Its Plans for Future Work [Annual Report for Fiscal Year 1917], Bulletin No. 5 (Milwaukee, WI: Citizens’ Bureau of Municipal Efficiency, 1917), last page; What Milwaukee Has Done And What It Needs To Do Adequately To Control Its Expenditure of $2,500,000 for Salaries, Bulletin No. 7 (Milwaukee, WI: Citizens’ Bureau of Municipal Efficiency, 1917), back cover; Annual Report [for 1918] of the Milwaukee Citizens’ Bureau of Municipal Efficiency (Milwaukee, WI: Citizens’ Bureau of Municipal Efficiency, 1919), 2; Annual Report [for 1919], 24-25. 53 CBME, Annual Report [for 1918], 2. 54 Minutes of the Annual Corporation Meeting, January 29, 1918, 8990, Annual Minutes 1914-1939 Book, Minutes Books drawer, PPF. The decision to hire a professional fund-raiser from out-of-town might have been inspired by Marquette University’s decision two years earlier to do that for the first time. Its experiment with the new approach to fund-raising was very successful. Jablonsky, 96-98.

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55 CBME, Annual Report [for 1919], 24. 56 Minutes of the Annual Corporation Meeting, January 29, 1918, 8384, Annual Minutes 1914-1939 Book, Minutes Books drawer, PPF. 57 The organization exists to this day, renamed the Public Policy Forum (PPF), retrieved June 23, 2007: http://www.publicpolicyforum.org/. 58 Cost of the survey of City of Milwaukee government by the NYBMR. Minutes of Meeting of November 14, 1913, 8, 1913-1914 Minutes (loose-leaf binder), Minutes Books drawer, PPF. 59 The standard staff listing in Bulletin No. 2 of Cooperative Citizenship which was issued in February 1917 named seven people (back cover), whereas Bulletin No. 5, set to print in September, listed four (back cover). 60 CBME, Report to the Public, Foreword. 61 Minutes of the Annual Meeting, January 11, 1916, 39, Annual Minutes 1914-1939 Book, Minutes Books drawer, PPF. 62 Citizens’ Bureau of Municipal Efficiency, The Work of the Citizens [sic] Bureau and its Plans for Future Work [Annual Report for 1917], Bulletin No. 9 (Milwaukee, WI: Citizens’ Bureau of Municipal Efficiency, 1918), 1. 63 Letter from Thomas L. Hinckley to Mayor Gerhard Bading, November 27, 1915, Folder 5, PPF Files, Milwaukee County Historical Society. The letter was on CBME letterhead and Hinckley signed it using his Committee title, Acting Secretary. 64 Minutes of the Annual Corporation Meeting, January 12, 1915, 2129, Annual Minutes 1914-1939 Book, Minutes Books drawer, PPF; Putnam, 76. 65 CBME, What the Milwaukee Citizens’ Bureau of Municipal Efficiency Is Doing, 3-5; Minutes of the Annual Meeting, January 11, 1916, 39, Annual Minutes 1914-1939 Book, Minutes Books drawer, PPF. 66 CBME, Annual Report [for 1918], 7. 67 CBME, Annual Report [for 1919], 15. 68 CBME, Work of the Citizens [sic] Bureau, 6. 69 For example, Bulletin No. 5 of the Cooperative Citizenship series listed eight reports issued by the Bureau in 1916-17. CBME, What the Milwaukee Citizens’ Bureau of Municipal Efficiency Is Doing, 4-5. Based on their titles, one can surmise that some of those reports did not contain recommendations for change in the operations of city government, the category that would be of interest for this analysis. Some referred to chapters or brief updates in national publications, others to—apparently—summa-

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ries of already cited reports. John F. Putnam, “The Civic Advisory Committee of the Mayor of Milwaukee,” National Municipal Review 6:3 (May 1917), 428-29; Willits Pollock, “Present Use of Experts in Municipal Administration,” Edward A. Fitzpatrick, editor, Experts in City Government (New York: D. Appleton, 1919), 71-104. This problem of so-called phantom reports recurred throughout the research into the history of CBME. In some instances, annual reports referred to professional studies issued by the Bureau that could not be located. 70 Due to the modest amount of material that was unearthed, the list of CBME reports included not only those that were typeset and published (with a presumably wide circulation), but also reports that were mimeographed or in typescript and released to readers outside the Bureau, although probably with only a small number of copies available. This author hopes that future researchers will locate more of CBME’s substantive reports. 71 CBME, Annual Report [for 1919], 3. 72 Robert T. Crane, “Governmental Research Notes,” National Municipal Review 10:6 (June 1921), 350. 73 CBME, What the Milwaukee Citizens’ Bureau of Municipal Efficiency Is Doing For The City. 74 Putnam, “Milwaukee Citizens’ Bureau,” 78. 75 “Thirty Citizen-Supported Municipal Research Organizations,” January 5, 1945, 1, Box 199, CGRB [Citizens’ Governmental Research Bureau] History file, PPF. 76 In his master’s thesis at the University of Chicago, David Truman mistakenly sets the year at 1924 and also mistakenly writes that the Bureau was founded that year. Truman, 52. He became a major figure in political science, including writing the award-winning The Governmental Process and serving as president of the American Political Science Association in 1964-65. He was married to Elinor Jane Griffenhagen, the daughter of Edwin Griffenhagen. “Edwin O. Griffenhagen, 96; Consultant for Management,” New York Times, February 11, 1982, B5. Edwin Griffenhagen had worked at the Chicago Civil Service Commission’s Efficiency Division (see Chapter 3) in the 1910s and went on to a national career as an efficiency expert for civil service systems. Alasdair Roberts, So-Called Experts: How American Consultants Remade the Canadian Civil Service, 1918-21, Monograph No. 18 (Toronto, ON: Institute of Public Administration of Canada, 1996), 18.

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77 “Thirty Citizen-Supported Municipal Research Organizations,” January 5, 1945, 1, Box 199, CGRB History file, PPF; Crane, 350. The minute books of the Public Policy Forum (PPF), while quite comprehensive, do not contain the records of the annual meetings for 1921. Also, this researcher was unable to locate an annual report for 1920 (which, based on the pattern of previous annual reports, would have been published in early 1921) that would logically have discussed the name change. 78 Citizens’ Bureau of Milwaukee, Milwaukee’s Tax Problem [Annual Report for 1921] (Milwaukee, WI: Citizens’ Bureau of Milwaukee, 1921). In 1931-32, the Bureau’s offices were on the 6th floor of Milwaukee’s Plankinton Building, 161 West Wisconsin Avenue, the same building and floor as this researcher’s office, 70 years later! 79 Cutting, 25. 80 CBME, Report to the Public, 17-18. 81 Putnam, “Milwaukee Citizens’ Bureau,” 76. 82 CBME, Work of the Citizens [sic] Bureau, 4. 83 Ibid., 5-6. 84 CBME, What the Milwaukee Citizens’ Bureau of Municipal Efficiency Is Doing, 2. 85 CBME, Work of the Citizens [sic] Bureau, 7-8. 86 CBME: What the Milwaukee Citizens’ Bureau of Municipal Efficiency Is Doing, 3; Work of the Citizens [sic] Bureau, 7. 87 W. J. Bollenbeck, “Milwaukee’s Councilmanic Reform,” National Municipal Review 7:3 (May 1918), 323-24. 88 CBME, Annual Report [for 1918], 2-3. 89 NYBMR, Report on a Preliminary Survey of Certain Departments of the City of Milwaukee, 6-7. 90 Proceedings of the Common Council of the City of Milwaukee for the Year Ending April 9, 1917 (Milwaukee, WI: Phoenix Printing Co., 1917? [1916 printed on the title page, but the volume covers part of 1917]), 1153. 91 Citizens’ Bureau of Municipal Efficiency, Bulletin of Information Concerning the Milwaukee Citizens’ Bureau of Municipal Efficiency (Milwaukee, WI: Citizens’ Bureau of Municipal Efficiency, 1914), 4-5; Putnam, “Civic Advisory Committee.” 92 Letter from the City Clerk to G. S. Camright, Assistant City Attorney, December 18, 1916, microfilm computer record #8647, Vault location 909-B, City Records Center, City of Milwaukee.

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93 Minutes of the Annual Corporation Meeting, January 12, 1915, 17, Annual Minutes 1914-1939 Book, Minutes Books drawer, PPF. 94 Bureau of Municipal Research, City of Milwaukee, Annual Report, August 1914 To June 1915 (Milwaukee, WI: C. H. Kronenberger, 1915), 23. 95 Street Lighting Reports: A Pamphlet of Reference (see Appendix A, Table 4), 109-29. 96 Putnam, “Milwaukee Citizens’ Bureau,” 80-82; CBME, What City Officials Think of The Work of the Milwaukee Citizens’ Bureau of Municipal Efficiency. 97 Folder 4, PPF Files, Milwaukee County Historical Society. 98 Civil Service – Salary Standardization microfiche file, newspaper clippings collection, Library, Legislative Reference Bureau, City of Milwaukee.

3 THE CHICAGO CIVIL SERVICE COMMISSION’S EFFICIENCY DIVISION, 1910-1916

B

etween 1910 and 1916, Chicago’s Civil Service Commission (CSC) included an efficiency office. However, it was a division of the Commission, not a bureau. Nonetheless reformers, newspapers, municipal officials, and historians frequently referred to it as the bureau of efficiency.1 Given the closeness of the titles, it appeared justified to include the CSC’s Efficiency Division in this study. Not only was it called an efficiency bureau, but the advantage of having two complete pairs of efficiency bureaus in the same city, one governmental and one nonprofit, argues for a modest irregularity in this study of public and nonprofit sector efficiency bureaus.2

CREATION In twentieth-century American politics, the municipal government of Chicago was been viewed as a persistent venue for political machines, with accompanying charges of corruption, graft, waste, and sometimes organized crime. The seemingly endless conflict between political “regulars” and “reformers” has remained a permanent element of Chicago politics.3 The story of the Chicago Civil Service Commission’s Efficiency Division was one round in this “Hundred Years’ War.” In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Chicago was a fine specimen of machine-based urban politics.4 In reaction, good government reformers created an infrastructure of interlocking organizations to press for cleaning up the city’s electoral politics and professionalizing the administration of government agencies. One prominent citizen who became active in the reform movement in the early twentieth century was Charles E. Merriam, a University of Chicago political science professor. He became involved in Chicago politics as a reformer, applying what he had been teaching in his classrooms. In 1905, the City Club of Chicago, one of several active

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reform and good government organizations, announced a study of city government. To support its work, Merriam collected and provided an in-depth report on municipal revenues. In 1906, pleased with Merriam’s work, Illinois Governor Charles Deneen appointed him to serve on the Chicago Charter Convention. In 1907, he became secretary of the city’s Harbor Commission. Then, in 1909, Merriam ran for alderman and won. He quickly settled into his position on the City Council and pushed energetically for a reform agenda. One of his proposals was a seemingly innocuous motion to create a commission to study municipal finances. To Merriam’s own surprise, it passed.5 The Commission on City Expenditures, quickly dubbed the Merriam Commission for its chairman, began a broad investigation of all aspects of municipal operations and issued seventeen reports documenting waste, fraud, and abuse in city offices.6 Separately, in 1909, the City Council created a Municipal Efficiency Commission (MEC) with a narrow mandate to seek ways to strengthen the city’s relatively young civil service system, which had been established in the mid-1890s.7 The Council’s Commission was the first official municipal body in the United States to use the term efficiency in its title.8 In those days, the meaning of efficiency in the public sector was often closely connected to the operations of civil service systems. For example, a system that would judge the work of civil servants in a comprehensive, objective, and fair way was called efficiency ratings. Other related terms that connected the concept of efficiency with public personnel administration included efficiency of service, efficiency systems, efficiency records, and efficiency grading. One of the chapters in the MEC’s final report was titled “Individual, Group and Departmental Efficiency.”9 In general, at that time, efficiency was often viewed as a concept that was closely tied to personnel management, especially evaluating employee performance. For example, a City of Milwaukee report on standardizing salaries began with the sentence, “Efficient municipal service begins with the individual.”10 Similarly, when Congress wanted the U.S. Civil Service Commission to establish an efficiency ratings system for federal employees, it created a Division of Efficiency within the federal CSC.11 Chicago’s Municipal Efficiency Commission, focusing on personnel aspects of efficiency, pressed for increasing professionalism within the city’s civil service system. It sought to develop a comprehensive system of standardized and uniform job descriptions, career tracks,

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titles, compensation rates, and promotion processes. In its first written report to the City Council in November 1909, the MEC recommended that its kind of work “should not be periodical [sic], but permanent.”12 The (nonprofit) Chicago Civil Service Reform League, a local reform group, vigorously supported the MEC’s recommendation. The League had been arguing that local civil service systems, established by Illinois state law, were not taking full advantage of Section 14 in that law, a section that provided for investigations into the operation of civil service at various levels of government. The League argued that a comprehensively organized civil service commission should have a significant investigative capacity so that it could assess the implementation of the civil service system in that local government. To pursue this recommendation, the League developed a model ordinance that would establish a “bureau of efficiency” as a separate entity within any local CSC created under the state law. The role of such a BOE would be to assure that effective efficiency ratings were implemented in all agencies and departments.13 By late 1909, the cumulative impact of the Merriam Commission’s reports (money was being wasted) as well as of the Municipal Efficiency Commission and the Chicago Civil Service Reform League (more efficient civil servants were needed) gradually catalyzed a political consensus among some machine and non-reform aldermen for a permanent entity in city government that would promote both personnel-related efficiency in the civil service as well as efficiency in its broader meaning.14 In December 1909, the City Council voted to create a permanent office within the city’s Civil Service Commission that would promote efficiency in the municipal workforce.15 Then, in January 1910, a committee of the City Council held two days of hearings on a proposal to fund the decision approved the previous month with an appropriation of $50,000 for 1910. The hearings were dominated by testimony from civic and business leaders, good government groups, and a scattering of public officials.16 Editorials in most of the daily newspapers also endorsed the idea. After the hearings, the committee recommended and the City Council approved an appropriation of $23,800 for the year.

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ORGANIZATION AND OPERATIONS The city’s Civil Service Commission had an initial problem creating staff categories for the employees in its new Efficiency Division. After all, one of the principles of a “scientific” merit system was to create job titles, job descriptions, and career tracks that reflected universal, generic, and applicable definitions. Here was a new profession within government employment that needed to be regularized and standardized. Seeking to build on something related and familiar, the Chicago CSC decided that because Efficiency Division staff would be Commission employees, it would be logical that the job categories of Division staff would be similar to other CSC employees. One of the most common positions within the CSC was that of examiner. These professionals developed job descriptions, created examinations for candidates seeking to be qualified for hiring, and implemented those examinations. For example, the administrative head of the entire CSC staff was called Chief Examiner. Therefore, the new job categories for the Efficiency Division were built upon the examiner classification. Eventually, the Chicago CSC established several new standardized positions in the city’s classified service, with such titles as efficiency examiner and examiner of clerical efficiency.17 For each new job category, Commission staff created qualification standards and entrance examinations. The Commission then proceeded through the formal civil service process to hire individuals for the new division from those who had passed pre-employment requirements and tests and had been placed on appropriate eligibility lists. The administrative title for the head of the Efficiency Division (as opposed to the individual’s job classification) was Examiner in Charge of Efficiency Division. The number two person in the division was called Efficiency Engineer in Charge. The latter title reflected the engineering roots of scientific management (beginning with its founder, Frederick Winslow Taylor) with the CSC viewing engineers as having the right training to make the “machinery” of government operate more efficiently. The Division was subdivided into two sections: a Clerical and Accounting Section, and the Technical Section. Some of the job titles created in the classified service reflected the putative specializations of these two sections. The two distinctly different missions of the Division—enhancing the professionalization

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of the city’s personnel system and identifying inefficient operations in city agencies—reflected this dual structure. The Clerical and Accounting Section focused upon the next steps in the development of Chicago’s civil service system, such as standardized job categories, position descriptions, career ladders, and efficiency ratings. The Technical Section focused on what are now called “audits” of city departments, seeking to identify waste and graft and to recommend ways to improve the efficient operations of those organizations. Its head was called Examiner in Charge, Technical Section. Upon establishment of an Efficiency Division, the Civil Service Commission named James Miles (a former army major) as Examiner in Charge of the Division and J. Lewis Jacobs as Efficiency Engineer in Charge.18 Jacobs gradually came to dominate the work of the Division. However little is known about his background or training. Some published reports refer to him as an engineer, but more frequently they describe him as an efficiency engineer.19 It is possible that the latter moniker was loosely applied nomenclature and did not reflect any formal professional training in engineering or an engineering-related credential. It is significant that when Jacobs presented a paper at a meeting of a professional engineering society, no initials of certification or professional status were printed after his name, whereas these kinds of recognition frequently appeared in the proceedings after the names of other presenters and even from some of the questioners in the audience.20 If so, Jacobs represented the newly emerging category of people who claimed to be professional efficiency experts, applying supposed scientific principles to government. However, representing themselves as professionals were merely self-assertions—reflecting the hollowness of the scientific management movement in the public sector. It is important to differentiate Jacobs’ claims of being an engineer from any real engineering training that was recognized then or now. In contrast, another member of the Division’s staff was Edwin Griffenhagen. Hired at age 24, he had received a degree in civil engineering from Chicago’s Armour Institute of Technology. He had already worked briefly as a mining engineer, an office engineer for a railroad, and an architectural engineer. Griffenhagen later went on to significant prominence in national civil service reform circles.21 The Efficiency Division’s staff and budget were relatively modest in size (see Table 3-1), in line with figures already presented for

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the governmental and nonprofit bureaus of efficiency in Milwaukee (see Chapters 1-2). In addition to permanent full-time employees who were part of the classified staff, the Division occasionally hired temporary staff with expertise relevant to specific studies and investigations it was conducting. For example, it hired “police and fire experts” for its six-month investigation of the police department and a civil engineer for several other projects.22 Table 3-1 Size of the Efficiency Division Date 1910 1911 1912 1913 1914 1915 1916

Budget23 $23,800 $33,000 $30,000 (approx.) Less than $30,000 $30,000 (approx.) $30,000 (approx.) * * Could not be determined

Permanent Staff (FTE) 5 * * * * 5-19 8

The Division’s philosophy, according to Jacobs, was to avoid acting like a chastising outsider. In his view, the prerequisite for making constructive contributions to departmental efficiency was for the Division to work with the departmental management, instead of being perceived as a slash and burn critic. Rather than dictating changes and improvements, he wanted the Division to suggest possibilities to senior managers. Finally, Jacobs said he and his staff tried to avoid publicity and sought to assure that public credit for improvements went to department heads.24 Whether this overall philosophy was universally applied by the Division or accepted by department heads is less clear. The perceived success of the Chicago CSC’s Efficiency Division led to the establishment of efficiency divisions within the civil service commissions of the metropolitan area’s three independent park districts (South, West, and Lincoln).25 Griffenhagen was hired subsequently as superintendent of employment with the South Park District’s civil service commission, where he pursued policies similar to those he advocated at the Efficiency Division of Chicago’s CSC.26

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OUTPUTS: AGENCY REPORTS Based on summaries and lists of its outputs (see Appendix A), the Efficiency Division was engaged in scores of projects and inquiries. For example, in a synopsis of work performed as of March 1911, the Division listed work outputs in twenty-three general categories of municipal operations, with several projects within some of those general categories.27 The CSC’s annual report for 1912 listed twelve divisional projects conducted that year.28 A different Commission report identified fifty projects from 1910 through the end of 1912.29 These inconsistent figures might be based on a distinction between the Division’s public reports and its unpublished ones.30 In order to enumerate and analyze the Division’s outputs in categories that are generally the same for the other efficiency bureaus included in this study, the selected universe has been that of separately published reports and other similar publications.31 The CSC’s annual report for 1914 touted the Efficiency Division’s successes. The Commission stated that the Division “has become an integral part of the municipal government,” suggesting it was so institutionalized that it was now a permanent feature of Chicago city government.32 Yet by the time this observation was published in the journal of the National Municipal League, it was no longer true. An election had intervened and everything changed.

DENOUEMENT The victory by the reformers in creating the Efficiency Division did not deter the machine and regulars on the City Council from seeking to terminate this unit. In late 1914, in the run-up to the next municipal election, the Chicago Federation of Labor (CFL) sent a letter to the City Council asking it to abolish the Division.33 From the point of view of organized labor, the Division’s work had the effect of slimming down the municipal workforce, thus reducing the number of jobs available for union members. Labor unions had been major political players in Chicago politics for many years. This CFL letter was referred to the Council’s Finance Committee on March 22, 1915. After the spring, 1915 elections, at the April 12 meeting of the lame-duck Council, the Finance Committee recommended placing the CFL’s letter on file, which meant taking no position and no action. This recommendation was approved without controversy.34

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Nonetheless, the CFL letter had accomplished something. Organized labor had revived public discussion about abolishing the Division and had done so before knowing the election results. So, if the election went their way, no one could accuse the unions of suddenly taking advantage of situation. The CFL could claim, credibly, that it was already pushing for such an action before the election. Chicago’s mayoral election on April 6, 1915, brought a victory by Republican William H. Thompson. During the campaign, Thompson had appeared sympathetic to the reformers’ cause and an opponent of the Democratic machine. But he was not really a reformer. That became clear after he took office. He wanted to build an ethnic-based machine to support his own career.35 Thompson’s appointees to the Civil Service Commission quickly made apparent his real goals. On May 7, 1915, it laid off about half of the Division’s staff, claiming that decision was necessary “for lack of work and lack of funds”—silly and transparently false assertions.36 The new CSC majority also suspended Jacobs, claiming irregularities in his overtime and expense accounts.37 Other actions included appointing 9,200 Chicago residents to “temporary” jobs, exempting them from normal civil service requirements such as qualifications and passing examinations. This gave the new mayor enormous patronage clout. Merriam and his allies attacked those CSC decisions as “shameless, brazen and obscene.”38 Another reformer condemned the CSC as “reactionary,” a criticism that was literally accurate, in the sense that the CSC was reestablishing the status quo ante and reacting to the CFL’s pre-election letter to the Common Council.39 By July, the Division was down to five staffers, from nineteen when Thompson won the election.40 His CSC decided that the former civil service positions of the Efficiency Division could now be refilled, but on an “emergency” basis using 60-day temporary appointments. This meant the new staffers were not subject to civil service hiring requirements, qualifications, and eligibility standards. Staffing the Division with employees outside the civil service process was akin to a political inside joke, because one of the reasons for creating the Division had been to establish formal civil service hiring and promotion policies for municipal employees. The CSC quickly hired seven temporary staffers for the Division.41 They were renewed every 60 days. In early December 1915, the Division released what turned out to be its last report, a study of the City Collector’s office. From then

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to March 1916, it limped along with one permanent employee and seven temporary ones.42 In the meantime, the unrelenting opposition by labor unions to the Division’s work as well as the new mayor’s desire to avoid being embarrassed by any Divisional investigations into his own activities meant that the Division had no future in the CSC.43 It quickly atrophied. The Division had already been de facto emasculated by the May 1915 decision of the CSC to fire most of its permanent staff. The March 1916 de jure abolition of the Efficiency Division was merely an official confirmation of reality. Nonetheless, reformers sought to protect the Efficiency Division. The City Council passed an ordinance shifting the Division to the Council, but Mayor Thompson vetoed it. Instead, he suggested shifting the Division to the city comptroller’s office, which would put it indirectly under his control. The Council initially refused to approve such a move.44 Eventually, the Finance Committee of the City Council, dominated by reformers, appointed an investigative staff (including some from the defunct Division) whose work somewhat resembled that of the Efficiency Division, but without the formal moniker.45 It functioned more akin to a budget bureau. At the same time, the city comptroller established an Efficiency Division within his office’s Department of Finance.46 In 1918, this Efficiency Division released several reports, including a review of the comptroller’s own Division of Special Assessments, a financial assessment of the city’s corporate fund, and a recommendation for a central purchasing department.47 But reformers did not consider this Division as part of their ongoing efforts to clean up city government. In 1918, the Civic Federation of Chicago, a good government group, complained that recommendations from the Comptroller’s Efficiency Division had “not been given practical attention.”48 The new Division was a far cry from the CSC’s Efficiency Division which had the power to investigate just about any aspect of municipal staffing and operations. The Comptroller’s Efficiency Division was limited to financial matters that specifically related to the Comptroller’s jurisdiction. It was no longer the same organization.49 The “real” Efficiency Division had died ignominiously with the election of Mayor Thompson.

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IMPACT: ASSESSING THE BUREAU’S WORK The standard used in this inquiry for evaluating a BOE is whether it was effective. The first evaluative criterion described in the introduction relates to the substantive impact of the Division’s work. Did the organization’s recommendations lead to substantive changes in the workings of the municipal corporation? Was there some improvement in city operations? Several examples document the Division’s efforts in its two areas of operations, general investigations and personnel-related actions. After the release in December 1911 of its preliminary report on corruption in the Police Department, several highranking police commanders were dismissed from their jobs and the Department underwent a major reorganization.50 A different study that same year of the Bureau of Food Inspection in the Department of Health prompted the bureau chief to resign.51 After the release of the Division’s investigation into the Department of Buildings in May 1912, about a dozen corrupt building inspectors were fired or forced to resign or retire.52 The head of the Department of Electricity, upon receiving the Division’s study in 1913, responded that many of these recommendations were already being implemented. These changes included a reorganization of the bureau of electrical wiring and reports and a shakeup of the Bureau of Gas Meter Testing, including the resignation of one employee and charges filed against another.53 Regarding the Efficiency Division’s personnel management efforts, the City Council’s Municipal Efficiency Commission (MEC) expressed its general satisfaction in 1911 in the way the new Division “has carried on the work” of the Commission in the area of standardization and professionalization of CSC processes, examinations, and job classifications.54 As a result, the commissioners felt they could recommend to the City Council that the MEC could be dissolved. In 1912, the City Council enacted an ordinance banning individual employees from lobbying it for pay raises, a common practice up to then. This demonstrated the Council’s endorsement of the new salary system established by the Efficiency Division.55 In July 1912, the Council adopted a comprehensive new ordinance to implement the Division’s personnel recommendations relating to compensation, classification, uniform schedules, standards of service, and grading of duties.56

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The Chicago Federation of Labor’s efforts in early 1915 to abolish the Division is a concrete indication that the Division was having real-world consequences and not just issuing reports that were not acted upon. Organized labor would not have had a reason to kill the Division if its work had not had a tangible, if negative, impact upon union interests. Finally, Mayor Thompson’s abolition of the Division can also be interpreted as a confirmation of its effectiveness. Because of its success, the Division was a threat to a non-reform and patronage-oriented mayor willing to pay the political price for terminating it. In that respect, the killing of the Division is a kind of reformers’ “badge of honor” that affirms its ultimate worth and value. However, as discussed in the introduction, a criterion focusing on substantive implementation of recommendations may not be easy to score and may be misleading. A good idea that is not adopted needs to be measured very differently from a mediocre one that is. To overcome such a hurdle, this inquiry has also focused on the agency’s role: whether the organization was instrumental in the public policy process. Several indicators show that the Efficiency Division was indeed instrumental. From a national perspective, several activists in the reform movement commented favorably on its role and contributions. They are presented here in roughly chronological order. In the annual presidential address at the 1912 convention of the National Municipal League, William Foulke, a former U.S. Civil Service Commissioner, praised the developments in Chicago, saying “a new field has been opened” for the civil service movement by giving the CSC the power “to investigate the [civil] service.”57 Although vague, his comments were a clear reference to the Efficiency Division. Another indicator of national impact occurred when the American Economic Review, an academic publication for economists, summarized the Division’s 1912 charts of organization of city departments.58 In 1913, the Division released an updated version of the 1912 charts. In the August 1913 issue of American Political Science Review, two political scientists commented separately and favorably on the Division’s research, one writing that for those interested in the topic, the publication was “invaluable” and the other (unintentionally) echoing the comment by describing the charts as “a valuable series.”59 In 1914, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania wrote in a national publication of the reform movement that the Efficiency Division “has done much

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to forward” efforts to create standards of performance by civil servants in a myriad of different positions.60 A staffer at the nonprofit bureau of municipal research in Philadelphia described the Division’s efforts to standardize job classifications as a national model worth emulating because it contained many “outstanding features.”61 Gustavus Weber, a researcher at one of the forerunners of the Brookings Institution, wrote in 1919, after conducting a national survey of organized efforts to improve public administration in the United States, that the Division did “research work of the highest order.”62 Edwin Griffenhagen’s subsequent career, after working for the Division, made him “one of the leading experts in public administration in North America.”63 J. L. Jacobs, who had been the Division’s Efficiency Engineer in Charge, later served as a consultant for the Milwaukee Citizen’s Bureau of Municipal Efficiency and designed a position classification structure for the Milwaukee’s municipal civil service system (see previous chapter). In addition, the Efficiency Division served as a model for creating the Organization Branch of the new Canadian civil service system in the late 1910s and early 1920s.64 Finally, in 1921, a reformer from Chicago’s Hull House described what was known as the Chicago “reform program.” Of nine items, the fourth was “the establishment of an efficiency division in the civil service system.”65 Considering that this suggestion was written more than five years after the disappearance of the Division from city government demonstrates the meaningful role that the defunct Efficiency Division had played, an effective but short-lived model that reformers now sought to revive. Thus, based on the bureau’s substantive impact and its role in the public policy process, it appears reasonable to conclude that during its short life the Chicago Civil Service Commission’s Efficiency Division succeeded, regardless of its ultimate political fate.

THE MEANING OF EFFICIENCY The Chicago Civil Service Commission’s Efficiency Division had dual missions. First, it was to improve the professionalization of Chicago’s civil service system by installing additional features such as standardized classifications and efficiency ratings. Second, the Division was to investigate inefficient operations of municipal departments. In nomenclature common to the time, the first mission dealt with indi-

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vidual efficiency and the second with group efficiency.66 These missions were the respective legacies of the Division’s two parents, the Municipal Efficiency Commission and the Merriam Commission. Shortly after it was created, the head of the city’s CSC declared that establishing the Efficiency Division was “the most important result of efficiency work in Chicago.” His statement indicated the sense of progress attached to the Division’s creation.67 The chronology of the Division’s reports show a gradual shift in its orientation and work. In the early years, its major publications focused on personal efficiency of municipal employees. Its projects included “charting” all city departments, creating standardized job classifications, instituting efficiency ratings, and trying to diminish the proportion of city jobs exempt from the classified work force. These activities all reflected the agenda passed on to the Division from the Municipal Efficiency Commission. Efficiency was about personnel management. The focus began to change in 1912. The Civil Service Commission’s report that year observed that the “work of the efficiency division has taken on an entirely new character.”68 From this point on, the Division’s major reports embodied much more the mission it had inherited from the Merriam Commission, namely seeking to make government as a whole more efficient rather than the focus on personal efficiency. The Division was gradually evolving to become an all-purpose investigative and auditing agency, in the programmatic meaning of the term rather than the financial and accounting sense. It reviewed the overall operations of city agencies and made broad recommendations concerning how those departments were organized and managed as well as how they implemented policy. The division’s definition of efficiency had changed in scope from human resources management to the general operations of municipal agencies. It wanted to identify overly expensive practices, organizational dysfunctions, and poor management. Such reports are akin to those issued in contemporary times by the Government Accountability Office (formerly the General Accounting Office) on the federal level and legislative audit bureaus on the state level. So, for its latter phase, the meaning of efficiency to the Efficiency Division meant just about anything relating to the operations and management of city government.

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NONPROFIT VS. GOVERNMENTAL EFFICIENCY BUREAUS The rationale for the Efficiency Division’s sectoral affiliation cannot be analyzed in isolation. Rather, it should be noted that it was founded the same year as the nonprofit Chicago Bureau of Public Efficiency (CBPE). (See next chapter.) The public sector Division of Efficiency and the nonprofit CBPE were both initiatives of Chicagobased reformers such as Merriam, representing a two-pronged attack on local government. As the Efficiency Division would bore in from the inside, its counterpart would do so from the outside. That was one compelling reason for the sectoral affiliation of the Division. However, given the personnel-oriented approach to efficiency that dominated the work of the Division at first, it not only had to be within government, but needed to be part of the city’s Civil Service Commission. Charting city agencies, implementing an efficiency ratings system for civil servants, and promoting individual efficiency were tasks suited to a public agency, specifically to a human resources unit within that level of government. Later, when the Division broadened its agenda to group efficiency, it engaged in reform activities pursued both by public sector and nonprofit bureaus of efficiency. However, like the Milwaukee Bureau of Economy and Efficiency, Chicago’s Efficiency Division had an advantage as a government unit. Its sectoral affiliation gave it an official standing and insider access that was especially helpful when investigating inefficiency in city departments and then overseeing the implementation of the Division’s recommendations.

notes 1 Reformers: Robert Catherwood, “Special Report on Efficiency in the Public Service of Chicago,” Proceedings at the Annual Meeting of The National Civil Service Reform League Held at New York City, Dec. 9 and 10, 1909 (New York: Press of George G. Peck for the National Civil Service Reform League, 1909), 115; Clyde Lyndon King, “The Appointment and Selection of Government Experts,” National Municipal Review 3:2 (April 1914), 315; Woodruff, “Municipal Research Effects Set Forth.” Newspapers: Oscar E. Hewitt, “Censure Bartzen in Merit Report,” Chicago Tribune, December 12, 1911, 7; “Chicago Payroll Shows Increase Over

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Last Year,” Christian Science Monitor, April 28, 1915, 4; “A Lesson from Chicago” (editorial), New York Times, January 12, 1910, 8. Municipal officials: Letter from the president of the Chicago Board of Education to the Civil Service Commission, November 11, 1912, reproduced in Efficiency Division’s 1913 report on the engineer and janitorial service of the Board of Education, Appendix A, Table 5, 5; J. L. Jacobs, “Standardizing Efficiency in Chicago,” Sixth Meeting of the National Assembly of Civil Service Commissions (New York: The Chief Publishing Company, 1913), 50. Historians: Barry Dean Karl, Charles E. Merriam and the Study of Politics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974), 62; Mark C. Smith, Social Science in the Crucible: The American Debate Over Objectivity and Purpose, 1918-1941 (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1994), 86. 2 Another example of the close connection between the titles efficiency division and efficiency bureau relates to a federal agency. From 1913 to 1916, there was a Division of Efficiency in the U.S. Civil Service Commission. In 1916, Congress withdrew the division from the CSC and recreated it as the independent U.S. Bureau of Efficiency. That BOE existed until 1933. The Division/Bureau of Efficiency was considered the same entity. For example, the first annual report of the Bureau of Efficiency in 1916 covered its activities from 1913 to the end of 1916, treating the Division of Efficiency and Bureau of Efficiency as the same agency. The first sentence in that report began “The Division (now Bureau) of Efficiency…” U.S. Bureau of Efficiency, Report of the United States Bureau of Efficiency for the Period from March 25, 1913 to October 31, 1916, 64th Congress, 2nd session, 1916, House Document No. 1793, 3. 3 For a mid-twentieth century example, see Leon M. Despres and Kenan Heise, Challenging the Daley Machine: A Chicago Alderman’s Memoir (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2005). 4 Douglas Bukowski, Big Bill Thompson, Chicago, and the Politics of Image (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1998); Thomas R. Pegram, Partisans and Progressives: Private Interest and Public Policy in Illinois, 1870-1922 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1992); Peter M. Ascoli, Julius Rosenwald: The Man Who Built Sears, Roebuck and Advanced the Cause of Black Education in the American South (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006); Brands, 117-26; Finegold, Part IV; Roberts, So Called Experts. 5 Charles E. Merriam, Chicago: A More Intimate View of Urban Politics (New York: Arno, 1970 [1929]), 238-39. 6 Weber, 200-01. Later in his career, Merriam was one of three members of President Franklin Roosevelt’s Brownlow Committee (1935-7), which

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recommended a far reaching reorganization of the federal government and changed the philosophy of federal operations from efficiency (“cut costs”) to administrative management (“manage more effectively”). One of the landmark outcomes of the Brownlow Committee was the establishment of the Executive Office of the President (EOP). While on the Committee and later, Merriam championed creating a permanent National Resources Planning Board within EOP because he believed in the importance of planning. However, the concept of government planning was very controversial with the conservative coalition in Congress, which eventually defunded the Board. 7 Civil Service Commission, City of Chicago, Analysis of Employment and Charts Showing Departmental Organizations and Distribution of Employes [sic], City of Chicago, March 1913 [and] Outline Report of Work of the Efficiency Division, Civil Service Commission, 1909-1912 (Chicago: Chicago Civil Service Commission, 1913), 17-18. 8 Griffith, 161. 9 Municipal Efficiency Commission, City of Chicago, Final Report of the Municipal Efficiency Commission, City of Chicago – 1909-1911 (Chicago: n.p., 1911), 13. 10 Bureau of Municipal Research, City of Milwaukee, Standardization of Salaries of the City of Milwaukee (Milwaukee, WI: Wetzel Bros, 1913), 3. 11 When the Division of Efficiency of the U.S. CSC became the U.S. Bureau of Efficiency in 1916, it maintained its personnel-related responsibilities, but also expanded to a broader mission to promote other forms of efficiency, beyond its application to personnel management. 12 Quoted in Municipal Efficiency Commission, 16. 13 Catherwood, 114-18. 14 Some historians flatly give Merriam and his Commission explicit credit for the creation of the Efficiency Division. Roberts, So-Called Experts, 17; Karl, 62; Weber, 200. However, Merriam was much more circumspect. In 1912, he wrote that an “indirect result” of the Commission’s work had been the creation of the Efficiency Division. Charles E. Merriam, “Investigations as a Means of Securing Administrative Efficiency,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 41 (May 1912), 298, 301. In a 1923 article he wrote that “It was my privilege to assist in the formation” of the Division. Charles E. Merriam, “Human Nature and Science in City Government,” Journal of Social Forces 1:4 (May 1923), 461, emphasis added. Finally, in his quasi-memoirs of his years in Chi-

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cago politics published in 1929, he did not mention the Division when discussing the Commission’s work. Merriam, Chicago. 15 Municipal Efficiency Commission, 16. Since the Division came into existence in 1910 with an appropriation from the city council, I have listed that year as its first year of existence. However, a 1912 report by the Division viewed 1909 as its year of origin since that is when the council voted to create it, though without assigning any funding for it to operate. Civil Service Commission, City of Chicago, title page, 17. 16 Robert Catherwood, “The Development of Efficiency in the Civil Service,” Proceedings at the Annual Meeting of The National Civil Service Reform League Held at Baltimore, Md., Dec. 15 and 16, 1910 (New York: Press of George G. Peck for the National Civil Service Reform League, 1910), 166. 17 Civil Service Commission, City of Chicago, Sixteenth Annual Report – Year 1910 (Chicago: Chicago Civil Service Commission, 1911), 9, 29; Minutes of Meeting of July 19, 1915, Civil Service Commission, City of Chicago, Minute Book for 1915, Illinois Regional Archives DepositoryChicago Branch, Ronald Williams Library, Northeastern Illinois University; Catherwood, “Development of Efficiency in the Civil Service,” 166, 172. See also the Division’s 1912 report on the Bureau of Streets (p. 7) and its 1915 report on the Department of Health (p. 6) (in Appendix A, Table 5). In some cases, these might be generic titles, rather than specific job classifications. 18 James Miles, “Municipal Efficiency. What Is It?”, Fifth Annual Meeting of the National Assembly of Civil Service Commissions [June 21-22, 1912 in Spokane, WA] (New York: Chief Publishing Co., 1912), 54-61. Generally, Jacobs went by the professional name J. L. Jacobs. In the few instances when his given name (middle name actually, since he always used an initial for his first name) was presented, there is confusion about its spelling. In the proceedings of a conference and a recent academic publication, it was spelled Louis. Catherwood, “Widening of the Area of the Functions of Civil Service Commissions,” 126; Roberts, So-Called Experts, 18, 51. But in one official document of the Efficiency Division, it was spelled Lewis. CSC Chicago, Analysis of Employment, 3. Since Jacobs was a ranking member of the Division, it is more likely that the spelling in the official Divisional publication was correct. 19 Roberts, So-Called Experts, 18. 20 J. L. Jacobs, “Public Service Opportunity and Preparedness,” Journal of the Western Society of Engineers 21:6 (June 1916), 495, 521, 524, 526. Af-

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ter Mayor Thompson shut down the Efficiency Division, Jacobs opened a consulting firm offering specialization in establishment of standardized classifications of civil service positions. He was subsequently employed, for example, by the Milwaukee Citizens’ Bureau of Municipal Efficiency to provide a report for the City of Milwaukee civil service system (see Chapter 2) and by the Canadian civil service system. Roberts, So-Called Experts, 51). 21 Ibid. The Armour Institute is now the Illinois Institute of Technology, retrieved June 20, 2007: http://www.iit.edu/about/history.html. 22 Catherwood, “Development of Efficiency in the Civil Service,” 166, 172. 23 Besides an annual appropriation for ongoing operations, the City Council sometimes provided special appropriations to fund specific investigations it had directed the Division to conduct. CSC Chicago, Analysis of Employment, 23-24. For example, the Council twice appropriated additional funding to the Division to complete its 1911-12 investigation of corruption in the Police Department. December 1911 preliminary report, 7, Appendix A, Table 5. 24 Catherwood, “Widening of the Area of the Functions of Civil Service Commissions,” 126-27. These operational principles closely paralleled those enunciated by Herbert D. Brown, Chief of the federal Division/ Bureau of Efficiency (1913-33). Herbert D. Brown, “Saving Uncle Sam’s Pennies,” Scientific American 125:16 (October 15, 1921), 272, 278. 25 Merriam, “Investigations as a Means of Securing Administrative Efficiency,” 301; Catherwood, “Widening of the Area of the Functions of Civil Service Commissions,” 125. 26 Roberts, So-Called Experts, 21. 27 Municipal Efficiency Commission, Final Report, 20-40. 28 Civil Service Commission, City of Chicago, Eighteenth Annual Report — Year 1912 (Chicago: Chicago Civil Service Commission, 1913), 1214. 29 CSC Chicago, Analysis of Employment, 20-23. 30 Joseph Bush Kingsbury, “The Merit System in Chicago from 1915 to 1923,” Part 4, Public Personnel Studies 4:6 (June 1926), 183. 31 Based on the definition used here, the Division issued fifteen major reports (see Appendix A, Table 5). However, unlike the tables in Appendix A for the two Milwaukee efficiency bureaus (Tables 1-4), the table for the Efficiency Division omits the two right-hand columns for “Main Author(s) and Title(s)” and “Expertise and Background Information on

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Author(s)” because they are not applicable to the Efficiency Division. The Division’s published reports rarely listed the specific authorship of an individual report. Its standard operating procedure was to transmit each report to the Civil Service Commission under the name of the top two officials of the Division. 32 Quoted in R. E. Blackwood, “Municipal Civil Service Reports,” National Municipal Review 4:3 (July 1915), 518. 33 “Unions Demand Council Abolish Efficiency Body,” Chicago Tribune, December 29, 1914, 10. 34 Journal of the Proceedings of the Common Council of the City of Chicago for the Council Year 1914-1915, Vol. 2 (Chicago: John F. Higgins, 1916[?]), 4403-04. 35 Karl, 79-80. 36 Journal of the Proceedings of the Common Council of the City of Chicago for the Council Year 1915-1916, Vol. 2 (Chicago: John F. Higgins, 1917[?]), 2436. 37 “New Merit Body Swings the Ax; 14 Heads Fall,” Chicago Tribune, May 7, 1915, 7. 38 Quoted in Bukowski, 48. 39 William C. Beyer, “Classification and Standardization of Personal Service,” National Municipal Review 6:6 (November 1917), 751. 40 “Merit Board Near a Break with Council,” Chicago Tribune, July 8, 1915, 12. 41 Minutes of Meeting of July 19, 1915, Civil Service Commission, City of Chicago, Minute Book for 1915, Illinois Regional Archives Depository-Chicago Branch, Ronald Williams Library, Northeastern Illinois University. 42 Joseph Bush Kingsbury, “The Merit System in Chicago from 1915 to 1923,” Part 5, Public Personnel Studies 4:11 (November 1926), 310; “Seven ‘Examiners of Efficiency’ Lose Jobs: Divorcing of Efficiency Bureau from Civil Service Commission Leads to Removals,” Chicago Tribune, March 15, 1916, 13. 43 “Chicago’s Efficiency Division,” National Municipal Review 4:4 (October 1915), 662-64. 44 “Budget Makers Will have Own Expert Bureau,” Chicago Tribune, February 3, 1916, 12. 45 Kingsbury, “Merit System in Chicago from 1915 to 1923,” Part 5, 310; Weber, 203. In 1918, a newsletter from the reform-oriented Civic Federation of Chicago referred to the Finance Committee and “its efficiency

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division.” Bulletin No. 24 (July 1918), 2. This suggests that the staff of the City Council’s Finance Committee may have been referred to sometimes as the efficiency division. However, the lack of capitalization of the title suggests some informality in the reference to the division, especially its name. In other places in the same issue, comparable formal titles were capitalized, such as Finance Committee, City Council, General Assembly and Chicago Bureau of Public Efficiency. Also, Merriam referred to the CSC Efficiency Division as “later transferred to the Finance Committee.” Merriam, “Human Nature and Science in City Government,” 461. That wording more accurately conveys the shift of some staff and functions from the CSC to the Finance Committee, but not the formal title or the entity as such. 46 According to White, its title was Bureau of Statistics and Efficiency. White, Trends in Public Administration, 222. 47 Efficiency Division, Comptroller’s Office, Report on City Collector’s Office, Division of Special Assessments; Prepared for the City Council Committee on Finance (8 October 1918); Communication of the Comptroller of the City of Chicago to the Mayor and City Council Concerning the Conditions and Resources of the Corporate Fund (Chicago: MacDonald-Kaitchuck Printing Company, 1918); Civic Federation of Chicago, Bulletin No. 18 (January 1918), 3. 48 Civic Federation of Chicago, Bulletin No. 18 (January 1918), 3. 49 In the 1930s, the city’s Bureau of Engineering had an Efficiency Division, but that entity was totally different from the CSC’s Efficiency Division. For example, in May 1913 the Engineering Efficiency Division released a study entitled Gas Mask – Canister Tests. The meaning of efficiency in this engineering context related to the workings of machinery and equipment. This meaning continues to this day, with the energy conservation performance of electrical appliances measured according to their energy efficiency. 50 “Dismiss Chicago Inspector: Civil Service Commission Continues to Clean Up Police Force,” New York Times, December 22, 1911, 22; Robert Catherwood, “The Investigation of Chicago’s Police,” National Municipal Review 1:2 (April 1912), 291. 51 CSC Chicago, Seventeenth Annual Report, 14. 52 C. R. Atkinson, “Recent Graft Exposures and Prosecutions,” National Municipal Review 1:4 (October 1912), 675. 53 Page 2 of the report (see Appendix A, Table 5). 54 Municipal Efficiency Commission, 17.

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55 Herbert E. Fleming, “Report from the Civil Service Reform Association of Chicago,” Proceedings at the Annual Meeting of The National Civil Service Reform League Held at Milwaukee, Wis., Dec. 5 and 6, 1912 (New York: Press of George G. Peck for the National Civil Service Reform League, 1912), 14-15. 56 CSC Chicago, Eighteenth Annual Report, Appendix A. 57 William Dudley Foulke, “Expert City Management,” National Municipal Review 1:4 (October 1912), 559. 58 “Documents, Reports, and Legislation,” American Economic Review 2:2 (June 1912), 452. 59 Alice M. Holden, “Current Municipal Affairs,” American Political Science Review 7:3 (August 1913), 458; J. M. Mathews, editor, “News and Notes: Personal and Bibliographical,” American Political Science Review 7:3 (August 1913), 473. 60 King, 315. 61 William C. Beyer, “Standardization of Salaries in American Cities,” National Municipal Review 5:2 (April 1916), 268. 62 Weber, 201. 63 Roberts, So-Called Experts, 18. Roberts presents a well-documented argument that Griffenhagen’s expertise was more purported than real. Ibid., Ch. 6. 64 Ibid., 45, 60. 65 Yarros, 469. 66 Robert Catherwood, “Widening of the Area of the Functions of Civil Service Commissions,” Meeting of the National Assembly of Civil Service Commissions [Sixth Meeting, July 12-14, 1913 in New York] (New York: Chief Publishing Co., 1913), 124. 67 Elton Lower, “Movement for Efficiency,” Fourth Biennial Meeting of the National Assembly of Civil Service Commissions (New York: The Chief, The Government Weekly, 1911), 41. 68 Civil Service Commission, City of Chicago, Seventeenth Annual Report – Year 1911 (Chicago: Chicago Civil Service Commission, 1912), 21.

4 THE CHICAGO BUREAU OF PUBLIC EFFICIENCY, 1910-1932

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ike the Efficiency Division of the Chicago Civil Service Commission, the Chicago Bureau of Public Efficiency had its origins in the Merriam Commission. That Commission— named after its chairman, University of Chicago Professor and Alderman Charles E. Merriam—was created by the Common Council in mid-1909 to investigate the operations of municipal departments (see previous chapter). In April 1910, Merriam and several others associated with his Commission submitted a proposal to the City Club that the latter create a permanent nonprofit entity to continue the work of Merriam’s group after it filed a final report and dissolved.1

HISTORICAL CONTEXT The City Club was one of several nonprofit groups in Chicago associated with the good government wing of the Progressive movement. Besides prominent academicians like Merriam, many of the people active in the government reform effort in Chicago at that time were middle- and upper-class women or wealthy businessmen. The men often viewed themselves as the elite of the society with the role of noblesse oblige, including the civic duty to fight the rampant corruption commonplace in the public sector in Chicago and environs. They left social issues to the women. Because of their business backgrounds, the men strove to make governments more efficient, to have them function like their own businesses. This goal also had the side benefit of holding down the costs of government which, in turn, reduced the taxes that these businessmen and their corporations had to pay. Finally, as part of the scientific management movement, businessmen and their academic colleagues in the good government movement believed there were scientific principles to make government more efficient. For example, Merriam used the phrase “municipal science.”2

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In late April 1910, Walter L. Fisher, a leader in the civic reform movement and a member of the City Club’s board of directors, presented Merriam’s April 10 proposal to the board and urged the Club to approve the idea.3 Fisher estimated that the group would have to raise about $50-80,000 a year to maintain a BOE at the desired level. There was unanimous support for the idea in principle.4 The Club’s president created a committee to develop a concrete plan for implementing Merriam’s idea. He appointed several members of the board to the committee, including Fisher and Julius Rosenwald, president of the Chicago-based Sears, Roebuck and Co.5 At that point, ideas for the name of the new entity included Bureau of Municipal Research, Efficiency Bureau, Public Efficiency Bureau, and Bureau of Municipal Efficiency.6 The name eventually chosen was the Chicago Bureau of Public Efficiency (CBPE).7 The phrase public efficiency was relatively common within reform circles, with the word public indicating that the focus was on government. This term was used in the context of covering the public sector in its broadest sense, including all levels and units of government. Public efficiency, of course, indicated a scope of attention that was wider than, for example, Milwaukee’s Citizens’ Bureau of Municipal Efficiency (see Chapter 2). Several other nonprofit reform organizations from that era also used the term public efficiency in their titles, including the Ohio Institute for Public Efficiency, the Bureau of Economics and Public Efficiency of the Southern Commercial Congress (see next chapter), the Public Efficiency and Economy Committee of the Toledo (Ohio) Commerce Club, and the Des Moines Bureau of Public Efficiency and Economy.8 Myrtile Cerf was civil engineer and accountant who had worked for the Milwaukee Bureau of Economy and Efficiency (Chapter 1) and the State of Wisconsin’s Board of Public Affairs (Chapter 5). In 1913, he wrote an article treating the term bureaus of public efficiency as the generic title for all efficiency bureaus and municipal research bureaus, whether nonprofit or governmental.9 However, in the long run, his usage never caught on and did not replace the more common bureaus of municipal research.

CREATION During the spring of 1910, the committee of the City Club appointed by the Club’s president to develop Merriam’s idea for a nonprofit

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organization finalized the plans for the new Bureau. It would be legally separate from the City Club but would retain informal ties, including having the president of the Club serve ex-officio on the CBPE’s board of trustees.10 One of the publicly stated goals of the Bureau would be to assure that reforms recommended by the Merriam Commission would be implemented and then maintained as permanent features of city government and not undone by reform opponents.11 Merriam himself was one of the original members of the board of trustees, but he resigned after three years.12 The initial prospectus for the proposed organization enunciated five major purposes for the Bureau. First, it would scrutinize accounting systems in the eight local governments of Chicago. Second, it would examine the methods of purchasing materials and supplies as well as the letting and executing of construction contracts. Third, the new Bureau would try to examine the payrolls of local governments with a view to determining the efficiency of such expenditures. As a result of these studies, it would make constructive suggestions for improvements and would cooperate with public officials to pursue their implementation. Finally, the Bureau would furnish the public with credible information regarding revenues and expenditures, and— through the power of publicity—promote efficiency and economy in local govenrment.13 These five principles eventually became a mantra of the organization’s raison d’être, reprinted on the back cover of every report it issued for the next four and a half years.14 With the filing of formal incorporation papers as an Illinois nonprofit organization, the CBPE came into existence on August 8, 1910. The influential, respected, and wealthy Julius Rosenwald was named chairman of the board of trustees, serving as the volunteer head of the organization for almost its entire existence.15 From its founding in 1910 to 1926, Rosenwald donated $85,000 to the CBPE, or an average of $5,000 a year.16 From time to time, he guaranteed loans the Bureau obtained from banks due to cash flow problems.17 Also, he was active in soliciting a large portion of the contributions that sustained it. However, Rosenwald was much more than titular head of the Bureau or its chief fund-raiser. He was very involved and interested in the issues it promoted. Rosenwald was actively engaged in the projects the Bureau undertook, its public positions, and its internal management.

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Rosenwald’s high profile role in the reform movement (including supporting Merriam’s candidacy for mayor) triggered a grand jury indictment at the request of the state’s attorney in Cook County, who was part of the political machine.18 He claimed that Rosenwald had violated the law regarding filing personal property tax schedules for stock he owned. One of the CBPE’s major financial backers, Charles Crane, had already announced he was moving out of Illinois because of what he considered the unfairness of this tax.19 The Rosenwald case became a cause célèbre for reformers who claimed that few Illinoisans obeyed the letter of that law, that the law was unfair, and that Rosenwald was being victimized by selective prosecution in an effort to intimidate him from continuing his reform efforts. Rosenwald fought the indictment, which was eventually quashed.20 The CBPE’s board of trustees was quite small, with only eight members (later authorized to go up to eleven). They essentially comprised the “owners” of the nonprofit, since there was no separate category of rank-and-file members beneath them. They were the Bureau. This demonstrates the very narrow base of the agency: just a small group of like-minded, wealthy white men. In this respect, the CBPE’s base of support was even narrower than its nonprofit counterpart in Milwaukee, the Citizens’ Bureau of Municipal Efficiency, which had a “membership” status available to those not on the board. However, unlike some other of their peers, the CBPE’s leadership did not have a knee-jerk opposition to all tax increases. They viewed themselves as enlightened reformers, not as self-interested conservatives. For example, in 1928, Rosenwald stated in a letter intended for publication that the Bureau “has been represented at Springfield during sessions of the legislature and on numerous occasions has been an important—perhaps most important—influence in keeping tax levies considerably lower than they otherwise would have been. It has, however, always supported tax measures for justifiable purposes and has been careful not to oppose tax increases merely as such.”21 Herbert R. Sands, a CPA who had been brought to Chicago from the New York Bureau of Municipal Research (NYBMR) to serve as director of the Merriam Commission, was hired as the CBPE’s first director.22 Offices were rented at a location separate from those of the City Club as a way of symbolically indicating the independence of the Bureau from the nonprofit agency that had given it birth.23 The board members insisted on tight control of publicity, as had been the .

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case at the Milwaukee Citizens’ Bureau of Municipal Efficiency. According to by-laws adopted at the first meeting, “No report or public statement shall be made by or on behalf of the Bureau, except in writing and upon the approval of the board of trustees.”24 The first duty of the board members was to obtain adequate financial support for the Bureau. They sought firm, five-year pledges of contributions from people active in the reform movement, particularly from their peers (mainly men in business and successful professionals such as lawyers and doctors) and from heirs to substantial fortunes (whether men or women). Their goal was to raise $65,000 a year for the CBPE’s first two years and then to settle at about $50,000 a year for the foreseeable future. By the second meeting of the board, only five weeks after the August founding meeting, the treasurer reported pledges in hand of $117,000, an incredible sum.25 The Chicago Bureau of Public Efficiency was off and running, only five months after the informal idea was first submitted by Merriam to the City Club. This fast start at fund-raising and staffing permitted the CBPE to issue its inaugural report in January 1911, less than six months after coming into existence. That report, Methods of Preparing and Administering the Budget of Cook County, Illinois, set the template for the Bureau’s work henceforth. First, it focused on improving internal processes of government. Second, it was oriented to a readership of public administrators, making it eye-glazing and boring to the average citizen. Third, the report was very detailed and specific, aimed so that its recommendations could be implemented by public administration practitioners. Fourth, the focus of the report was on the positive—what to do in the future?—rather than negative about the past. One newspaper editorialized in support of this approach to improving government, noting that the tone of its report was “anything but querulous or muckraking.”26 These four attributes became permanent features of almost all the CBPE reports, with the exception of a later type of report that the Bureau issued specifically for the purpose of arousing the public-at-large. This report was also significant for two other reasons. First, it focused on creating an annual budgeting system for cities, counties, states, and the federal government, a topic of particular interest to reformers throughout the United States.27 For them, a budget reflected many attributes they felt government needed: accurate infor-

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mation for decision-making, planning, systematic financial reporting, accountability, and paper trails for auditing. Second, by issuing its first report about a unit of government other than the City of Chicago, the CBPE was declaring and demonstrating that it intended to monitor all units of government in the metropolitan area, not just city government. This was a significant departure from the orientation of the CBPE’s nonprofit counterpart in Milwaukee, which in its very title—Citizens’ Bureau of Municipal Efficiency—focused on the municipal corporation only.

ORGANIZATION AND OPERATIONS The CBPE’s board of trustees wanted to set high professional standards for the incoming new staff. They wanted the Bureau’s internal operations to demonstrate that it practiced what it preached. Therefore, the board set in place procedures for budgeting and personnel that the trustees would later advocate as models for other government agencies. Some financial-management features included monthly financial reports to the board and contributors (based on the principles of double-entry accounting), strict oversight of petty cash, documentation of all disbursements and reimbursements as well as signed receipts, and a budget system that permitted tracking costs (including time of staff) for every discrete project.28 Regarding employment practices, the Bureau required signed daily time reports from each staffer to the director, certifying what projects he worked on that day, at what location and during what hours. Then, on a monthly basis, all staffers submitted reports to the director, certifying the assignments they worked on each day, along with detailed disbursement accounts for meals, streetcar fares, and sundry expenses.29 In particular, the trustees enacted stringent rules regulating the behavior of employees, requiring that working hours be from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on weekdays (with an hour for lunch) and from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. on Saturday. Although the staff would not be eligible for overtime compensation, they were expected to work additional hours “if the exigencies of work in progress demand[ed]” it. In terms of personal behavior, expectations were clear: “Employees will not smoke during office hours, either in the office of the Bureau or any public office. The fact that employees in public offices where

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our men may be working smoke when they desire, should not affect the observance of this rule.”30 The Chicago Bureau of Public Efficiency was a relatively large organization in budget and staffing (Table 4-1), at least in its early years of existence. The relatively large size of the initial staff (all white men in professional positions) permitted hiring people with varied training. Their areas of expertise included engineering, law, and accounting. Position titles for a sizeable staff reflected this heterogeneity of in-house expertise. Some of the staff titles included chief engineer and assistant engineer (both titles throwbacks to the engineering roots of scientific management and the broader efficiency movement it spawned), legal counsel, fiscal and organization counsel, accountant, and consulting accountant. The most common title was investigator, a catchall category commonly found in bureaus of efficiency and municipal research bureaus. Two staffers came to the CBPE from the governmental Milwaukee Bureau of Economy and Efficiency (see Chapter 1), after it was disbanded in 1912.31 This was an interesting indication regarding efficiency bureaus’ sectoral affiliation, with the skills of staffers from a public sector BOE being equally valid for a nonprofit one. Table 4-1 Size of the CBPE Date 1910 (beginning in August) 1911 1912 1913 1914 1915 1916 1917 1918 1919-28 1929 1930 1931 1932 (through June)

Budget $14,500 $34,000 (approx.) $25,000 $34,000 (approx.) $30,000 (approx.) $30,000 (approx.) $30,000 (approx.) $30,000 (approx.) $30,000 (approx.) * $24,000 (approx.) $24,000 (approx.) * * * Could not be determined32

Permanent Staff (FTE) 15.5 18.5 10.5 * * * * * * * * * * *

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The title of the senior staffer was director and, based on the agency’s by-laws, he was an officer of the organization.33 As mentioned in the previous section, the board had hired Herbert Sands from the Merriam Commission to be the CBPE’s director. However, he resigned at the end of 1911 (after being in the position for less than 1½ years), choosing to return to New York and resume working at the NYBMR as its assistant director.34 The board then promoted Harris Keeler, its legal counsel and fourth-ranked staffer, to director. Keeler had joined the Bureau when it was founded, and like Sands had worked with the Merriam Commission.35 Keeler remained the CBPE director for the rest of its existence. The CBPE’s secretary was the agency’s second-highest-ranking staffer and also an officer of the organization.36 Based on its by-laws, the secretary maintained the minutes of the board of trustees’ meetings and had other similar duties. Even though he was an employee who was second to the director, his duties as secretary brought him into frequent and direct contact with the board. The secretary’s dual reporting to both the director and the board had the potential to create an awkward situation if the director and the secretary ever disagreed on a major matter. On one hand, the director was the secretary’s boss. On the other hand, the secretary was an officer of the organization and therefore equal in status to the director, working directly with the board. The CBPE’s secretary from its inception (thus preceding Keeler’s promotion to director) was George Sikes. He was a long-time reformer and administrator in Chicago, previously serving as secretary of Chicago’s Street Railway Commission and then of its Harbor Commission. He was also an active member of the City Club.37 Sikes initially worked half-time for the Bureau.38 Oddly (from the perspective of contemporary standards), his other halftime position was at the Chicago Daily News.39 In 1915, the Bureau announced he had resigned to become a full-time reporter because his duties as secretary had become “only nominal.”40 Two years later, Sikes resumed working for the Bureau full time but the City Club paid his expenses (as opposed to his salary).41 The rationale for the Club’s role was that Sikes often lobbied the state legislature in Springfield not only on behalf of the CBPE but also for legislation that was supported by the Club. Paying his out-of-town living expenses became a substantial financial commitment. However, by this time, Keeler had succeeded in downgrading the role of

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the secretary as an officer of the Bureau. Up to that point, all CBPE’s publications listed both Keeler and Sikes, along with their titles. After 1916, Keeler was the only one listed. Keeler and Sikes eventually had a full-scale falling out that came to a head in 1923. Both appealed to Rosenwald for support.42 Rosenwald sided with Keeler. Sikes was soon gone, embittered toward the Bureau. He promptly authored an article in National Municipal Review titled “Civil Service Reformers as Enemies of Good Government,” a thinly veiled attack on the CBPE.43 The City Club’s role in underwriting Sikes’s expenses was a continuation of the close relationship between the two organizations. It will be recalled that the Club had originated the project to create the CBPE and that the Club’s president was an ex-officio member of the Bureau’s board of trustees. However, the Bureau wished to be seen as independent, not the Club’s puppet. For example, at a February 1911 meeting of the CBPE’s trustees, “there was considerable informal discussion of the relationship between the Bureau and the City Club.”44 Nonetheless, when the Club constructed a new sixstory, $200,000 building in Chicago’s downtown Loop that it hoped would serve as headquarters for all the organizations of the local civic reform movement, the Bureau agreed to relocate there.45 One of the interesting features of this nonprofit BOE was that it did not routinely issue an annual report. Annual reports were (and are) a common feature of most organizations, regardless of sector. Reporting was a particularly strong tradition in the public sector.46 For government agencies, reporting was sometimes a requirement and often an expectation, deriving from the government’s obligation to inform the citizenry. For nonprofits, annual reports were often a useful device for reporting to contributors, building confidence, and laying the groundwork for future appeals for additional contributions. Annual reports also ostensibly demonstrated the nonprofit’s sense of duty to the public-at-large, in whose interest it often claimed to be operating. This, for example, was how the Milwaukee Citizens’ Bureau of Municipal Efficiency acted as it matured. It gradually developed a custom of issuing annual reports that were distributed to both funders and public opinion leaders. In this way, the CBME built its reputation and credibility with contributors and attentive citizens.

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However, the CBPE did not engage in this convention. It showed little interest in reporting to the public-at-large or maintaining a sense of obligation to the citizenry. With its small fund-raising base, communication was usually based on highly personal social relationships. As such, annual reports were not necessary and, initially, the CBPE rarely issued them. The “our crowd” nature of the CBPE’s funding base meant the board of trustees did not feel the obligation or benefit of the standard practices of reporting and accountability. For example, when the Bureau was approaching its first anniversary, Rosenwald suggested during a board meeting that perhaps the trustees should hold a formal “conference” with its contributors to report on the Bureau’s accomplishments. The other members of the board reacted with a distinct lack of interest and the idea was dropped.47 It was so much simpler to just keep asking people they socialized with for financial commitments. When fund-raising became more difficult after the first decade of the Bureau’s existence, the trustees predictably felt a need to broaden its funding base. The Bureau gradually began engaging in more traditional forms of reporting and accountability, including luncheon briefings for current and potential donors as well as periodic printed reports. These actions were intended to raise awareness of the CBPE’s work and accomplishments among a slightly larger (but still small) circle of wealthy reform supporters who were potential contributors.48 Another interesting issue arose during the CBPE’s first year of operation. The head of Chicago’s United Charities asked if the Bureau would conduct a review of its operations, similar to the CBPE’s studies of city agencies.49 Here, then, was a new aspect of the nascent nonprofit sector in the United States. One nonprofit organization was asking another to audit it. The underlying premise for the inquiry was that the “scientific business approaches” CBPE was recommending to public sector agencies would be equally applicable to nonprofit sector agencies. This is an interesting blurring of the boundaries between sectors, certainly a real-world example of the premises of organization theory, namely that pyramidal organizations had many commonalities regardless of sectoral affiliation. However, the CBPE’s board of trustees decided to decline the invitation and limited itself to investigating public sector agencies only.

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OUTPUTS: AGENCY REPORTS The Chicago Bureau of Public Efficiency was a major source of reports on government in the metropolitan area. During its slightly more than two decades, the Bureau released seventy substantive reports (see Appendix A, Table 6). Although this seems a large number compared to the other three Milwaukee and Chicago efficiency bureaus, when viewed on an annualized average, the pace of about three reports a year is roughly parallel to the productivity these other bureaus of efficiency. The CBPE’s seventy reports fit into three general categories. One was comprised of detailed studies of a particular government agency or activity with specific recommendations for changes. This kind of report was typified by the first one the Bureau issued (discussed above) on a budget structure for Cook County. Second, the CBPE released reports on broader public sector issues, often with suggestions to the state legislature for structural reforms. Examples of this category were reports reinforcing Merriam’s calls for consolidating the multiplicity of governmental jurisdictions in the Chicago metropolitan area. Third, the agency sometimes called on the public to vote for or against an issue coming up on the ballot in a referendum. These reports mostly dealt with proposals regarding public bonds for capital projects. Occasionally they related to proposals to increase the local tax rate or to hold constitutionally required referenda. Loosely speaking, the respective audiences for these three categories of reports were local government officials, citizen activists along with state legislators, and the public-at-large. As would be expected, some reports can be assigned to more than one category. However, assigning all to a single classification based on its primary purpose assists in identifying possible trends. Indeed, the results show that although the Bureau’s work products focused primarily on the first and third categories, the number of reports in category two is high enough to suggest a very rough balance of the attention that the CBPE gave to these three generic categories (Table 4-2). Certainly, given that the second category of reports by definition would require longer, more detailed, and more in-depth presentations, it would be fair even to assign each slightly more weight than the other two report categories. Such an adjustment would surely suggest that the Bureau’s focus on these three categories was roughly balanced. This suggests that the leadership of the bureau considered

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work in all three areas to be equally important and significant. A composite view of all its publications reflected an operationalization of its mission and goals. The results confirm the Bureau’s publicly stated goals (listed at the beginning of the section on “Creation”). Table 4-2 Subject Areas of the CBPE Reports General Subject Area 1. Detailed studies of a specific agency or activity

Specific Subject Area

3. Calls to the public to vote for or against an issue coming up on the ballot

4. Miscellaneous Total

Total 30

Operations of individual governmental offices

11

Public finance

9

Voting laws and procedures

6

Water utility 2. Overarching public sector issues

Number of Reports

4 15

Local government reorganization and consolidation Re c o m m e n d a tions to the state legislation

8 7 21

Constitutional issues Voting on bond and tax referenda

2 19 4 70

However, the rough balance in the quantity of reports issued in all three categories is reflected only when reviewing every report is-

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sued throughout the CBPE’s existence. When viewed chronologically, almost all of the reports in the first category (detailed studies of a specific government office or activity) were issued during the 1910s. On the other hand, most of the reports in the third category (calls to the public to vote for or against an issue coming up on the ballot) were published in the 1920s and early 30s. The shift in focus is stark when viewing the ratio of reports in the third category in relation to publications in the other two categories. Of the Bureau’s first twenty-three reports issued from its inception in 1910 to the end of 1913, only one related to a referendum. Conversely, of the CBPE’s last twenty reports (1923-32), eleven related referenda. From 1928 to its merger in 1932, the bureau issued seven reports, all except one related to referenda recommendations. This shift in the primary audience for the Bureau’s publications, from office holders to voters, indirectly signifies two other important points. First, studies in the first category were labor intensive, requiring a substantial (and expensive) staff. On the other hand, recommendations to the voters required much less manpower and could be written by a very small sized staff. Therefore, the trend away from detailed studies of a specific government office or activity in the 1910s to voter recommendations in the 1920s and 30s suggests that the CBPE’s financing was increasingly difficult. In fact, it did have reduced funding for operations. This dictated a change in its working agenda and orientation. Second, the shift revealed the Bureau’s increasing impatience, even disgust, with the unwillingness of agencies to improve on their own. The CBPE’s later focus on voters and referenda can be viewed as a pragmatic shift in tactics. It was appealing to the voters to impose new policies on government. The pace of publishing also indicated the Bureau’s diminished energy (Table 4-3). The frequency of reports was in direct relationship to its financial health. In its initial burst of energy, the bureau was at its most creative, issuing twenty reports in its first five years. Then, as a mature organization, the pace was reduced, but was relatively stable and substantial, with twelve, sixteen, and fifteen in its second, third, and fourth half-decades respectively. Finally, the organization faced a decline, issuing only two reports during the remaining three years it existed in what would have been its fifth half-decade.

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Half Decade 1910-1914 1915-1919 1920-1924 1925-1929 1930-1932 (partial) Total

Number of Reports 25 12 16 15 2 70

A similar trend can be seen in the average length of reports. From its creation to 1918, the CBPE issued eleven reports of fifty pages or more and only two such reports from 1919 to its demise as an independent and freestanding organization in 1932. This reflected a policy approved by the board of trustees in 1917 “that it would be expedient to undertake the preparation of reports involving less extensive investigation than some of the larger studies recently undertaken.”50 As money got tighter (see next section), the staff-intensive long reports had become increasingly burdensome. So the Bureau’s outputs were altered to reflect its new financial realities. Generally speaking, all CBPE reports were distributed without charge. The agency’s rationale was that free reports were more likely to be widely disseminated and thus more likely to influence government decision-making. This was true even for some of its extensive publications, such as the compilation of three unpublished reports from the Merriam Commission (#10, 111 pages), the study of park governance (#16, 182 pages), and the analysis of the proposed new state constitution (#48, 158 pages). The only exception was its 1927 study of school district finances (#62, 264 pages). The trustees were divided about breaking with precedent and charging for this report. Eventually, they compromised by deciding that the cover report (#63, 36 pages), like all other monographs, would continue to be free. However, the longer companion volume (#62), a dense statistical compendium, would be sent out free only to “many whom we specially wish to have it” such as school district officials, key governmental and opinion leaders and contributors. The Bureau would charge $1 (including postage) for requests from other populations, such as “those out of the immediate locality.”51

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DENOUEMENT Since its inception in 1910, the Bureau’s funding was based on fiveyear commitments that the solicitors requested of donors. This had the advantage of giving stability and predictability for budgeting purposes. A disadvantage was that every year the Bureau had to bill pledgors to pay 20 percent of their commitments. Sometimes, such payments came in slowly. This occasionally created short-term cashflow problems, including the possibility of missing a payroll. The CBPE solved that problem by establishing a $3,000 line of credit with a friendly bank.52 The five-year commitment approach also limited the pool of potential contributors, to those who could afford a substantial pledge of, say, $500-1,000 a year for five years. As that constituency gradually dried up (whether due either to donor fatigue or reflecting the state of the economy), the Bureau lowered its sights, sometimes aiming for five-year commitments of as low a $100 a year. Even though this expanded the potential contributor list, it also meant that solicitors had to invest much more time in fund-raising, since persuading ten donors of medium means to give $100 a year would take ten times as much time than persuading one wealthy donor to commit to $1,000 a year. The Bureau’s key supporters (mostly board members) found themselves spending more and more time to raise less and less money. This was simply not a sustainable financial template for the long run. However, these key backers also recognized the benefit of the CBPE’s narrow funding base: it was truly independent, since the small number of fund-raisers and contributors were uniformly committed to the agency’s agenda of civic reform. Homogeneity reduced the potential for internal disagreements. A gradual expansion of the donor base would inevitably lead to a more heterogeneous group of funders, who would be more likely to raise objections to a particular study, report, or recommendation. One CBPE supporter stated the dilemma from the perspective of the economic elite: “One great difficulty, as I see it, is to combine popular participation on a large scale with efficient direction. One reason for the meritorious work of the Bureau of Public Efficiency, it seems to me, is that the board of trustees has been independent. Boards of Directors selected on a representative basis sometimes suffer in quality.”53 The specter of

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a mass membership organization (which was the template of some of the other good government organizations) had no appeal to the CBPE’s in-crowd. But every time a five-year funding cycle ended, it necessitated raising pledges for the next five-year cycle. Fund-raising gradually became harder and harder. By the mid-1920s, Rosenwald was writing some of his associates about the need “to consider the future of the Chicago Bureau of Public Efficiency.”54 Several ideas were floated. One envisioned a federated relationship among all the major civic reform organizations in Chicago. This did not appeal to the board of trustees.55 The ongoing and ever-pressing financing problem gained increased urgency as the expiration of the five-year pledges for 1926-30 neared. In 1926, when those pledges had been made, the U.S. economy was booming. However, by the time those five-year commitments expired in 1930, the stock market had crashed (in 1929) and the economy was entering a depression. Therefore, fund-raising for another fiveyear cycle beyond 1930 would be even more difficult. On December 2, 1930, with the 1926-30 pledges due to expire at the end of the month, staff director Keeler was wondering: “to what extent the Bureau is going to operate in the future.”56 As a stop-gap measure, the trustees decided in early December (with Rosenwald absent) to seek one-year commitments from past contributors, instead of the routine five-year approach.57 Yet even that modest goal generated tepid responses. The board (again, without Rosenwald’s active participation) became convinced that a major change was needed.58 Eighteen months later, in mid-1932, the agency was again running out of money. The trustees decided to send an urgent solicitation to those who had already donated in 1930-31 to ask for an additional contribution. The desperate tone of the appeal was so embarrassing that some of the trustees declined to sign those letters, leaving it to the officers.59 This clearly signaled that the end was near. The rejected federation scenario aside, in 1928, representatives of the Civic Federation suggested a closer relationship limited to the two organizations.60 At that time, the CBPE’s trustees decided against a merger, agreeing “that the Bureau should continue to carry on its activities in its own field as far as its resources will permit.”61 An exploration of this option continued desultorily. However, with the December 1930 funding crisis still foremost in their minds, the

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trustees decided to consider a merger more seriously. The Civic Federation was, relative to the CBPE, a mass membership organization. More precisely, the CBPE was an organization of the rich whereas the Civic Federation was an organization for the middle class. The Federation was loosely committed to the broad Chicago reform agenda but was most actively engaged with issues of taxation, usually favoring cutting government spending and holding down taxes. In that respect, the Federation spoke more as the voice of business than that of reformers. Nonetheless, the CBPE trustees did not have many other options. In the spring of 1932, they met without Keeler.62 This was highly unusual. They decided to send two of their own (again without Keeler) to an April 25 meeting with the Civic Federation and the Citizens’ Committee on Public Expenditures to discuss a future relationship. At the summit meeting, the Citizens’ Committee representative said his organization was not particularly interested in changing its own status at that time.63 That left the Civic Federation and the CBPE. On the spot, they agreed in principle to merge. From that point on, little was left to decide except the mechanics of the deal. The CBPE’s trustees wanted to move as fast as possible to stop the Bureau’s financial hemorrhaging. It was now time to involve Keeler. He was asked to work out the details with his counterpart at the Civic Federation, executive secretary Douglas Sutherland. Similar meetings occurred between key members of the two boards.64 By June 17, 1932, Keeler presented a draft agreement for consideration at a meeting of the Bureau’s board of trustees. The document called for a merger of the two organizations, to be called The Civic Federation and Bureau of Public Efficiency. The trustees thought that name was a bit clunky, suggesting instead “The Civic Bureau of Public Finance.”65 But the process was at too advanced a stage for significant changes to be approved by the governance processes of the Civic Federation. Furthermore, the Federation insisted on the longer name as a way to retain its original identity. This was a bad sign, but the CBPE trustees had no leverage with their about-to-be organizational spouse. Although the transaction between the two organizations was called a merger, a majority of the new board of trustees came from the Federation.66 This arrangement suggested that the Bureau was really subsuming itself into the Federation, rather than operating as an equal. Similarly, the CBPE’s staff director Harris Keeler was made

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a director in the new organization. But despite the usual meaning of the term for nonprofit staff (such as the common term executive director), he would be the number two person on the staff. He would be reporting to executive secretary Douglas Sutherland, who held that title before and after the merger.67 Keeler’s responsibility was to oversee staff investigations.68 This was not a merger, at least not of equals. Nonetheless, at the June 17 meeting, the CBPE trustees approved the document, to take effect no later than July 1, 1932.69 They then adopted a resolution adjourning sine die.70 Thus ended the CBPE’s independent existence. Social scientist Kenneth Finegold saw the event as a major turning point: “Any possibility that experts could remake Chicago politics ended with the merger of the Chicago Bureau of Public Efficiency into the older, traditional reform Civic Federation in 1932.”71 The new organization released a public statement at the end of the month. Using bland language, it announced that the merger would “unite the interests, personnel, and resources” of the two agencies, since they “had, for several years, been carrying on similar work and it was felt that greater results could be achieved more economically if they worked as one.”72 This face-saving and diplomatically-worded rationale prevented embarrassment to the members of the elite who had been active in supporting the CBPE. But the statement was inaccurate to the point of being misleading. When the news of the merger came out, it was considered to be of national significance, covered in the Christian Science Monitor.73

POSTSCRIPT Harris Keeler died suddenly, less than two months later.74 Calling him a “martyr,” Sutherland said Keeler’s “death was directly the result of a wornout [sic] physical condition, due to constant labors in connection with the breakdown of [Chicago] government finances, beginning in the winter of 1929 and 1930.”75 Membership on the new 27-member board of directors and work products of this putatively new organization showed little change from that of the former Civic Federation. Of the new organization’s five officers, two came from the CBPE. They held the offices of vice president (of three VPs) and treasurer. The three officers from the Civic Federation held the offices of president and two vice presidents.76 This, too, indicated a

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superior-inferior relationship between the two former independent organizations. Throughout the 1930s the Civic Federation and Bureau of Public Efficiency focused mainly on government spending and levels of taxation. It began issuing an annual statistical compendium titled Taxes – Assessments – Funded Debts.77 Similarly, in the spring of 1935, it issued a series of CPA-style statements titled Bonds and Interest on Bonds for the eight major units of government in the Chicago area.78 Annual reports to members (in and of itself a big change for those formerly associated with the CBPE) also focused on the organization’s successes in holding down state and local taxing and spending.79 If there was any doubt about the identity of the new organization, its letterhead conveyed the message. Although it abided by the legal agreement concerning its name, the layout of the letterhead spoke volumes:

The Civic Federation and Bureau of Public Efficiency80 Inevitably, perhaps mercifully, the Board delivered the coup de grâce in February 1941 when it voted to shorten the organization’s name to The Civic Federation. Their publicly stated rationale was that the change was being made “for convenience in reference.”81 However, the vestigial role of the Chicago Bureau of Public Efficiency continued being reflected in some of the Civic Federation’s published materials. The renamed organization’s masthead, printed on the front or last page of its Bulletin, routinely listed its origins:

The Civic Federation

The Civic Federation, Incorporated, February, 1894 Chicago Bureau of Public Efficiency, Established, August, 1910 Committee of Public Expenditures, Organized, March, 193282

In that way, the legacy and even sheer existence of the Chicago Bureau of Public Efficiency continued to be acknowledged. This remembrance of the CBPE continued through 1945.83 However, the masthead’s reference to the CBPE disappeared in 1946.84 The Chicago Bureau of Public Efficiency now entered history.85

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IMPACT: ASSESSING THE BUREAU’S WORK As with the other local efficiency bureaus covered in this study, the issue of evaluating the impact of the Citizens Bureau of Public Efficiency is inherently difficult. However, some aspects of the Bureau’s operations can relatively easily be documented regarding their substantive impact. Yet it remains extremely difficult to prove a cause-effect relationship between events. In some cases, a specific recommendation or position can be tracked to the final outcome. For example, report #22 called attention to the policies of the incumbent Cook County treasurer: he was not returning to the taxpayers the income from interest-bearing accounts, calculated at half a million dollars. He was defeated for reelection the next time he faced the voters.86 There are many anecdotal assertions about the Bureau’s impact from friendly sources. Some were stated publicly and, therefore, are more likely to be reasonably accurate because otherwise they would be open to challenge from hostile sources. Generally speaking, noted Merriam, regarding the impact of the CBPE reports, “It is true that results are not always secured even on a second report, but frequently they are.”87 But, still, the CBPE “brought about changes in accounting methods and municipal contracts.”88 Director Keeler actively lobbied the state legislature during its 1923 session and publicly claimed to have successfully intervened in scores of bills, with the effect of holding down unnecessary spending increases, blocking looser bonding requirements, and enacting more stringent accounting and budgeting requirements.89 The 1917 proposal by civic reformers to consolidate the City of Los Angeles and Los Angeles County was largely based on the CBPE’s reports regarding consolidation of local governments.90 Other published comments related to specific reports, all indicating concrete accomplishments. Reports #2 and 21 triggered a nineyear court battle that ended with the CBPE’s position prevailing, thus saving the taxpayers $750,000 for inappropriate and unneeded voting machines.91 Before his falling out with the Bureau, Sikes wrote that reports #3, 4, and 7 “attracted favorable comment from engineering magazines. Many of their recommendations were made the basis of action by the city authorities.”92 When the county judges implemented some of the CBPE’s recommendations from reports #5-6, 11-14, and 17-19, the overall budgets of county fee offices

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were cut by about $100,000 a year.93 Suggestions to the school board regarding contract bidding and specifications led to a $90,000 lower bid for supplying coal to school buildings in 1911 than in the previous year.94 The most explicit and quantitative evidence of the Bureau’s substantive impact is a comparison of its recommendations regarding ballot referenda and the subsequent decisions the voters made. This clear cut juxtaposition of BOE recommendations and ultimate results did not exist for the other three bureaus of efficiency in this study.95 For the typically complicated and detailed recommendations emanating from bureaus of efficiency, it is often hard to identify definitively what finally happened and how close or far that ultimate result was to a BOE’s recommendation. But for election results, the final outcome is a simple yes/no answer. Examining the CBPE’s referenda recommendations and comparing the final results provides an interesting opportunity for a substantive review of the impact of a local BOE. Table 4-4 [pages 138-142] juxtaposes the suggestions made by the CBPE in twenty-one reports with the final results of these referenda. As always, one must be careful about affirming causality in the relationship. Also, if the voters disagreed with the recommendation of the Bureau, that does not automatically suggest its position was “wrong.” Nonetheless, assuming that the Bureau never chose its recommendations so as to improve its winning percentages or to curry favor with the voters, the win-loss ratio of its recommendations surely suggests some influence on the outcomes.

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Table 4-4 Scorecard of the CBPE referenda Recommendations and Voter Decisions Election

Rep. #

Topic

Recommendation Reject both

Nov. 7, 1911

8

April 7, 1914

24

Two municipal court referenda Six bond proposals from city & county

Nov. 6, 1917

29

Four bond issues from the county

Approve one, reject three

Sept. 10, 1919

37

Reject

April 13, 1920

39

Increase taxes to pay for 1,000 more policemen Four proposals from city government for bonding for capital projects

Approve two, reject four

Results Both rejected1

Score (winloss) 2-0

Ap6-0 proved the two, rejected the four2 Ap4-0 proved the one, rejected the three3 4 Rejected 1-0

Reject all All rejected5

6-0

% wins 100%

100%

100%

100%

100%

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Feb. 22, 1921

41

June 6, 1921

42

June 5, 1922

47

Dec. 12, 1922

49

Nov. 6, 1923

51

One proposal from city government to cover deficit spending from previous two years. Funding county jail without specific plans7 Two city proposals for transportationrelated projects Ratification vote on proposed new state constitution Four tax or bond proposals for construction

139

Reject

Approved6

Reject

Rejected8 1-0

100%

Reject both

Both passed9

0-2

0%

Approve

Rejected10

0-1

0%

Approve one, reject three

Approved the one CBPE recommended & two of the three it opposed11

2-2

50%

0-1

0%

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Nov. 4, 1924

53

Feb. 24, 1925

54

April 13, 1926 Nov. 2, 1926

57

April 5, 1927

60

April 10, 1928

64

58

Three municipal construction projects Seven city & county construction projects 17 bonding & tax proposals Six city & county construction proposals Eight city construction proposals 33 bond questions, 31 from the city & two from the Lincoln Park District

Approve one, reject two

All three approved12

1-2

33%

Approve all

All approved13

7-0

100%

Approve 15, reject two Approve five, reject one

All approved14

15-2

88%

All approved15

5-1

83%

Approve six, reject two

All eight approved16

6-2

75%

Oppose all 31 from the city, approve the two from the Lincoln Park District

All city propositions rejected; Lincoln Park bonds approved17

33-0

100%

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June 4, 1928

65

Five bond & tax issues from South Park District & Cook County

Nov. 6, 1928

66

Five bond issues, including one from state government

Nov. 5, 1929

67

Six bond & tax referenda

Nov. 4, 1930

68

12 bonding issues

Approve the two Park issues regarding the lake front, oppose two County tax questions & the other issue from the South Park District Approve three, oppose two, including state question Approve five, oppose one Approve 11, oppose the single proposition for state park bonds

141

All park- 4-1 related bonds passed, two County tax questions rejected18

80%

All 2-3 rejected19

40%

One ap- 2-4 proved, five rejected20 All ap11-1 proved21

33%

92%

142

Feb. 24, 1931 Total

Bureaus of Efficiency

69

Ten bonding issues

Approve six, oppose four

All approved22

6-4

60%

11226 (of 138)

81%

Notes to Table 1 Keeler, 32. 2 Ibid. 3 CBPE, Chicago Bureau of Public Efficiency: Its Service to the Community, 12-13. 4 Ibid., 8-9. 5 “Chicago Defeats Questionable Bond Issues,” National Municipal Review 9:6 (June 1920) 377-78. 6 CBPE, Chicago Bureau of Public Efficiency: Its Service to the Community, 13. 7 For a review of the decade-long political battle to build a new jail and courthouse for criminal trials, see Steve Bogira, Courtroom 302: A Year Behind the Scenes in an American Criminal Courthouse (New York: Vintage, 2005), 51-52. 8 CBPE, Chicago Bureau of Public Efficiency: Its Service to the Community, 12-13. 9 Letter from Keeler to Mrs. Emmons Blaine, June 20, 1922, 2, CBPE 1920-1927 Folder, Box 134, Anita McCormick Blaine Papers, McCormick Collection, WHS. 10 “Illinois Voters Bury the New Constitution: Majority Against It 700,000 – State Income Tax and Limit on Chicago Legislators Unpopular,” New York Times, December 13, 1922, 7. 11 A. E. Buck, editor, “Chicago Voted on Four Tax and Bond Propositions at the Last General Election,” National Municipal Review 13:3 (March 1924), 186. 12 “Half Billion in Bonds Approved at Election,” New York Times, November 6, 1924, 29. 13 Associated Press, untitled, text begins “Bond issues approved at the city election today…” after article titled “Transit Purchase Looms in Chicago,” New York Times, February 25, 1925, 5. 14 Oscar Hewitt, “Bond Issues Carry, Along with New Zoo,” Chicago Tribune, April 14, 1926, 1, 10. 15 “Daylight Law Seems Victor by Big Vote,” Chicago Tribune, November 3, 1926, 1.

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16 “Chicago Elects Thompson, Polling a Record Vote; Police Awe Gangsters,” New York Times, April 6, 1927, 1. 17 “All City Bond Projects Lost by Big Votes; Two for Lincoln Park Win Approval,” Chicago Tribune, April 12, 1928, 7. 18 “$15,500,000 in So. Park Bonds Wins by 4 to 3,” Chicago Tribune, June 5, 1928, 5. 19 “More Loans Sought by Municipalities,” New York Times, November 10, 1928, 26. 20 “One Proposition Out of 11 Wins,” Chicago Tribune, November 6, 1929, 2. 21 “$300,000,000 Bonds Approved in Nation,” New York Times, November 6, 1930, 5. 22 “Thompson is Victor in Chicago Primary,” New York Times, February 25, 1931, 18. ❄❄❄

The results of voter behavior in relation to the CBPE referenda recommendations (Table 4-4) demonstrate that the electorate sided with the Bureau’s positions 112 of 138 times over two decades. This gives the Bureau a score of 81 percent for its win-loss ratio. Notwithstanding the caveats that must accompany such a numerical result, this percentage surely permits a generalization that the CBPE’s recommendations had a substantive and positive impact on the choices made by the voters in twenty-one elections from 1911 to 1931. Of course, not every recommendation by the Bureau was adopted. For example, some issues never got to the point of a voter referendum. Neither the CBPE’s city manager plan nor its proposals for consolidating local governments (report #27) were enacted during the 1917 session of the state legislature.96 Besides the substantive impact of its recommendations in general and its win-loss ratio in particular, was the CBPE a major player the public policy process? Observations about the Bureau from several academics and disinterested third parties suggest it indeed had a discernible, but perhaps modest, impact locally and even somewhat in the national arena. Several such observations were made during the second half of the 1930s, the years immediately after the CBPE’s demise. In 1935, two political scientists, as part of their quantitative analysis of voting behavior in Chicago, identified two newspapers and the CBPE as the three most important sources of advice to the voters about the November 1930 state bonding referendum.97 Political scientist David Truman wrote in his 1936 thesis that the Bureau’s

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“early work was of a pioneering character.”98 Rosenwald’s biographer stated in 1939 that the CBPE “made itself admirably unpopular with the full-time politicians, who could stand almost anything but economy.”99 Comments by more recent scholars also speak to the Bureau’s impact. Writing in 1975, historian Alan Gould said “the bureau became one of the most effective public agencies in Chicago. It served as a model for other budget reform groups created across the nation.”100 Historian Martin Schiesl’s 1977 study of efficiency concluded that when the bureau narrowed its focus from broad concerns to specific problems, it was successful and effective.101 Finally, a law journal article published in 2002 cited a 1911 CBPE report, treating it as credible and reliable.102 At the very least, these academic and professional observations suggest that the CBPE played a role in public policy debates during its existence. Another nonacademic, but reliable, source is the New York Times. On three occasions, Chicago-based reporters from the Times filed stories about public affairs in Chicago and singled out the CBPE as an important factor in the issues facing local government. An article previewing Chicago’s November 1929 election discussed the multiplicity of bonding referenda on the ballot. The reporter referred to only one civic organization’s positions on those referenda, writing in a tone that implied he agreed with the CBPE and greatly respected its opinions and positions: “In the main, however, the projects are meritorious, and ought to be carried out. That is the opinion of such vigilant bodies as the Bureau of Public Efficiency, which opposes only the super-highway proposal. Opposition in this instance is not directed against the physical aspects of the project, but against the financial set-up.”103 A story by the same reporter on the impact in Chicago of the stock market crash and the onset of the depression commented: “Probably the best equipped fact-finding body in the civic-field is the Bureau of Public Efficiency, of which Julius Rosenwald is chairman.”104 Two years later, the CBPE was mentioned in a story in the Times’s business section. The reporter summarized the results of a recent bonding referendum in Chicago. The article pointedly noted that the CBPE had opposed several of the issues that were approved by the voters.105 This flagged those particular bond issues as being of questionable solidity. No other entity was mentioned in the article besides the governmental bodies issuing the bonds and the

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CBPE. At the very least, this article suggests that the reporter viewed the Bureau as an important, even crucial, player.

THE MEANING OF EFFICIENCY When founded by the City Club, the Bureau’s mission was clearly spelled out in its five principles. (See earlier section titled Creation.) The organizational purpose embedded in those principles reflected an important orientation of the Bureau’s philosophy. The CBPE sought improved efficiency in how government achieved its goals, not to evaluate the goals themselves.106 The Bureau was emphasizing means over ends. This was a relatively narrow, almost mechanical, approach to pursuing good government reform. However, its approach to efficiency had the advantage of attracting broad support, since improving the technical efficiency of governmental operations was relatively non-controversial (except, of course, for the anti-reform forces). It was lowest common denominator reform. As a result, newspaper editorial boards representing a broad ideological spectrum could support the Bureau’s work. Major political arguments regarding the appropriate roles and purposes of the public sector did not come into question with the CBPE because the organization focused not on social reform but the mechanics of government. This orientation was, for example, in sharp contrast to John Commons’ definition of governmental and social efficiency that had guided the work of the public sector Milwaukee Bureau of Economy and Efficiency during the same years as the CBPE’s initial operations (1910-12). As might be expected, the CBPE’s relatively narrow definition of efficiency and its avoidance of social efficiency led to some mild criticism from the left. An activist from Chicago’s Hull House criticized the CBPE (but without naming it) for its technical focus. According to Victor Yarros, “Too often the phrase ‘good government’ conveys no significant meaning to organized labor, or to the generality of the citizenry. To some it means glorified bookkeeping, or the saving of trivial sums by honest but unimaginative and unprogressive officials.”107

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NONPROFIT VS. GOVERNMENTAL EFFICIENCY BUREAUS George Sikes, the CBPE’s secretary (a staff position, not a member of the board of trustees) did not like the organization’s name precisely because it led to confusion regarding the Bureau’s sectoral affiliation. On his own initiative, in 1912, he urged the executive committee of the board of trustees to change it. He said it was an “unsatisfactory” name because the CBPE was frequently confused with the governmental efficiency bureaus that were part of civil service commissions of the city, county, and independent park districts (see Chapter 3). Sikes said that the confusion between public sector bureaus of efficiency and the nonprofit CBPE was harming the agency’s work. He suggested a name that would clarify the outside-of-government status of the organization, proposing Public Efficiency League.108 But the trustees took no action on Sikes’s idea and left the name unchanged for the entire existence of the agency. Nonetheless, Sikes’s insight focused on the importance not only of a BOE’s sectoral affiliation, but also of the public perception of the Bureau’s status. For him, it was vital to convey, through the agency’s name, an automatic understanding of its sectoral placement. He felt the CBPE must be understood to be independent of the government, dedicated to a mission broader than the personnel orientation of efficiency bureaus attached to various civil service commissions within local government. Another rationale for the CBPE’s status as a nonprofit organization was deeply embedded in its raison d’être. As an arm of Chicago’s reform movement, it needed to be independent of government so that it would not be buffeted by the results of municipal elections, as happened to the municipal Efficiency Division. Further, by being nonprofit, the agency had tighter control over its projects which, in turn, were informed by its own definition of efficiency. (See preceding section.) For the CBPE, efficiency and reform were non-ideological concepts that sought to reflect a broad public consensus about improving public sector operations. To some Chicago reformers, only a nonprofit agency could maintain strict control over its definition of efficiency and agenda.

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notes 1 The City Club exists to this day, retrieved June 22, 2007: http://www. cityclub-chicago.com/. 2 Merriam, “Human Nature and Science in City Government,” 461. 3 Alan B. Gould, “Walter L. Fisher: Profile of an Urban Reformer, 18801910,” Mid-America: An Historical Review 57:3 (July 1975), 157-72. A year later, Fisher was appointed by President Taft to serve as secretary of Interior. He held that office until the end of the Taft administration in 1913. 4 The mere planning by the Club to create the Bureau was considered national news, appearing for example in the Galveston [TX] Daily News: “Chicago Bureau of Efficiency,” July 18, 1910, 5. 5 “Extracts from Minutes of City Club Directors’ Meetings,” 1, Folder 5, CBPE Minutes 1910-13, Box 1, Civic Federation Papers, CHS. Besides his involvement in civic reform, Rosenwald was a major philanthropist, donating about $63 million during his lifetime. His major foci for donations were K-12 public schools for rural African-American children in the South, Jewish refugees, and construction of YW/YMCAs in cities with large African-American populations. Ascoli; M. R. Werner, Julius Rosenwald: The Life of a Practical Humanitarian (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1939). 6 “Extracts from Minutes of City Club Directors’ Meetings,” 1; The Chicago Bureau of Municipal Efficiency (June 1910), 8, 11, 13, Folder 5, CBPE Minutes 1910-13, Box 1, Civic Federation Papers, CHS. This small brochure (13 pages, each page 3x6 inches) apparently had a very limited circulation, probably mostly to potential funders and opinion leaders. 7 Writing in early 1911, Woodruff was under the impression that the new entity would be so informal an organization that he did not capitalize its name (“bureau of public efficiency”), in contradistinction to him capitalizing the name of the mother organization (“City Club”). Woodruff, “Municipal Review 1909-1910,” 510. 8 Rufus Miles, “The Ohio Institute for Public Efficiency”; Toledo Commission of Publicity and Efficiency, Minutes of Meeting No. 7, March 14, 1916, 26, February 10, 1916 – November 23, 1932 Minutes, Minute Books, Commission on [sic] Publicity and Efficiency Collection, University of Toledo; Sait, 55. 9 Cerf.

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10 “Extracts from Minutes of City Club Directors’ Meetings,” 1, Folder 5, CBPE Minutes 1910-13, Box 1, Civic Federation Papers, CHS. 11 William Bennett Munro, “Current Municipal Affairs,” American Political Science Review 4:3 (August 1910), 429. An additional demonstration of the close connection between the Merriam Commission and the creation of the CBPE was that the CBPE published two reports that had been prepared by the Commission but not published before the Commission dissolved. See reports #9 and 10 in Appendix A, Table 6. 12 Letter of resignation from Merriam to George C. Sikes, CBPE secretary, May 6, 1914, Folder 6, CBPE Minutes 1914-17, Box 1, Civic Federation Papers, CHS. 13 Chicago Bureau of Municipal Efficiency (June 1910), 1-2, Folder 5, CBPE Minutes 1910-13, Box 1, Civic Federation Papers, CHS. 14 The last one was report #26, issued in March 1915. 15 In 1925, after serving fifteen years as chairman of the board, Rosenwald tried to resign, but was eventually dissuaded by the other trustees. “Minutes of Trustees’ Meeting,” September 30, 1925, Folder 9, CBPE Minutes 1925-27, Box 1, Civic Federation Papers, CHS. 16 Letter from Rosenwald to Samuel Insull, January 19, 1926, Folder 20, Box 5, Rosenwald Papers, University of Chicago (hereafter RPUC). Insull was a major owner of utilities and mass transit companies. He was most identified with using the corporate structure of utility holding companies, which permitted one small corporation to control many other larger ones. His monopolistic business activities were criticized by many muckrakers of that era. His highly leveraged business empire collapsed in the early 1930s as a result of the depression. One of the pieces of legislation enacted as part of FDR’s New Deal reforms was a federal ban on utility holding companies. 17 “Minutes of Trustees’ Meeting,” March 20, 1925, 2, Folder 9, CBPE Minutes, 1925-27, Box 1, Civic Federation Papers, CHS; letter from CBPE director Keeler to Rosenwald, April 6, 1925, Folder 20, Box 5, RPUC. 18 Finegold, 161. State’s attorney was the title used in Illinois for the office more commonly called district attorney. In American government, this is usually an elected office, with one elected from each county. As a local elected official, the DA is generally responsible for prosecuting violations of state criminal laws. Therefore, the person holding the office wields enormous discretionary power by being able to decide what and who to prosecute.

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19 “C. R. Crane Leaves Chicago, Manufacturer Abandons the City Because of Burdensome Tax Laws,” New York Times, February 23, 1915, 1. 20 Victor S. Yarros, “Chicago’s Sensational Tax Cases,” National Municipal Review 4:3 (July 1915), 448-53; Ascoli, 173-74; Werner, 140-42. 21 Cutting, 11. The state of Illinois’ Constitution then in effect gave municipalities and counties little home rule powers. Therefore, most governmental decision-making that would commonly be made at the local level, such as property tax rates, was often controlled by the state legislature (in Illinois called the General Assembly). Many important city and county issues that the CBPE was interested in were therefore fought in the capitol rather than in city hall and the courthouse. Pegram, 187. 22 Finegold, 154-55. 23 “Minutes of Trustees’ Meeting,” August 8, 1910, 3, Folder 5, CBPE Minutes 1910-13, Box 1, Civic Federation Papers, CHS. 24 “Chicago Bureau of Public Efficiency By-Laws,” 3, Folder 5, CBPE Minutes 1910-13, Box 1, Civic Federation Papers, CHS. Later that year, this provision of the by-laws was slightly loosened to permit the board’s executive committee to approve public statements. “Minutes of Trustees’ Meeting,” October 3, 1910, 3, Folder 5, CBPE Minutes 1910-13, Box 1, Civic Federation Papers, CHS. 25 “Minutes of Trustees’ Meeting,” September 12, 1910, 1, Folder 5, CBPE Minutes 1910-13, Box 1, Civic Federation Papers, CHS. 26 “The County Budget” (editorial), Chicago Evening Post, January 11, 1911. 27 In Washington, D.C., a parallel decade-long effort by reformers culminated with the enactment of the 1921 Budget and Accounting Act, which—among other things—created the Bureau of the Budget. 28 “To Our Subscribers,” September 12, 1910, 1, 4, CBPE 1910-1919 Folder, Box 134, Anita McCormick Blaine Papers, McCormick Collection, Wisconsin Historical Society (hereafter WHS). 29 Ibid., Exhibits B and C, Daily Time Report and Monthly Report forms, Chicago Bureau of Public Efficiency. 30 Monthly Report form, Chicago Bureau of Public Efficiency, Exhibit C, 3, ibid. 31 Sikes, 456. 32 While the minutes of the Bureau’s board of trustees and executive committee are replete with details of individual personnel actions (such as pay raises, authorization for hires, etc.), little aggregate information is provided on total staffing levels or annual budgets. Similarly, CBPE’s oc-

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casional annual and other reports to the public did not routinely contain such information. 33 “Chicago Bureau of Public Efficiency By-Laws,” 1, Folder 5, CBPE Minutes 1910-13, Box 1, Civic Federation Papers, CHS. Nowadays, it is more common to limit officer positions to members of the board of directors. 34 Harris S. Keeler, “The Chicago Bureau of Public Efficiency,” Municipal Research 77 (September 1916), 29. Sands’ career in nonprofit civic reform organizations continued prospering after returning to New York, although he never again became executive director of a reform bureau. For example, he was mentioned twice in the New York Times for prominent roles he played in the NYBMR investigations of the New York City Police Department (funded by John D. Rockefeller Jr.) and New York State government (funded by Mrs. E. H. Harriman). “Rockefeller Gives Police Inquiry Fund,” December 22, 1912, 1; “Investigators at Albany, Municipal Research Bureau Making a Survey of Departments,” October 22, 1914, 7. Later, he worked for the federal government and for hospitals (presumably nonprofit ones). He died in 1935. “Herbert R. Sands, Helped Revise Accounting System of City Controller’s Office,” New York Times, February 21, 1935, 19. 35 “Harris Keeler Dies; Civic Investigator,” New York Times, August 22, 1932, 15. 36 In contemporary times, it is more common for the secretary to be a member of the board of directors and, as such, to be one of the organization’s officers, along with such positions as chair, vice chair and treasurer. However, the officer serving as secretary tends not to have the de facto responsibilities usually associated with a secretary. In some business corporations, the staffer with such secretarial duties is sometimes called the corporate secretary, a title intended to differentiate more clearly the de facto secretary from the de jure one (i.e. the member of the board who is an officer with the title of secretary). 37 “Chicago Car Lines Backward, City Railway Official Finds Better Service in Other Places,” New York Times, February 10, 1901, 2; Edward L. Burchard, “Chicago City Club Opening,” National Municipal Review 1:2 (April 1912), 248; entry titled “George C. Sikes” in the miscellaneous section of “Notes and Events,” a regular feature in the National Municipal Review 6:4 (July 1917) 523. 38 He also served as a publicist for the CBPE. For example, in 1917 he traveled to Los Angeles and gave a talk on the CBPE’s goal of consoli-

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dating all local governments in the Chicago area. He recommended the same to his California audience. “Unified Regime Highly Praised: Chicago Man Discusses City, County Merger Plan,” Los Angeles Times, May 20, 1917, I-12. 39 Letter from Keeler to Rosenwald, October 1, 1917, Folder 20, Box 5, RPUC. 40 “George C. Sikes Resigns,” Chicago Tribune, September 28, 1915, 10. 41 Letter from Keeler to Rosenwald, July 7, 1923, Folder 20, Box 5, RPUC. 42 Ibid. In a 29-page report to Rosenwald, Keeler minutely detailed their disagreements and mentions Sikes’s own contacts with Rosenwald about the disagreement. 43 George C. Sikes, “Civil Service Reformers as Enemies of Good Government,” National Municipal Review 12:8 (August 1923), 483-85. 44 “Minutes of Trustees’ Meeting,” February 6, 1911, 2, Folder 5, CBPE Minutes 1910-13, Box 1, Civic Federation Papers, CHS. 45 Burchard, 248. 46 Mordecai Lee, “E-Reporting: Using Managing-for-Results Data to Strengthen Democratic Accountability,” John M. Kamensky and Al Morales, editors, Managing for Results 2005 (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005), 176-84. 47 “Minutes of Trustees’ Meeting,” May 8, 1911, 4, Folder 5, CBPE Minutes 1910-13, Box 1, Civic Federation Papers, CHS. 48 For example, Rosenwald hosted a luncheon on November 18, 1925 at the City Club to brief some potential supporters about the work of the Bureau. Letter from Rosenwald to former Governor Frank Lowden, October 29, 1925, Folder 20, Box 5, RPUC. Examples of such publications include the CBPE’s The Chicago Bureau of Public Efficiency: What it Has Accomplished (Chicago: Chicago Bureau of Public Efficiency, 1915); The Chicago Bureau of Public Efficiency: Its Service to the Community (Chicago: Chicago Bureau of Public Efficiency, 1921); Statement on the Activities of the Chicago Bureau of Public Efficiency before the 1923 Legislature (Chicago: Chicago Bureau of Public Efficiency, 1923). 49 “Minutes of Trustees’ Meeting,” November 14, 1910, 1, Folder 5, CBPE Minutes 1910-13, Box 1, Civic Federation Papers, CHS. 50 “Minutes of Trustees’ Meeting,” April 27, 1917, 2, Folder 6, CBPE Minutes 1914-17, Box 1, Civic Federation Papers, CHS. 51 Letter from Keeler to Rosenwald, November 20, 1927, 1, Folder 20, Box 5, RPUC.

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52 Letter from Keeler to Rosenwald, April 6, 1925, Folder 20, Box 5, RPUC. 53 Letter from Henry P. Chandler to Rosenwald, June 8, 1928, Folder 20, Box 5, RPUC. 54 Letter from Rosenwald to former Governor Frank Lowden, October 29, 1925, Folder 20, Box 5, RPUC. 55 “Minutes of Trustees’ Meeting,” March 5, 1931, Folder 10, CBPE Minutes 1928-32, Box 1, Civic Federation Papers, CHS. 56 Letter from Keeler to Bruce Johnstone, December 2, 1930, Folder 22, Box 5, RPUC. 57 “Minutes of Trustees’ Meeting,” December 5, 1930, Folder 10, CBPE Minutes 1928-32, Box 1, Civic Federation Papers, CHS. However, by the time Rosenwald learned of this decision, on his own initiative he had already sent out letters asking donors to renew for another five years. 58 For reasons probably related to ill health, Rosenwald played no active role in Bureau activities in 1931. His last documented involvement with the CBPE was his unsolicited mailing of requests for five-year pledges in December 1930 (see preceding endnote). Rosenwald did not attend any board meetings in 1931, all of which dealt with the future of the Bureau. Also, there is no record of correspondence between Keeler and Rosenwald during that period. He died on January 6, 1932. The CBPE survived him by less than half a year. It issued only one of seventy reports (its last, in 1931) without his active participation. One could argue that his death and the death of the Bureau were connected. While Rosenwald was a major contributor, he was not in any sense the majority funder of the CBPE. However, his individual involvement in direct fund-raising for the Bureau was probably a critical factor. Due to his civic leadership, personal philanthropy, and business role (head of Sears, Roebuck), few people wanted to decline his personal invitation to contribute to the CBPE. 59 “Minutes of Trustees’ Meeting,” July 17, 1931, Folder 10, CBPE Minutes 1928-32, Box 1, Civic Federation Papers, CHS. 60 Letter from Henry P. Chandler to Rosenwald, June 8, 1928, Folder 20, Box 5, RPUC. The Civic Federation should not be confused with the City Club, the organization that had played a role in the creation of the Bureau. 61 “Minutes of Trustees’ Meeting,” July 11, 1928, 2, Folder 10, CBPE Minutes 1928-32, Box 1, Civic Federation Papers, CHS.

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62 “Minutes of Trustees’ Meeting,” April 8, 1932, Folder 10, CBPE Minutes 1928-32, Box 1, Civic Federation Papers, CHS. 63 The Citizens’ Committee on Public Expenditures did not last much longer than the CBPE. In 1937-38, it merged into (the organization then called) the Civic Federation and Bureau of Public Efficiency, but with no change in the organization’s name and no change in the size of the board of trustees. The only change resulting from the merger was the expansion of the Advisory Committee from 32 to 42 members. Based on a comparison of The Civic Federation and Bureau of Public Efficiency Bulletin Nos. 149 (April 1937) 24 and 160 (May 1938) 20. 64 “Minutes of Trustees’ Meeting,” June 1, 1932, Folder 10, CBPE Minutes 1928-32, Box 1, Civic Federation Papers, CHS. 65 “Minutes of Trustees’ Meeting,” June 17, 1932, 1, Folder 10, CBPE Minutes 1928-32, Box 1, Civic Federation Papers, CHS. 66 Ibid. 67 Civic Federation and Bureau of Public Efficiency, Bulletin No. 129 (October 1933) 3. 68 “Harris Keeler Dies; Civic Investigator,” New York Times, August 22, 1932, 15. 69 “Constitution and By-Laws, The Civic Federation and Bureau of Public Efficiency,” filed June 28, 1932, Folder 10, CBPE Minutes 1928-32, Box 1, Civic Federation Papers, CHS. 70 “Minutes of Trustees’ Meeting,” June 17, 1932, 2-3, Folder 10, CBPE Minutes 1928-32, Box 1, Civic Federation Papers, CHS. 71 Finegold, 167. 72 “Two Citizens’ Bureau Join to Fight Waste,” Chicago Tribune, June 28, 1932, 13; Douglas Sutherland and Harland C. Stockwell, “Civic Federation Surveys Promise Results in Chicago,” National Municipal Review 32:2 (February 1943), 106. 73 “Chicago Taxpayers Form Civic Bureau,” Christian Science Monitor, July 9, 1932, 2. 74 “Harris Keeler Dies; Civic Investigator,” New York Times, August 22, 1932, 15; “Harris Keeler, Tax Waste Foe, Dies Suddenly,” Chicago Tribune, August 22, 1932, 5. Both obituaries mistakenly referred to Keeler becoming the CBPE director in March 1910. 75 “Keeler Praised for Tax Fight; Rites Tomorrow,” Chicago Tribune, August 23, 1932, 18.

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76 Letterhead of letter from executive secretary Douglas Southerland to vice president Graham Aldis, May 1, 1933, Folder 37, Aldis Papers, University of Chicago-Illinois. 77 See, for example, Civic Federation and Bureau of Public Efficiency Bulletin Nos. 132 (April 1934), 138 (February 1935), 145 (March 1936), 149 (April 1937), 160 and 160-A (May and June 1938) and 169 (May 1939). 78 The report on the South Park District was published in March. The remaining reports on the seven other major independent units of government in the metropolitan area were released in April (in alphabetical order): Board of Education, City of Chicago, County of Cook, Forest Preserve District, Lincoln Park District, Sanitary District of Chicago and West Park District. 79 See, for example, Civic Federation and Bureau of Public Efficiency Bulletin Nos. 129 (October 1933), 146 (October 1936) and 175 (November 1940). 80 Letter from executive secretary Douglas Sutherland to president Graham Aldis, September 24, 1940, Folder 41, Aldis Papers, University of Illinois-Chicago. 81 Newton C. Farr, president, and Douglas Southerland, executive secretary, The Civic Federation, “Announcement to Members and the Public,” March 6, 1941, Folder 42, Aldis Papers, University of Illinois-Chicago. 82 The Civic Federation, Bulletin No. 177 (June 1941), front page. 83 The Civic Federation, Bulletin No. 230 (August 1945) 1. By now, the listing for the Committee on Public Expenditures had already been dropped. 84 The Civic Federation, Bulletin No. 244 (August 1946). 85 The Civic Federation survives to this day, retrieved June 19, 2007: http://civicfed.org/. 86 Keeler, 31. 87 Merriam, “Investigations as a Means of Securing Administrative Efficiency,” 302. 88 Sait, 50. 89 CBPE, Statement on the Activities of the Chicago Bureau of Public Efficiency before the 1923 Legislature 1923. 90 H. S. Gilbertson, “Proposed City-County Consolidation in Los Angeles,” National Municipal Review 7:3 (May 1918), 302. 91 CBPE, Chicago Bureau of Public Efficiency: Its Service to the Community, 4-5.

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92 Sikes, “Chicago Bureau of Public Efficiency,” 456. 93 CBPE, Chicago Bureau of Public Efficiency: What it Has Accomplished, 5. 94 Keeler, 32. 95 The sole exception is that one of the CBME’s 17 reports related to a voter referendum (issued in February 1918). 96 Letter from Sikes to Keeler, June 28, 1917, Folder 20, Box 5, RPUC. 97 Harold F. Gosnell and Norman N. Gill, “An Analysis of the 1932 Presidential Vote in Chicago,” American Political Science Review 29:6 (December 1935), 970. 98 Truman, 51. 99 Werner, 140. 100 Gould, 165-66. 101 Schiesl, 123-24. 102 David S. Tanenhaus and Steven A. Drizin, “‘Owing to the Extreme Youth of the Accused’: The Changing Legal Response to Juvenile Homicide,” Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology 92:3-4 (Spring-Summer 2002), 651. 103 S. J. Duncan-Clark, “Chicago Campaign Ignores Candidates,” New York Times, November 3, 1929, 2. 104 S. J. Duncan-Clark, “Chicago Financing More Complicated,” New York Times, December 29, 1929, 2. 105 “Chicago to Offer New Bonds Gradually,” New York Times, February 26, 1931, 37. 106 Finegold, 156. 107 Yarros, “Chicago’s Politics – Present and Future,” 468. 108 “Minutes of Executive Committee Meeting,” January 2, 1912, 1, Folder 5, CBPE Minutes 1910-13, Box 1, Civic Federation Papers, CHS.

5 THE BIGGER PICTURE: BUREAUS OF EFFICIENCY IN OTHER CORNERS OF AMERICA

T

he preceding chapters have presented four interrelated case studies of bureaus of efficiency that existed during the Progressive Era. In some respects, efficiency bureaus were a genus comparable to bureaus of municipal research in that their raison d’être was government reform. However, whereas almost all municipal research bureaus were in the nonprofit sector, bureaus of efficiency also were found within municipal government. An unusual aspect of the concept of a bureau of efficiency was that it could exist equally in the public and nonprofit sectors. As governmental bureaus of efficiency, they pushed for reform from the inside. As nonprofit organizations, they agitated for changes in the public sector from the outside. The selection of four particular efficiency bureaus for the preceding in-depth examination was due partly to the unusual circumstance of a pair of nonprofit and governmental bureaus of efficiency existing serially in two Midwestern cities. That circumstance permitted a comparative study that also focused upon possible sectoral differences.

OVERVIEW It is important to place these four bureaus of efficiency in the larger context of their peer group. This will help contribute to a broader understanding of the efficiency bureau phenomenon, of which the Milwaukee and Chicago case studies were merely a part. They were not isolated incidents, but rather reflected a larger trend. Generally, efficiency bureaus have been overshadowed in historiography by bureaus of municipal research. Therefore, this chapter presents a national survey of the larger phenomenon of efficiency bureaus during the Progressive Era. The results indicate that efficiency bureaus were a lesser variation on municipal research bureaus in their absolute numbers and longevity, which helps explain why they have

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been neglected in the historical record. The existence of the two pairs of public and nonprofit sector bureaus of efficiency in Chicago and Milwaukee was unusual, not found in other cities during the Progressive Era. However, these four efficiency bureaus were very much part of a national trend to create bureaus of efficiency to pursue government reform as an alternative to the nonprofit dominated municipal research bureau approach. First, there were counterparts in other cities to the two bureaus of efficiency that were part of their municipal governments: the Milwaukee Bureau of Economy and Efficiency and the Efficiency Division of the Chicago Civil Service Commission. Besides those efficiency bureau peers from city government, there were public sector bureaus of efficiency at the county, school district, and federal levels of government. Second, there were a few other examples of nonprofit efficiency bureaus that existed to promote governmental efficiency from the outside. These are the peers of the Milwaukee Citizens’ Bureau of Municipal Efficiency and the Chicago Bureau of Public Efficiency. There was at least one other city-based nonprofit BOE and others that had narrower or wider foci, including two solely concerned with social services in a city, one that was oriented to state government, and a BOE that advocated for governmental reforms at all levels in a multi-state region. However, unlike bureaus of municipal research, there were variations on the concept of a bureau of efficiency during the Progressive Era (and beyond). These entities were similarly premised on promoting efficiency, but they were oriented toward the business sector, instead of the public sector. Some for-profit corporations established in-house efficiency bureaus to improve their internal operations. A few nonprofit associations created bureaus of efficiency to encourage efficient procedures in their specific areas of endeavor. These ranged from for-profit industrial associations to recreational membership organizations. Finally, the term bureau of efficiency was so elastic that it was sometimes used for reasons unrelated to improving organizational efficiency, whether in government or business. Beginning with the Progressive Era and through the rest of the twentieth century, at least five publishing ventures have used the terminology, and a fictional one was featured in an episode of a popular TV series. This chapter presents these other bureaus of efficiency in the Progressive Era.

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CITY GOVERNMENT Chapters 1 and 3 profiled efficiency bureaus placed in city governments: the Milwaukee Bureau of Economy and Efficiency (MBEE) which existed from 1910 to 1912 and the Efficiency Division of the Chicago Civil Service Commission (CSC). The latter was established in 1910 and abolished in 1916. It was colloquially referred to as an efficiency bureau. These two bureaus were similar not only in their sectoral affiliation, but also in the fact that they were part of the municipal level of government and therefore eligible to study problems in all agencies of the city government (as opposed to being limited to studying only the operations of the department in which it was housed). They were not the only ones. At least eight other such municipalities had offices with a variation on the bureau of efficiency term.1 The major ones are briefly described below, and presented according to the chronological sequence of their establishment.

Bureau of Efficiency, Civil Service Commission, City and County of San Francisco2 James Rolph was elected as San Francisco’s first nonpartisan mayor in 1912 following charter reforms that eliminated party affiliation. As a progressive reformer, one of his first-year initiatives was to create a Bureau of Efficiency within the city’s Civil Service Commission.3 The idea was approved by the Board of Supervisors (akin to a city council) in July 1912 and the Bureau came into existence on August 1, 1912.4 The Commission named E. R. Zion, an attorney and civil servant in the Tax Collector’s office, to head the Bureau.5 San Francisco’s Bureau of Efficiency was a small operation, at times consisting only of Zion and a part-time stenographer.6 It had a wideranging mission, including developing a comprehensive database of all city employees, identifying which civil servants were efficient and which were not, reorganizing the structure of city agencies, and promoting business-like methods of operation in all departments.7 Some of its specific studies related to comparing auto use between departments, uncovering the low rate of convictions in the municipal court, improving enforcement of public health laws, reorganizing the department of public works, and urging development of building codes for structures on intersections with obtuse angles.8

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At one point, Mayor Rolph threatened to fire Zion and abolish the Bureau “unless practical instead of theoretical efficiency resulted from the bureau’s efforts.” That threat arose when the Fire Department, at Zion’s urging, shifted from paying its employees with cash to using checks. The first payday after the changeover was on January 31, 1913, but the checks were not ready. The firefighters were not paid until February 5.9 When the situation did not recur, the mayor was mollified and the Bureau continued its existence. However, at mid-decade, the Civil Service Commission merged the Bureau of Efficiency into its Inspection Division, with Zion appointed as the Chief Inspector.10 With that, San Francisco’s BOE ceased to exist as a separate unit.11

Efficiency Bureau, Civil Service Commission, City of Los Angeles12 In 1913, the Los Angeles City Council created an Efficiency Bureau within the city’s Civil Service Commission.13 The first director was chosen through a civil service process and took office in spring 1914.14 It began with an annual budget of $15,000 and all of its employees were in the classified civil service system. The Bureau’s goals were largely related to personnel matters, including standardizing salaries, creating a uniform classification system for all positions in the civil service, and developing an efficiency ratings system to be used for annual performance evaluations.15 It originally was to have only a limited non-personnel mission relating to studying operations within various municipal departments and making budget recommendations to the Council.16 However, by the end of 1914, some members of the city Council had already declared the Bureau a failure and began a running criticism of the director, seeking to abolish the Bureau.17 This was prompted in part by the Council’s desire that the Bureau focus solely on “measures to expedite official business,” after the agency had submitted proposals for major structural reforms, including calling for a city manager form of government.18 The conflict with the Council became an ongoing theme of city politics, with abolition efforts occurring in 1915, 1916, and 1917.19 In one of those cases, the Council passed a resolution defunding the Bureau, but the mayor vetoed it.20 In 1918, a new director replaced his controversial predecessor

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and the agency limped along as a more modest operation. It was defunct by the early 1920s.21 In 1925, city government revived it, but as a very different kind of BOE (see below).

Bureau of Efficiency, Office of the Commissioner of Accounts, New York City New York City’s Commissioner of Accounts was initially established by the state legislature in 1873 to investigate corruption in municipal government, then controlled by the Tammany Hall machine.22 Upon taking office in January 1910, reform mayor William Gaynor appointed 26 year-old reform activist Raymond B. (“Fearless”) Fosdick Commissioner.23 In a November 1911 speech, Fosdick said that based on his experience in office after almost two years he wanted to create an “efficiency bureau” by transferring part of his engineering staff to it.24 His intent was to bifurcate the work of his office. The regular staff would continue working to expose corruption and graft and handle the other statutory duties of the office. The new BOE would be a separate subdivision of the office that would focus solely on improving the management of municipal operations, with a view to reducing waste, duplication, and other inefficiencies.25 The Bureau’s mandate was a telling summary of the conventional wisdom of the times: In the conduct of its executive departments the city is simply a business corporation. The bureau of efficiency has been organized to make a thorough study of the principles governing successful commercial organizations, and then to apply those principles to the conduct of municipal departments. It is believed that modern scientific management, thoughtfully applied and intelligently worked out, will produce such astonishing economical results in municipal work as to more than justify this addition to the regular activities of this commission.26

By December 1, 1911, the Bureau of Efficiency in the Office of the Commissioner of Accounts was up and running.27 Heading it was Benjamin F. Welton, an engineer on the staff who had previously worked for the Merriam Commission in Chicago (see Chapters 2 and 3) and New York City’s first budget exhibit in 1910.28 His title was Engineer in Charge.29 Fosdick quickly understood that his Efficiency Bureau needed a staff with professional expertise beyond en-

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gineering and expanded it to include accountants from his office as well.30 Part of the Bureau’s staffing was organized on a project basis, so that Commission staff who were regularly assigned to other divisions could be loaned temporarily to the Bureau on an as-needed basis for specific projects. Fosdick also announced that Frederick Winslow Taylor (generally credited with unleashing the focus on efficiency) had been retained as a consultant to the Bureau.31 Its first project was a reorganization of the Borough of Queens government. The Bureau’s report on this project was the only one it issued.32 That report evidently led to the creation of a short-lived Bureau of Efficiency within the Borough’s government.33 Another project of Fosdick’s BOE included several proposals to reorganize the city’s budget system.34 However, when Fosdick had a falling out with the mayor and resigned in mid-1912, continuation of the Bureau was in serious doubt.35 By the end of the year, the number of personnel assigned to it had been sharply reduced and the unit was now called the “Efficiency Staff.”36 It functioned more like a budget bureau.37 By the beginning of 1914, the NYBMR board chairman Fulton Cutting was already calling for “The revival of efficiency [sic] in the office of the Commissioner of Accounts.”38 In May 1914, the twenty men on the Efficiency and Budget Advisory Staff of the Board of Estimate were transferred to the Commissioner of Accounts, but the Bureau of Efficiency was not reinstated.39 Instead, the transferred employees were called, as before, “the Efficiency Staff” and the unit was headed by a Chief who was, once again, Benjamin Welton.40

Bureau of Budget and Efficiency, City of Los Angeles One provision in the new municipal charter for Los Angeles that went into effect on July 1, 1925, was creation of a Bureau of Budget and Efficiency.41 Its stated purpose was “taking the expenditures of public funds out of politics.”42 The Bureau had about fifteen employees and all were selected through civil service examinations.43 One category within its classified positions was called efficiency engineer.44 The charter also guaranteed fixed minimum tax revenue for the Bureau’s operations, so that inadequate funding by hostile mayors and city council members could never cripple it.45 However, it had no formal

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administrative power over agencies (as a traditional budget bureau would usually have) and was purely advisory to the mayor and city council.46 In fact, the bureau opposed suggestions for assigning it any “real” powers, arguing that this authority would give it a vested interest in outcomes and therefore degrade its most powerful tool, its “disinterested, third-party viewpoint which allows an unbiased presentation of facts for legislative and executive consideration.”47 This perspective reflected an understanding of the difference between line and staff roles in large organizations. The bureau wanted to have a pure staff function. Although its insight into the importance of the distinction was well conceived, the limited role it sought was unprecedented in the power-oriented world of government. As an advisory organization, the bureau’s main outputs were “factfinding surveys and investigations” comparable to those of other bureaus of efficiency in municipal government.48 It focused on a specific municipal department or function, and then identified areas for administrative and operational improvements, generally with a view toward saving money. The Bureau released forty-two studies between 1930 and 1951, a pace of about two a year.49 This frequency of reports was comparable to that of other efficiency bureaus. Writing at the time of these events, two public administration professors lauded the bureau. John Pfiffner declared that the agency “presents an admirable example” of a public sector BOE. Leonard White complimented its “large staff of capable men.”50 The Bureau was abolished in 1951 and replaced by the City Administrative Officer.51

Other Municipal Bureaus of Efficiency A Bureau of Municipal Efficiency and Economy in Sacramento (California) was authorized by the city charter in 1920, but was so short lived that it never reached a fully functioning status.52 Similarly, an Efficiency Bureau in Muskegon (Michigan) existed briefly in the early 1920s.53 The Norfolk (Virginia) city charter created an Efficiency Bureau in the 1930s. The Bureau’s responsibilities were largely confined to personnel-related subjects, including “classification, pay standardization, and service ratings.”54 One of its major studies was a 1935 proposal for a comprehensive compensation and classification system for all city employees. The city manager also served as the bureau’s chairman.55 The other members of its supervising board in-

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cluded all department and agency heads.56 In 1913, a consulting engineer based in New York City recommended that all municipalities and school boards improve the quality of their construction projects. He proposed that each city government create a “technical efficiency bureau” to assure the professional quality of all bidders and of their proposals for capital projects.57 However, it does not appear that any cities ever implemented his suggestion. Finally, only one BOE exists to this day. Rochester (New York) has a Bureau of Budget and Efficiency. However, it is a de facto budget office. The now old-fashioned title referencing efficiency continues to be legally required by the city charter. An examination of its operations shows little to no activity reminiscent of municipal efficiency bureaus in the Progressive Era.58

Bureau of Economy and Efficiency, Department of Water Supply, Gas and Electricity, New York City The common denominator of municipal bureaus of efficiency was that they all had interdepartmental jurisdiction in city government. They could rove widely throughout the municipal corporation to do their work. However, there was at least one intradepartmental municipal BOE with its jurisdiction limited to the department in which it was housed. The Bureau of Economy and Efficiency of New York City’s Department of Water Supply, Gas and Electricity was created in January 1912.59 It aimed to attain “the maximum efficiency in service at the minimum cost to the city by the practical application of the principles of economy and efficiency, and for the preparation of statements that will show departmental officials and taxpayers the work accomplished, revenue, and expenditures incurred.”60 The Bureau was an independent division of the department, reporting directly to the Department Commissioner. Staffed by accountants and engineers, its general goal was to conduct “critical analyses of operating methods of the department.”61 In particular, its work centered on engineering and accounting issues. Some of its engineering studies included comparative data relating to the performance of different pumping stations, the advisability of a suction ash-handling system, and a revision of the daily reporting form from fire stations on water use. Some of the Bureau’s accounting work

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included installing tabulating machines in departmental offices, processing invoices, designing new departmental offices, and advising the payment of all employees by check.62 The Bureau published three reports. Bulletin No. 1, dated January 1913, was titled Economy and Efficiency in the Department of Water Supply, Gas and Electricity. It described ongoing efficiency efforts in the department prior to establishment of the Bureau. The second, dated 1912, was on Standard Specifications, Uniform Procedure and Forms Relating to Coal.63 Like the first report, it merely summarized reforms installed by the department before the Bureau’s existence. The only difference was that this latter report provided detail about one topic instead of a department-wide summary. The Bureau’s sole publication summarizing work it had conducted was Bulletin No. 3, titled Functional Classification of Expenditures. This report summarized the Bureau’s work in late 1912 to develop and install a uniform accounting reporting system for the Department.64 But the Water Department’s Bureau of Economy and Efficiency existed only briefly, from 1912 to 1913.65 Apparently it was the pet idea of the mayoral appointee running the department, Henry S. Thompson. His successor quickly abolished it.66

COUNTY GOVERNMENT The Milwaukee Bureau of Economy and Efficiency, the Efficiency Division of Chicago’s CSC, and the examples presented above were all affiliated with municipal government. However, given the multilayering of American government, there were also some public sector efficiency bureaus at the county, school district, and federal levels of government. They were similar to city government bureaus of efficiency with a goal of reforming government and especially promoting efficiency in agency operations. As discussed in Chapter 2, the trailblazing Bureau of Municipal Research in New York City helped create the template for the efficiency movement in government. As was mentioned earlier, the local government of the New York metropolis was a merger of municipal and county government, with New York City comprising five counties called boroughs. Hence, the orientation of the research bureau in New York was on municipal research, since county government did not exist. The absence of a county level of government in New

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York City inadvertently resulted in a template for the national movement that promoted research and efficiency bureaus in city governments alone, rather than include county governments. Similarly, San Francisco’s local government merged the city and county levels. It, too, had a BOE, described in the preceding section. Besides the citycounty BOE in New York and in San Francisco, there were fewer local government bureaus of efficiency at the county level than the city level. Only two other major county-level efficiency bureaus were identified in the course of this research as well as was a third, minor, one.

Efficiency Bureau, Civil Service Commission, Cook County (Illinois) The existence of the Efficiency Division within the Chicago Civil Service Commission (see Chapter 3) had an impact on the government of the county in which Chicago was located. In 1911, the Cook County CSC asked the county board “to establish the bureau of efficiency” that would focus mostly on the proper classification of all positions within the county’s civil service system.67 The county board begrudgingly agreed, but within a year began to have second thoughts. During the budget adoption process in 1912, some members of the county board moved to abolish it.68 A pitched political battle between reformers and regulars succeeded in saving the bureau, but with a major cut in its staffing and budget.69 The bureau limped along for two more years, when the county board cut its staffing further, leaving it with only three employees. Robert Catherwood, president of the county’s Civil Service Commission and a local good government activist, tried to prevent those cuts but failed.70 In 1915, when Catherwood was no longer on the Commission, its new (non-reform) majority abolished the Bureau, claiming the commissioners themselves could do the efficiency work performed by the three bureau staffers.71

Bureau of Efficiency, Civil Service Commission, Los Angeles County The new county charter approved by voters in Los Angeles in 1913 included a bureau of efficiency which was placed within the county’s civil service commission.72 Its mission was very narrow and

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primarily personnel-oriented. Like the initial work of the Chicago CSC Efficiency Division, the Bureau of Efficiency in LA County’s government focused on creating a comprehensive efficiency ratings system for all civil servants working for the county. At that time, it had only one staffer. However, in 1930, the Bureau’s responsibilities were enlarged by the county board of Supervisors to include—like its counterpart at the Chicago CSC—non-personnel research projects, budget work, salary studies, and general investigations into the activities of county departments. It also served as an advisory staff to the county board.73 By 1936, the Bureau had published twenty major reports covering the breadth of Los Angeles county government.74 Annually, it conducted 200-300 “assignments” of lesser length, scope, and impact.75 During that period, the Bureau had about twelve full-time professional employees and three stenographers.76 It also had an internship program of eight college students a year, which it claimed was a “phenomenal success.”77 Annual budgets ranged from $28,000 to $42,000.78 The Bureau’s director, Harry F. Scoville, was a prominent leader in the emerging profession of public administration.79 The reports issued by LA County’s BOE were considered professional and thorough, and are still being cited by academic researchers in the twenty-first century.80 In 1936, the county board decided that the work of the Bureau “had become more and more of a fiscal and research nature and thus farther removed from” its original responsibilities relating to personnel management. Therefore, most of the staff was transferred to a new Budget and Research Department. Only two staffers were retained in the Bureau of Efficiency and they focused exclusively on “personnel efficiency.”81 Such a modest operation hardly deserved the status of an independent, charter-required bureau within the Civil Service Commission. By 1938, the Commission was treating the Bureau as one of its (more traditional) line divisions and began lobbying for amending the county charter to abolish the BOE and absorb its responsibilities into the CSC’s routine operations.82 Moving slowly, ten years later, the county’s board of supervisors indicated a readiness to consider placing such a charter amendment on the ballot.83 Viewing it as a “technical” amendment, the board eventually agreed to place that proposed change (and several others) on the ballot during the No-

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vember 1948 presidential election.84 However, the supervisors approached the issue cautiously. They did not want to appear to be “against efficiency” or in favor of abolishing a county body that had the mission of pursuing efficiency. Therefore, the wording of the official referendum question was carefully drafted so that it never stated that the proposal would abolish the BOE. Instead, near the end of a very long statement of explanation, there was a reference to the Civil Service Commission conducting efficiency ratings “in lieu of providing for a bureau of efficiency having related powers and duties.”85 Even so many years after the era of bureaus of efficiency, the concept was still thought by politicians to have strong appeal for voters. The board’s approach of diminishing attention to the actual elimination of BOE succeeded as voters agreed to amend the county charter and abolished the Bureau of Efficiency at the November 2, 1948, election. Yet to this day, echoes of the County’s BOE persist. The rules of LA County’s CSC state the Commission’s duty to pursue “efficiency in the dispatch of public business” and require it to conduct annual personnel evaluations of every civil servant based on “Ratings of efficiency.”86

PUBLIC SCHOOL DISTRICTS In the 1910s and 20s, public education, like so many other aspects of American society and government, became interested in pursuing efficiency.87 The term efficient education began being used prominently in the public education literature, although its precise meaning was never clear.88 Boards of education of public school districts (usually kindergarten through high school), state education departments, and schools of education at universities often created bureaus of efficiency, bureaus of educational research, or variations on those titles.89 Generally, school district efficiency bureaus had the same underlying premise as municipal and nonprofit bureaus of efficiency. They believed in the value of research, quantification, and measurement, objective information, and a “scientific” approach to whatever topic was being studied. However, the content and orientation of these school district efficiency bureaus suggest that their focus was on research and measuring educational attainment rather than the more administrative and operational foci of local government bureaus of efficiency (whether

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placed in the nonprofit or public sectors). For example, a key national report in 1913-14 recommended that “a bureau of efficiency and economy be established in the state department of public instruction which shall act as a clearing house for educational information.” The report also urged creation of “a department of efficiency tests and survey” in schools of education at each state’s major public university.90 These two suggestions indicate that the meaning of efficiency for public education focused mostly on standards, measurement, and testing. In 1930, the dean of the School of Education at the University of Chicago “insisted upon” every major school district having “a vigorous bureau of efficiency.”91 Almost every public school district in the United States engaged in various efficiency activities at that time, sometimes hiring so-called education efficiency experts and at other times creating an in-house research department. In writing his history of the school efficiency movement, Raymond Callahan noted that there were “efficiency bureaus” in seven public schools districts by 1916 and more were created later in the decade. However, he was apparently using the term generically, since he did not capitalize it.92 Focusing on public school districts that created entities with bureau and efficiency in their titles (the criterion used throughout this study), I have identified four such efficiency bureaus. The two major ones are discussed below in roughly chronological order.

Efficiency Bureau, Board of Education, Rochester (New York) In 1911, the Board of Education in Rochester (New York) invited the NYBMR to assist it in creating a bureau of efficiency.93 The board appointed the Assistant Superintendent of Schools, Joseph P. O’Hern, to direct the new Efficiency Bureau and defined the Bureau’s mission as “keeping all educational records and reports, and carrying on such research work as the superintendent or board of education might direct.”94 This statement of purpose demonstrates that these educational bureaus of efficiency focused on measurement and testing, not on investigations to promote increased efficiency in the school district’s administrative offices and ancillary services. In this context, efficiency referred to research that would improve education. To strengthen working relationships with schools, the Bureau appointed an advisory committee of five school principals.95

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As an example of its work, in 1914 the Efficiency Bureau issued a tabulation of high school statistics from most major U.S. cities to permit comparisons with Rochester’s high school.96 The Bureau existed at least through 1927, when a high school vice principal wrote of the continuing value of its work to the school’s staff.97

Bureau of Research and Efficiency, Public School District, Kansas City (Missouri) The Board of Directors of the Kansas City (Missouri) School District established a Bureau of Research and Efficiency in June 1914. Its purpose was “to assist in discovering better methods of administering and supervising our schools, and better methods of teaching the various subjects of the curriculum.”98 The board appointed George Melcher, from one of the local teachers colleges (called normal schools), to be the Bureau’s director. The Bureau published three issues of a Bulletin. The first, released in January 1916, was an annual report covering the Bureau’s activities in the first year of its existence, 1914-15. The eighty-nine-page report provided the results of the statistics collected by the Bureau, all but ten pages related to student achievement and demographics. The remaining ten pages dealt with school maintenance studies, with the premise that non-educational offices “should be able to prove their usefulness by the savings they effect, the waste their presence prevents, or the increased efficiency of the instruction which their administrative oversight ensures.”99 The other two issues of the Bulletin dealt with revising the spelling curriculum for the district’s elementary schools.100 Melcher published several articles about the Bureau’s work before becoming the district’s superintendent (1928-40).101 Speaking at a conference of public school superintendents in 1916, he outlined a comprehensive research agenda that school district efficiency bureaus were just beginning to work on. “Bureaus of efficiency are now engaged very largely in checking up general results and measuring school achievements objectively,” he said. “It is probable that, in a few years, the most important work of these bureaus will be centered on” more specific educational and managerial efficiency topics.102 That same year, he summarized elsewhere some of the Bureau’s research, including the use of coal by janitors to heat school buildings and “efficiency of school work.” Regarding the latter topic, he concluded:

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“From the investigations made thus far I am of the opinion that … too much emphasis is placed on writing in the lower grades.”103 In 1918, he suggested that for educational research results to be valid, the field needed to be more rigorous about using empirical methodologies in its experiments, such as control groups.104 While good social science, this had little to do with promoting efficiency per se. In the 1930s, the Bureau of Research and Efficiency was apparently renamed the Department of Research, Planning and Assessment.105 The entity continues to the present as the Research/Evaluation Department.106

Other School District Bureaus of Efficiency In 1913, New York City’s Board of Education made preparations to establish a Bureau of Efficiency and Research.107 However, the name was quickly changed to Bureau of Reference, Research and Statistics.108 The next year, the Boston School Committee voted to create a bureau of efficiency, to be headed by a new senior official with the title of director of promotion and educational measurement.109 In 1916, the public school district of Buffalo (New York) had a Bureau of Efficiency and Research. It worked toward “increasing the efficiency of the teaching service.”110 A Bureau of Research & Efficiency of the Los Angeles Public School District was created in 1917.111 It was sometimes referred to as the Bureau of Research and Efficiency and at other times as the Bureau of Research.112 Its head, Robert Hill Lane, wrote extensively about traditional pedagogic issues, rather than about so-called educational efficiency issues.113 Within two years, it was renamed the Division of Educational Research. Yet as late as 1933-34, the school district had a Bureau of Efficiency, which apparently focused more on budgetary than pedagogic matters.114

FEDERAL GOVERNMENT In 1915, a professor who was advocating that state governments shift their appropriations process to a unified executive budget also urged that each state government have “an efficiency bureau” that would focus on organizational issues such as departmental reorganizations and structure of the executive branch.115 Although state governments created every manner of efficiency units, none were called bureau of efficiency or efficiency bureau.116 At the request of New York’s gover-

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nor, in 1913 the state legislature established a Department of Efficiency and Economy, headed by a Commissioner of Efficiency and Economy. The agency was sometimes informally known as the “efficiency bureau.”117 Even in more formal contexts, including by a legislative leader, it was sometimes referred to as the “Bureau of Efficiency and Economy.”118 But neither of those monikers were its legal name. Clearly, from these examples, as with school districts, the term efficiency bureau (or bureau of efficiency) was a generic one. At the state level of government, it was not used as a formal title for any specific efficiency-promoting entities. At the federal level, the United States Bureau of Efficiency was an independent agency in the executive branch from 1916 through 1933. Like some other public sector efficiency bureaus, it had its origins in personnel matters, as part of the effort by civil service commissions to create efficiency ratings systems for public employees. Congress created the U.S. Civil Service Commission’s Division of Efficiency in 1913. When Congress reorganized the Division into a freestanding agency, it expanded the organization’s jurisdiction from efficiency ratings systems to all matters of efficiency in the federal government. The U.S. Bureau of Efficiency engaged in a broad range of studies, investigations, and reports for Congress, the president and, toward the end of its existence, the municipal government of the District of Columbia. It also maintained an information service to answer citizens’ inquiries about the federal government. Congress abolished the Bureau in 1933, ostensibly to cut federal spending during the Great Depression, but in reality to punish the Bureau for its negative reports about some senators’ sacred cows.119 Besides the U.S. Bureau of Efficiency, there was at least one other within the federal government, operating as an intradepartmental unit. The Appraiser of the Port of New York, a Treasury Department official within the Customs Service, created an “Efficiency Bureau” in 1911 to promote more productivity and honesty by customs officials working on the docks. The jurisdiction of the bureau was limited to his employees.120 Outside the United States and nearly three decades after the end of the Progressive Era, in 1947 the government of Ireland prepared legislation to create an Efficiency Bureau within the Ministry for Industry and Commerce. The Bureau’s mission would be to audit private corporations to ascertain their operational efficiency and, as

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appropriate, to impose sanctions on inefficient companies. The opposition of private sector lobbying groups scuttled the proposal.121

NONPROFIT EFFICIENCY BUREAUS PROMOTING GOVERNMENT EFFICIENCY Chapters 2 and 4 examined in detail two nonprofit bureaus of efficiency active in Milwaukee and Chicago. These agencies shared a common goal of seeking to promote efficiency in government operations through advocacy from the outside. The Milwaukee Citizens’ Bureau of Municipal Efficiency existed from 1913 through 1921, when it changed its name. After undergoing several name changes, it continues today. About eighty miles to the south, a similar nonprofit BOE was in operation. The Chicago Bureau of Public Efficiency (CBPE) was established in 1910 and existed until 1932, when it merged into another organization. The latter agency is also still in operation. At least five other nonprofit bureaus of efficiency elsewhere in the United States promoted increased efficiency in the operations of government. The only “perfect” counterpart to the CBME and the CBPE was the Bureau of Public Efficiency and Economy in Des Moines (Iowa). However, it had only a short existence, partly because it was under-funded. During its first four months of operation from October 1911 to January 1912, its total budget was $800.122 The interregnum between its demise and the establishment in 1921 of another nonprofit, the Des Moines Bureau of Municipal Research, was so long that the latter organization was not even considered an informal successor to this BOE. Four other nonprofit efficiency bureaus had foci that were either narrower or broader than these three city-oriented bureaus of efficiency. Some focused only on social services in a city, one was oriented to state government, and another to all levels of government in a multi-state region. Chicago was apparently a hotbed of bureaus of efficiency. The BOE moniker was also popular with local women activists who led organizations promoting improved social services. In 1913, members of the Mental Efficiency League announced they were creating a Public Efficiency Bureau in the downtown Loop area that would issue weekly public welfare bulletins relating to mental health conditions.123 Two years later, the Chicago Women’s League created a Bureau of Civic Efficiency and assigned its members to sys-

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tematically attend and monitor the meetings of all local government bodies. These volunteers then reported on what transpired, with the goal of “increasing the civic intelligence of the league” for future reform efforts.124

Wisconsin Efficiency Bureau The Wisconsin Efficiency Bureau existed from December 1914 to June 1916 and was headquartered in Madison, the state capital. It published a fortnightly series (although sometimes weekly) called Everybody’s Business, which had a run of sixty-five issues. The Bureau’s motto was “To Promote State-wide Citizen Interest in Public Business.”125 The motto was later expanded and refined to “To develop state-wide citizen information, citizen interest and citizen control, the three steps to better government.”126 This expanded motto distilled the basic ideology of good government reformers during the Progressive Era to its essence. It focused on (supposedly) objective information and the power of public opinion to assure good government. The Bureau had a statewide perspective, focusing primarily on the operations of state government. However, its ideology and some of its publications were similar to those of the CBME and the CBPE. For example, one issue of its bi-weekly periodical was dedicated to the importance of establishing municipal reference bureaus, a tenet of the bureau movement.127 Generally, the Wisconsin Efficiency Bureau focused on generating public support for the work of the state government’s newly established Board of Public Affairs.128 John R. Commons had suggested creating the Board after he left the Milwaukee Bureau of Economy and Efficiency.129 Then, shortly after William H. Allen was ousted from the NYBMR, the Board hired Allen (whose talk at the Milwaukee City Club in 1912 had led to the creation of the CBME) to direct a survey of the University of Wisconsin in the hope of identifying unnecessary expenditures.130 The Bureau mailed flyers in early 1915 in support of Allen’s subsequent report and in opposition to the faculty’s efforts to discredit it.131 The June 19, 1916, issue of Everybody’s Business included a plea for contributions so that the Bureau could be funded through July 1, 1917. However, only one more issue of was ever published, suggesting that the Bureau had to shut down quickly for lack of funding.

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Bureau of Economics and Public Efficiency, Southern Commercial Congress The Southern Commercial Congress was a regional nonprofit organization seeking to improve business conditions throughout the South. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., it existed from at least 1909 to 1940. In mid-1915, its Bureau of Economics and Public Efficiency published in rapid succession three bulletins on improving efficiency of government. The first issue promoted efficiency reforms for all levels of government throughout the organization’s multi-state region. It advocated reorganizing city, county, state, and the federal governments into a structure similar to business corporations, calling it a “controlled-executive plan.” Just as shareholders elected a corporation’s board of directors to supervise the business’s general manager, the voters should elect a legislative body to oversee a single executive charged with running all administrative agencies. The Bureau argued that even the U.S. President should be appointed by unicameral Congress, as would the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. According to the Bureau, this uniform approach to reorganizing all levels of government into a structure akin to that of a private corporation would accomplish the goals of those who “are really seeking efficiency and true representation in government.”132 Two weeks later the Bureau of Economics and Public Efficiency released a second bulletin that applied the principles of the first bulletin with more detail to county government in Virginia. It described the structure of county government, dictated by the state’s constitution, as “dangerously top-heavy, unrelated, non-cooperative, inefficient, unbusinesslike and, in some cases, corrupt.”133 The third and last of the series, published a fortnight later, focused on Virginia’s municipal level of government. It called for adopting the city manager structure, as the closest public-sector parallel to the business corporation. This bulletin noted that the first city in the United States to name a city manager was Staunton (Virginia) in 1908 and recommended that this model be copied throughout the state and, for that matter, throughout the South and the rest of the country. The Bureau captured the sense of the times, asserting that “Municipal progress in the future will be measured in terms of the efficiency of local government.”134 All three reports were written by the Bureau’s Counselor, LeRoy Hodges, an economist and former government official.135

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The Bureau apparently disbanded after issuing these three reports in 1915. Hodges became a researcher for the Virginia State Chamber of Commerce. During its brief existence, the Bureau of Economics and Public Efficiency sought to make government as efficient as business. This closely paralleled the philosophy of the CBME and the CBPE, the two nonprofit efficiency bureaus described in more detail in Chapters 2 and 4.

EFFICIENCY BUREAUS PROMOTING BUSINESS EFFICIENCY This study has focused on bureaus of efficiency dedicated to improving governmental efficiency, but similarly named organizations had missions unrelated to government reform. Instead, they promoted efficiency of operations in the business sector. Most of these private sector efficiency bureaus were within individual corporations, but at least one was placed in the nonprofit sector in order to promote industry-wide concerns. Given that the efficiency movement emanated from the private sector, it is not surprising to find some bureaus of efficiency created as internal units within in a broad variety of for-profit businesses. For example, upon its inception in 1901, the United States Steel Corporation created an Efficiency Bureau to collect information on the costs and outputs of the different divisions of the corporation. Its purpose was “to minimize the cost of production.”136 The Bakers’ Efficiency Bureau, a training school for bakers sponsored by Columbus Laboratories, existed in the early 1900s.137 During the next decade, the Borden Milk Company created an Efficiency Bureau. One of its first projects was to plan a reorganization of the entire company. The head of this Bureau, an accountant, went on to become a vice president of the company and a member of its board of directors.138 Calumet & Hecla, one of the major copper mining companies in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, maintained an efficiency bureau to promote increased productivity. In 1916, that Bureau was responsible for “making the single man drill popular in Michigan mines.”139 A year later, the Chamber of Commerce of Bristol (Connecticut) created a Bureau of Efficiency to provide training to local businessmen intent on improving the efficiency of their operations.140

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The most prominent example of a nonprofit bureau of efficiency promoting business efficiency throughout an entire industrial sector was in the railroads. During the winter of 1906-07, a severe maldistribution of empty freight cars caused a major coal shortage in the Pacific Northwest.141 The timber industry experienced a similar shortage of railroad cars, prompting a discussion at a Congressional hearing about “the car famine.”142 As a result of pressure from the federal Interstate Commerce Commission, in January 1907 several major railroad companies arranged for the industry’s nonprofit organization, the American Railway Association, to create a Car Efficiency Bureau.143 The goal of the bureau was to provide statistical information regarding the entire railroad industry, especially the utilization of railroad cars for shipping, the number of idle cars, and any potential shortages of available cars to transport raw materials and finished goods.144 These events also prompted some individual railroad companies to create their own in-house bureaus of efficiency, including the New York Central and Southern Pacific.145 During the 1910s, the Northern Pacific Railroad also maintained a Bureau of Efficiency.146 However, its mission was unrelated to the efficient use of freight cars. It sought to increase efficiency in the use of storage space, inventories, and scrap materials, using as its slogan the “Careful Club.”147 Similarly, the New Haven Railroad created a Bureau of Efficiency to promote efficient operations throughout the railroad, including passenger safety and improved coordination within the organization.148 The concept of efficiency in business was closely related to office operations, especially regarding secretarial skills and those of other support staff. The Remington Typewriter Company maintained a Stenographic Efficiency Bureau that promoted the use of high-speed dictation. In 1914, it published Cutting the Cost of Stenographic Service that was addressed to an audience of businessmen. Two years later, it issued a manual directed toward women titled How to Become a Successful Stenographer: For the Young Woman Who Wants to Make Good.149 In 1918-19, the Business Efficiency Bureau of Atlanta offered other businesses a wide array of office support services, including bookkeeping and printing.150 Several employment agencies that specialized in placing workers in offices also used the efficiency bureau nomenclature. In 1916, an Interstate Efficiency Bureau in Reno (Nevada) placed employees and

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in 1918 the Brown Office Efficiency Bureau did the same in Indianapolis (Indiana).151 The Office Efficiency Bureau and the B. & T. Efficiency Bureau placed classified ads in the Los Angeles Times in the 1920s offering placement or training for women.152

THE ELASTIC MEANING OF EFFICIENCY BUREAU A potpourri of other nonprofit and for-profit entities created bureaus of efficiency. Sometimes, the tangible goal of efficiency can faintly be detected, but at other times it is lost to history. For example, in the 1910s, the nonprofit Automobile Club of America created an Efficiency Bureau to provide inspection services for members’ cars and promote the efficient operation of motor cars. The Bureau was directed by an engineer and the role of its staff was to look over a car belonging to a Club member and to provide information regarding its condition, maintenance needs, and expected operating expenses.153 Another membership-related group, the National Association of Real Estate Exchanges, explained its role vis-à-vis local chapters in 1913 as “a sort of efficiency bureau for standardizing the work of the local real estate men and boards.”154 In 1909, New York University (a nonprofit institution) created an Efficiency Bureau to provide placement services for the graduates of its School of Commerce, Accounts and Finance.155 The name of the office was chosen, said a school official, because “business men generally recognize the superior efficiency of our students and are glad to employ them.”156 In 1916, the Efficiency Bureau’s jurisdiction was broadened to include serving graduates of most of NYU’s professional schools.157 The bureau was considered a significant enough activity that when a new director was appointed in 1918 who was a member of the American Economic Association, the event merited mention in the American Economic Review.158 The Efficiency Bureau’s name was changed to the Bureau of Employment in 1920.159 For reasons that are not immediately clear, the term efficiency bureau appealed to commercial publishers. The names of at least four publishing houses used different variations on the generic term. In 1915, the Efficiency-building Bureau, based in Kansas City, published How to “Make Good”: A Business Man’s Message on Commercial Character-Building.160 Other publishing-related bureaus of efficiency extended beyond the Progressive Era. Beginning in 1933

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and continuing at least through 1951, a small publishing house in St. Louis, called the American Efficiency Bureau, issued books on how salesmen could increase their efficiency. Its list included Scientific Salesmanship, Influencing the Buyer’s Mind: Psychology of Scientific Salesmanship and Listening Salesmanship: How to Size Up Buyers and Convince People. In the fall of 1964, the Business Efficiency Bureau of Edinburgh, Scotland, began publishing a bimonthly periodical called Teamwork, which had a brief run of six issues.161 From 1975 to 1987, the Dutch Efficiency Bureau, located in the Netherlands, published eighty-one books and series and conference proceedings in English, Dutch, Afrikaans, German, and French. Most of these volumes concerned science, technology, and engineering.162 Some of its volumes were theses and dissertations from the nearby University of Leiden. Finally, there has been at least one fictional BOE. The TV series “The Avengers” featured a Business Efficiency Bureau in its second season on American TV in 1967.163 The Bureau specialized in scaring to death or driving crazy its clients’ competitors. The Bureau’s slogan was “our merchandise is fear.” The episode featuring the Efficiency Bureau was the top-rated one for that season and was the second-most popular of the entire series based on viewership when first aired.164

notes 1 A 1915 article in the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science referred to “the Cincinnati bureau of efficiency,” but the accurate title was Cincinnati Bureau of Municipal Research. The mistaken reference is an example of the usage of bureau of efficiency as a generic term that covered both bureaus of municipal research and those whose formal titled was Bureau of Efficiency. Clarke M. Rosecrantz, “Some Limitations and Objections to Municipal Ownership,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 57 (January 1915), 264; Rufus E. Miles, “The Cincinnati Bureau of Municipal Research,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 41 (May 1912), 262-69. 2 In 1856, the governments of the City of San Francisco and San Francisco County merged into one entity, with identical boundaries. Those portions of the county that were not within the boundaries of the city were

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detached from San Francisco County and reestablished as San Mateo County. 3 Kevin Starr, The Dream Endures: California Enters the 1940s (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 116; William Issel and Robert W. Cherny, San Francisco, 1865-1932: Politics, Power, and Urban Development (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986), 166. 4 Journal of Proceedings, Board of Supervisors, City and County of San Francisco, Vol. 7, New Series (San Francisco: The Recorder Printing and Publishing Co., 1912) 30, 587-88. 5 “Civil Service Commission,” Municipal Record 5:31 (August 1, 1912), 229; “E. R. Zion Appointed Efficiency Bureau Head,” San Francisco Chronicle, July 26, 1912, 10. 6 San Francisco Municipal Reports for the Fiscal Year 1912-1913, Ended June 30, 1913 (San Francisco: Neal Publishing Co., 1915), 25. 7 Zion. 8 “Official of City is Barred from Police Data,” San Francisco Examiner, December 2, 1912, 13; “Zion Hits Police Courts for Failures,” San Francisco Examiner, January 8, 1913, 9; “Expert Likens City Penalties to Bloody Code,” San Francisco Daily Morning Call, June 8, 1913, 25; “Police Not Enforcing Health Laws, Says Zion,” San Francisco Daily Morning Call, January 8, 1913, 4; “Propose Consolidation of Bureaus,” Municipal Record 6:21 (May 22, 1913), 166; “Wants More Complete Report by Assessor,” Municipal Record 6:35 (August 28, 1913), 277; “Rounded Corners for New Flatirons,” San Francisco Examiner, June 22, 1918; “City Expert Points Way to Save $18,000,” San Francisco Examiner, March 19, 1913, 8. 9 “Mayor Issues Ultimatum,” San Francisco Daily Morning Call, February 6, 1913, 16. 10 George Homer Meyer, D. Wooster Taylor and Arthur M. Johnson, editors, Municipal Blue Book of San Francisco, 1915 (San Francisco: City and County of San Francisco, 1915), 122. 11 Zion was referred to in a 1918 newspaper article as director of the Bureau of Efficiency. However, it is probable that the newspaper was informally using his old title, perhaps out of habit or lack of attention to detail. “Rounded Corners for New Flatirons,” San Francisco Examiner, June 22, 1918. 12 The City of Los Angeles and Los Angeles County are two separate units of government. The City of Los Angeles is wholly within the boundar-

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ies of Los Angeles County, but other municipalities also exist within the county. 13 Gill, 148; “At the City Hall: City Bureau for Efficiency,” Los Angeles Times, July 31, 1913, II-10. 14 D. C. McCan, “The Merit System in Los Angeles,” Seventh Meeting of the National Assembly of Civil Service Commissions (New York: The Chief Publishing Company, 1914), 52; “Efficiency Man Begins Task,” Los Angeles Times, April 8, 1914, I-16. 15 Clyde Lyndon King, “Report of the City-County Committee of the American Political Science Association,” Proceedings of the American Political Science Association 10 (1913), 289. 16 “Bureau Eyes on Employees,” Los Angeles Times, December 21, 1911, II-8. 17 “At the City Hall: May Abolish Job of Burks,” Los Angeles Times, December 19, 1914, II-12. 18 Robert M. Fogelson, The Fragmented Metropolis: Los Angeles, 18501930 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1967), 221. Fogelson mistakenly refers to it as the “Bureau of Efficiency” instead of Efficiency Bureau. 19 Los Angeles Times: “May Shake Out One Commission. Council Likely to Do Away with the Efficiency Body Today,” June 16, 1915, II-1; “Department is on the Grill,” April 28, 1916, II-9; “Adopts Budget by Split Vote,” June 30, 1917, II-1. 20 “Veto in Cause of Efficiency,” Los Angeles Times, August 18, 1916, II2. 21 Gill, 149; “M’Quiston is Named City Efficiency Man,” Los Angeles Times, June 29, 1918, II-8. 22 It is now called the Department of Investigation, homepage, retrieved June 22, 2007: http://www.nyc.gov/html/doi/html/timeline.html. 23 The state law permitted the mayor to appoint two Commissioners of Accounts who would serve simultaneously, as a way of maximizing the investigative capacity of the office. That is why some sources use the title of Commissioners of Accounts when referring to this office. However, when Mayor Gaynor appointed Fosdick, he told Fosdick that he would only name one commissioner. Raymond B. Fosdick, Chronicle of a Generation: An Autobiography (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1958), 93. Two decades later, the nickname “Fearless Fosdick” was appropriated for the character of a heroic police officer in the long running cartoon strip “Li’l Abner” (1934-77) written by Al Capp.

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24 “Fosdick’s Economy Plan: ‘Efficiency’ Meaning That More Work Is Done by Half the Men,” New York Times, November 21, 1911, 8. The article got Fosdick’s middle initial wrong, listing it as D instead of B. 25 Fosdick, 111-13. 26 Commissioners of Accounts, Annual Report for the Year 1911, 8 (courtesy City Hall Library, New York City). 27 Edward Marshall, “Does New York Get the Worth of its Money?”, New York Times Sunday Magazine, January 7, 1912, 2. 28 Kahn, 107-08; “How New York City Spends Its Money Every Year: For the First Time the Public Is Informed by a Novel Budget Exhibit Just Where Its Millions Go,” New York Times Sunday Magazine, October 2, 1910, 4. 29 Benjamin F. Welton, “The Problem of Securing Efficiency in Municipal Labor,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 41 (May 1912), 103. 30 “The Civil Service: City,” New York Times, January 23, 1912, 19. 31 Edward Marshall, “Does New York Get the Worth of its Money?”, New York Times Sunday Magazine, January 7, 1912, 2. However, Taylor’s role in the Bureau is not mentioned in any of the biographies of his life or histories of scientific management. Either Fosdick announced it prematurely or Taylor had agreed in principle, but never got around to any concrete involvement. If the latter, it could be related to Taylor’s January 1912 Congressional testimony regarding the Army’s efforts to apply his efficiency system at its arsenal in Watertown, Massachusetts. After the Congressional hearings he largely receded from public view (and died in 1915). 32 “Fosdick Aids Queens,” New York Times, December 11, 1911, 7; Edward Marshall, “Does New York Get the Worth of its Money?”, New York Times Sunday Magazine, January 7, 1912, 2; A Report on the Progress of Efficiency Work in the Borough of Queens During the Year 1912 (New York: E. D. St. George Co., 1913). I was unable to obtain and review the last referenced report. A borough was the vestige of the county level of government that had been absorbed by the municipal government of New York. 33 “A Study of New York,” Hartford [CT] Courant, July 25, 1912, 8. 34 Seidman, Investigating Municipal Administration, 55. 35 “Fosdick Resigns; To Help Whitman,” New York Times, July 31, 1912, 3. Fosdick was more circumspect about the reasons for his resignation in his autobiography, blandly stating that “I began to realize with increas-

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ing clarity that due perhaps to his declining health the momentum with which [former] Judge [and now Mayor] Gaynor had started his administration was falling off.” Fosdick, 119. 36 Commissioners of Accounts, Fortieth Annual Report for the Year Ended December 31, 1912, 8-9 (courtesy City Hall Library, New York City). 37 Harold Seidman, Investigating Municipal Administration: A Study of New York City Department of Investigation (New York: Institute for Public Administration, Columbia University, 1941), 70. 38 “City’s Needs for 1914 Listed by R. Fulton Cutting,” New York Times Sunday Magazine, January 4, 1914, 2, emphasis added. It is unclear what Cutting was specifically referring to by revival since, technically, there continued to be an Efficiency Staff in 1913 within the office of the Commissioners of Accounts. Commissioner of Accounts, Forty-First Annual Report for the Year Ended December 31, 1913, 11 (courtesy City Hall Library, New York City). 39 “Board of Estimate Has Its First Row,” New York Times, March 7, 1914, 9; Commissioners of Accounts, Forty-Second Annual Report for the Year Ended December 31, 1914, 21-2 (courtesy City Hall Library, New York City). Commissioner of Accounts David Hirshfield boasted about having abolished the unit when he was first appointed Commissioner, saying the agency had then included “an efficiency bureau that was absolutely useless.” However, he was being imprecise, since it was really the Efficiency Staff. “Hirschfield Favors Parole’s Abolition,” New York Times, May 29, 1924, 20. 40 “Six Cuts in Budget Vetoed by Mitchel,” New York Times, December 16, 1914, 9; Commissioners of Accounts, Forty-Second Annual Report for the Year Ended December 31, 1914, 21-26 (courtesy City Hall Library, New York City); “Mayor Wields Axe to Clear Roadway,” New York Times, April 10, 1916, 1. Seidman made no distinction between the Efficiency Bureau and the Efficiency Staff, writing that the Bureau of Efficiency continued in existence until Commissioner David Hirshfield abolished it in 1917. He quoted Hirshfield as disagreeing with BOE’s focus “upon theoretical studies of governmental activities with some rather indefinite plans for improvement.” Seidman, 76. In a variation on that version, it was Tammany-controlled Mayor John Hylan who abolished the Bureau of Efficiency when he assumed office in 1918. Frank Anechiarico and James B. Jacobs, The Pursuit of Absolute Integrity: How Corruption Control Makes Government Ineffective (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), 78. In 1947, newly elected mayor William O’Dwyer talked

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about (re)establishing a “bureau of efficiency” in city government, but he used the term informally. He meant it as an organizational umbrella to describe a loose confederation of two separate budget and analysis offices. “Mayor Picks Units to Spur Efficiency,” New York Times, June 4, 1947, 28. 41 Cutting, 24. 42 “Budget Indorsed [sic] in Los Angeles,” Christian Science Monitor, October 10, 1923, 2. 43 Gill, 150; Robert Paige, editor, “Bureau of Budget and Efficiency, City of Los Angeles,” National Municipal Review 27:2 (February 1938), 11819. 44 “News of the Society,” Public Administration Review 4:1 (Winter 1944), 84. 45 Seidman, 180. 46 Robert Paige, editor, “Los Angeles City Bureau of Budget and Efficiency,” National Municipal Review 26:2 (February 1937), 105. 47 John W. Donner, “Los Angeles City Bureau of Budget and Efficiency,” Civic Affairs 4:3 (November 1936), 4. 48 John M. Pfiffner, “The Los Angeles Bureau of Budget and Efficiency,” National Municipal Review 21:2 (February 1932), 109. 49 Based on listings in WorldCat/OCLC. Retrieved 22 June 2007. 50 John M. Pfiffner, Public Administration (New York: Ronald, 1935), 112; White, Trends in Public Administration, 222. 51 Kevin F. McCarthy, Steven P. Erie and Robert E. Reichardt, Meeting the Challenge of Charter Reform (Santa Monica, CA: Rand, 1998), 52. The bureau was also mentioned in the 1949 film noir “Too Late for Tears.” A citizen suspected that a murder had occurred and the body had been dumped in the lagoon of a city park. Urging the lagoon be dragged to confirm his suspicions, a police detective responded: “Do you know what it would cost the Department to close that lake and drag it? We’d have to get an OK from the Police Commission and the Bureau of Budget and Efficiency.” Even though the same author wrote the screenplay and the original 1947 novel, he only referred to the bureau in the movie, suggesting that the BOE had emerged in importance between the time he wrote the novel and the screenplay. Roy Huggins, Too Late for Tears (New York: Morrow, 1947). 52 F. W. Coker, “Organizations and Publications,” American Political Science Review 14:4 (November 1920), 702; Robert T. Crane, “Governmen-

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tal Research Conference Notes,” National Municipal Review 10:7 (July 1921), 399. 53 The annual Report of the Efficiency Bureau of the City of Muskegon for 1922 and 1923 are in the local history collection of the Hackney Public Library, Muskegon, Michigan, retrieved June 18, 2007: http://hackleylibrary.org/. 54 Seidman, 178. 55 Armistead Borland, Corbett Long and Irving R. Vanderberry, Preliminary Study for Classification and Compensation of City of Norfolk, Virginia, Personnel (Norfolk, VA: City of Norfolk Efficiency Bureau, 1935), 5. 56 Seidman, 178. 57 “Expert Assistance” (editorial), Hartford [CT] Courant, May 29, 1913, 8. While pre-qualifying bidders for public construction projects became common during the twentieth century, the term suggested in 1913 never caught on. 58 2007-2008 Budget: City of Rochester, 4-14—4-18, retrieved June 21, 2007: http://www.cityofrochester.gov/Main/docs/Budget/Proposed200708.pdf. 59 “Efficiency Bureau in New York,” Christian Science Monitor, January 13, 1912, 6. 60 Bureau of Economy and Efficiency, Department of Water Supply, Gas and Electricity, New York City, Economy and Efficiency in the Department of Water Supply, Gas and Electricity, Bulletin No. 1 (January 1913), 7. 61 J. Leggett Pultz, “Economy and Efficiency in the Department of Water Supply, Gas and Electricity, New York City,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 41 (May 1912), 85. 62 J. Leggett Pultz, “Bureau of Economy and Efficiency,” Annual Report [for] 1912, City of New York Department of Water Supply[,] Gas and Electricity, Henry S. Thompson, Commissioner [and compiler] (New York: City of New York, 1913), 248-51. 63 The report on coal specifications was issued as Bulletin No. 2 but— oddly—has a publication date of January 1912, a year before the first Bulletin. 64 Pultz, “Bureau of Economy and Efficiency,” 250. Based on listing in WorldCat/OCLC (Accession No. 33905932), Bulletin No. 3 was issued by the bureau. However, a revised version of the bulletin, issued in April 1914, contains no reference to the Bureau of Economy and Efficiency. The attribution of authorship of the revised bulletin is to the Depart-

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ment’s Auditor and its Bureau of Accounting (courtesy City Hall Library, New York City). 65 The department’s annual report for 1913, issued in early 1914, does not contain a section on the work of bureau, while the previous year’s report had such a section. However, a newspaper article in 1916 referred to “the Bureau of Efficiency and Promotion of the New York board of water supply.” Email from Christine Bruzzese, Supervising Librarian, City Hall Library, New York City, July 23, 2004, author’s files; “New York Officials at the Stuyvesant,” Kingston [NY] Daily Freeman, October 29, 1916, 11. 66 Thompson was an appointee of Mayor William Gaynor (1910-1913). Gaynor had also appointed Commissioner of Accounts Raymond Fosdick. See preceding discussion of Fosdick’s Bureau of Efficiency. Williams was an appointee of Gaynor’s successor, John Mitchel (1914-1917). Since both mayors were in the reform camp and at odds with the Tammany Hall machine, the decision to abolish the Water Department’s Bureau of Economy and Efficiency does not appear to be related to the political warfare between reformers (generally in favor of improving efficiency through a vehicle such as a BOE) and regulars (generally opposed to efficiency and reform initiatives such as through a BOE). 67 Civil Service Commission, Cook County, 18th Annual Report with Amended Rules, 1913 (Chicago: Cook County Civil Service Commission, 1913), 13. 68 “Million in Bonds Asked by Bartzen,” Chicago Tribune, January 17, 1912, 11. 69 Oscar E. Hewitt, “Big Salary Boost Gets County O. K.,” Chicago Tribune, February 6, 1912, 3; Oscar E. Hewitt, “Colleagues Rail at Bartzen; Pass Budget Over Veto,” Chicago Tribune, February 14, 1912, 1. 70 Oscar E. Hewitt, “Woman Watcher of County Board Silences Ragen,” Chicago Tribune, February 14, 1914, 13; Oscar E. Hewitt, “County Budget $17,226,289 List,” Chicago Tribune, March 1, 1914, 9. 71 “County Merit Board’s Efficiency Bureau Ended,” Chicago Tribune, January 1, 1915, 9. 72 King, “Report of the City-County Committee,” 289. 73 Harry F. Scoville, “A County Bureau of Efficiency,” The National County Magazine 1:4 (July 1935), 22. 74 Based on listings in WorldCat/OCLC. Retrieved June 10, 2007. 75 Robert Paige, editor, “Los Angeles County Bureau of Efficiency,” National Municipal Review 24:12 (December 1935), 712.

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76 A. Andy Andersen, “The Los Angeles County Bureau of Efficiency,” (unpublished Master’s thesis, University of Chicago, 1938), 13. One of the Bureau’s investigators exposed the criminal activities of the district attorney in a celebrated corruption case. “Charges Keyes Took $140,000 in Bribes,” New York Times, November 2, 1928, 27. The case left a deep impression on Raymond Chandler and influenced his later writing career that focused on private detectives and the seamy California culture they operated in. William Marling, The American Roman Noir (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1995), Ch. 5. Chandler’s novels (and movies) featured Philip Marlowe and included The Big Sleep, Farewell My Lovely, and The Long Goodbye. 77 “Apprenticeship in the Public Service: Public Service ‘Internes’ [sic] Win Good Jobs,” Christian Science Monitor, June 5, 1940, 2; Robert Paige, editor, “Los Angeles County Department of Budget and Research,” National Municipal Review 25:12 (December 1936), 750. 78 Robert Paige, editor, “Los Angeles County Bureau of Efficiency,” National Municipal Review 23:4 (April 1934), 227; Paige, “Los Angeles County Bureau of Efficiency” (1935), 713. 79 Donald E. Stone, “Birth of ASPA – A Collective Effort in Institution Building,” Public Administration Review 35:1 (January/February 1975), 88. 80 For example, see J. Edwin Benton, Counties as Service Delivery Agents: Changing Expectations and Roles (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2002), 41. 81 Harry F. Scoville, “Department of Budget and Research[,] County of Los Angeles,” Civic Affairs 5:4 (December 1937), 1. 82 “Salary Rise Hopes Fade,” Los Angeles Times, May 26, 1938, A2; “Civil Service System Lauded to Supervisors,” Los Angeles Times, July 6, 1938, A2. 83 Meeting of the County Board of Supervisors, August 10, 1948, Item 65, Minutes of the Board, File 740/1255.48.4, Carton BC 109929071, Records Management Section, Executive Office, Board of Supervisors, Los Angeles County. 84 Letter from Ray E. Lee, Chief Clerk, Board of Supervisors, to Harold W. Kennedy, County Counsel, August 12, 1948, Minutes of the Board, File 740/1255.48.4, Carton BC 109929071, Records Management Section, Executive Office, Board of Supervisors, Los Angeles County; “Times Recommendations for Tuesday’s Election,” Los Angeles Times, October 31, 1948, A1.

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85 Affidavit of Publication, September 7, 1948, Minutes of the Board, File 740/1255.48.4, Carton BC 109929071, Records Management Section, Executive Office, Board of Supervisors, Los Angeles County. 86 Rules 1.02 and 20.02A, retrieved June 18, 2007: http://municipalcodes.lexisnexis.com/codes/lacounty/_DATA/TITLE05/Appendix_ 1.html. A 1938 University of Chicago master’s thesis on the Los Angeles County Bureau of Efficiency concluded that it had been of “value” and was “worthy of consideration” by other county governments as well as other public sector entities. The researcher expressed surprise that others like it did not exist. Andersen, 87. The thesis also referred to a Bureau of Efficiency in Wayne County (Michigan). (Detroit is within Wayne County.) This BOE existed in the mid-1930s and had only one employee. Ibid., 80. However, no further information could be obtained about it. The bureau is not listed in the 1937-38 official telephone directory for Wayne County government. Email from Barbara Louie, Archivist, Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library, August 14, 2004, author’s files. It could not have been created as part of a civil service commission (the pattern in many governments), because the Wayne County Civil Service Commission did not come into being until 1942. Gill’s survey of efficiency bureaus and bureaus of municipal research referred to the Wayne County Research Bureau, which had been created in 1929. It is unclear if the BOE Andersen referred to and this Research Bureau was the same entity, having changed their names in the meantime. At one point Gill stated—like Andersen—that the office had only one employee, but later referred to the same bureau as having three professional staffers and, presumably, some secretarial support staff as well. Gill, 154-55. 87 Callahan. 88 Robert M. W. Travers, How Research Has Changed American Schools: A History from 1840 to the Present (Kalamazoo, MI: Mythos Press, 1983), 127. 89 Thomas Fleming and David Conway, “Setting the Standards in the West: C. B. Conway, Science, and School Reform in British Columbia, 1938-1974,” Canadian Journal of Education 21:3 (Summer 1996), 298; Selwyn K. Troen, The Public and the Schools: Shaping the St. Louis System, 1838-1920 (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1975), 219-20. 90 J. Carleton Bell, “Ohio School Survey” (editorial), Journal of Educational Psychology 5:2 (February 1914), 176. Besides seeking to promote efficiency in public education, some universities wanted the same for themselves. In the mid-1920s, Marquette University’s president named

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alum Philip Grau to establish an office to bring “greater efficiency” to the operations of the university, akin to the work of so-called efficiency experts in large corporations. He lasted less than a year. Jablonsky, 119-20. 91 “Take Schools Out of Politics Professor Urges,” Chicago Tribune, March 24, 1930, 31. 92 Callahan, 98-99. He did not capitalize the term in other references either (95, 101). 93 “Educational Events: The Kansas City Bureau of Research and Efficiency,” School and Society 2:30 (July 24, 1915), 127; “National Program to Improve Methods of Government,” 24. 94 Joseph P. O’Hern, “Organized Effort in Educational Research in City School Systems,” Addresses and Proceedings of the Fifty-Fifth Annual Meeting Held at Portland, Oregon, July 7-14, 1917, Vol. 55 (Washington, DC: National Education Association, 1917), 840. 95 Ibid. 96 Efficiency Bureau, Department of Education, Rochester, New York, “Data from 57 High Schools,” 1914. Photostat of handwritten chart, located in the collection of the University of California-Berkeley Main Library. 97 H. B. Chapman, “Activities of Bureaus of Educational Research,” Educational Research Bulletin 6 (February 16, 1927), 81. 98 “Educational Events,” 127. 99 Bureau of Research and Efficiency, Bulletin No. 1, [no title], 1916, 80. The Bureau separately published a Report of the Bureau of Research and Efficiency, but the only issue of that series that could be located, for 191415, is identical to Bulletin No. 1. Email from Kathleen Neeley, Reference & Instruction Coordinator, Spencer Library, University of Kansas, July 15, 2004, author’s files. 100 Bureau of Research and Efficiency, Bulletin No. 2, Preliminary Report of the Committee on Spelling, 1916; and Bulletin No. 3, Second Preliminary Report of the Committee on Spelling, 1918. 101 Retrieved June 20, 2007: http://www.kcmsd.k12.mo.us/district. asp?b=9&id=86. 102 George Melcher, “The Two Phases of Educational Research and Efficiency in the Public Schools,” National Education Association of the United States, Proceedings of the Department of Superintendence at the Annual Meeting held at Detroit, Michigan, February 21-26, 1916, supplement to N.E.A. Bulletin 4:5 (April 1916), 1075.

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103 George Melcher, “Studies by the Bureau of Research and Efficiency of Kansas City, Missouri,” Guy Montrose Whipple, editor, The Fifteenth Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education, Part I (Bloomington, IL: Public School Publishing Company, 1916), 137. 104 George Melcher, “Suggestions for Experimental Work,” Guy Montrose Whipple, editor, The Seventeenth Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education, Part II (Bloomington, IL: Public School Publishing Company, 1918), 139-51. 105 I was unable to ascertain the exact year of the renaming. Telephone conversation with John Duncan, Archivist, Kansas City Public School District, July 26, 2004, author’s files. The minutes of the school board meeting in 1929 to refer to the “Asst. Director of Research and Efficiency,” so the change would have occurred after that. Minutes of Meetings of The Board of Directors of The School District of Kansas City, Missouri, Meeting of June 20, 1929, 186 (Missouri State Archives). 106 Retrieved June 19, 2007: http://www.kcmsd.k12.mo.us/dept_home. asp?d=245. 107 “Education Notes,” New York Times, October 17, 1913, 12. 108 Based on the listing of the Bureau’s series of reports titled Publications in the New York Public Library’s Catalog of Research Libraries. 109 “To Promote Efficiency: New School Officer Is Authorized,” Boston Globe, January 31, 1914, 5. 110 William B. Thomas and Kevin J. Moran, “Reconsidering the Power of the Superintendent in the Progressive Period,” American Educational Research Journal 29:1 (Spring 1992), 37. 111 Guy Montrose Whipple, editor, The Seventeenth Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education, Part II (Bloomington, IL: Public School Publishing Company, 1918), 194. 112 “Bureau of Research: Board of Education Provides for New Field of Work,” Los Angeles Times, April 17, 1917, II-3. 113 For example, in 1919, the office reprinted a series of articles by Lane in the Educational Journal and distributed them to elementary school principals in a book titled Some Phases of Reading in the Elementary School. In 1920, Lane was appointed assistant superintendent of the district and eventually became the superintendent. “Lane Now Assistant to Head of Schools,” Los Angeles Times, January 13, 1920, I-9. Subsequently, one of the LA’s elementary schools was named after him and continues to operate to this day. Retrieved May 22, 2007: http://www.lausd.k12.ca.us/ Lane_EL/.

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114 “Dr. Howell, School Official, Ends Life,” Los Angeles Times, September 5, 1955, 4. 115 S. Gale Lowrie, “The Proper Function of the State Budget,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 62 (November 1915), 54. 116 Weber, Ch. 3; Raymond Moley, “The State Movement for Efficiency and Economy,” Municipal Research 90 (October 1917), 1-163. A 1912 reference in the proceedings of the Milwaukee Common Council to “the Massachusetts Bureau of Efficiency and Economy” was apparently a garbled version of the Massachusetts Commission on Economy and Efficiency. Proceedings of the Common Council of the City of Milwaukee for the Year Ending April 14, 1913, 962. 117 Edward Marshall, “To Make Our Banking System a Model for the World,” New York Times Sunday Magazine, August 3, 1913, 12. 118 “Bart Dunn Gets Aid of State Employe [sic],” New York Times, December 19, 1913, 5; “Barnes Charges Waste,” New York Times, August 4, 1913, 3. 119 Mordecai Lee: Institutionalizing Congress and the Presidency; “The US Bureau of Efficiency: Not RIP in 1933?”, Public Voices 8:1 (2005), 4460; “The First Federal Public Information Service, 1920-1933: At the US Bureau of Efficiency!,” Public Relations Review 29:4 (November 2003), 415-25. 120 “Appraiser Forbids Tips,” New York Times, September 1, 1911, 2. 121 Denis O’Hearn, “Globalization, ‘New Tigers,’ and the End of the Developmental State? The Case of the Celtic Tiger,” Politics & Society 28:1 (March 2000), 72. 122 Sait, 55. 123 “Plan Loop Efficiency Bureau,” Chicago Tribune, August 22, 1913, 8. 124 “Women’s League Puts Argus Eyes on City Business,” Chicago Tribune, January 9, 1915, 13. 125 The motto was part of the letterhead of the Bureau’s stationary. See, for example, letter from L. M. Wilson, acting director, to I. E. Lapham, secretary to the president of the University of Chicago, February 1, 1915, Folder 7, Box 63, President’s Papers 1889-1925, University of Chicago. 126 Everybody’s Business, No. 65, June 26, 1916, 1. 127 “The Municipal Reference Bureau: Its Possibilities and Its Performance,” Everybody’s Business, No. 64, June 19, 1916.

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128 Lorian P. Jefferson, “The Wisconsin State Board of Public Affairs,” American Political Science Review 6:2 (May 1912), 266-67; Fitzpatrick, Ch. 11. 129 Commons, Myself, 153. 130 Wisconsin State Board of Public Affairs, Report Upon the Survey of the University of Wisconsin (Madison, WI: State Printer, 1914); Gary A. Cook, “George Herbert Mead and the Allen Controversy at the University of Wisconsin,” Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences 43:1 (Winter 2007), 45-67. At that time, the University comprised the Madison campus only. 131 “University Committee’s Comment upon Survey Summary,” Everybody’s Business, No. 7, January 16, 1915. 132 LeRoy Hodges, Reorganizing for Efficiency in Government, Bulletin No. 1 (Washington, DC: Bureau of Economics and Public Efficiency, The Southern Commercial Congress, June 15, 1915), n. p. 133 LeRoy Hodges, Reorganization of County Government in Virginia, Bulletin No. 2 (Washington, DC: Bureau of Economics and Public Efficiency, The Southern Commercial Congress, July 1, 1915), n. p. 134 LeRoy Hodges, Reorganization of Municipal Government in Virginia, Bulletin No. 3 (Washington, DC: Bureau of Economics and Public Efficiency, The Southern Commercial Congress, July 15, 1915), n. p., emphasis added. 135 In the mid-1920s, as the managing director of the Virginia State Chamber of Commerce, he authored a similar pamphlet titled Reorganization for Better Government in Virginia. 136 “Steel Corporation At Once Began to Minimize Production Cost: Filbert, Comptroller, Tells of the Efficiency Bureau Formed,” Wall Street Journal, June 17, 1913, 7. 137 “AIB History: Early Baking Schools and Bakery Training,” American Institute of Baking homepage, retrieved June 20, 2007: http://www.aibonline.org/about/history/#history01. 138 “S. Rareshide Dies; Ex-Borden Official,” New York Times, December 19, 1938, 23. 139 “News from Copper Centers,” Boston Globe, January 29, 1917, 11. 140 “Bristol to Hear of Efficiency,” Hartford [CT] Courant, January 7, 1917, 17. 141 Associated Press, “Action on Car Shortage,” Los Angeles Times, January 9, 1907, I-1.

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142 U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Agriculture, Agricultural Appropriation Bill: Estimates of Appropriations for the Fiscal Year Ending in June 30, 1909, Public Hearings, 60th Congress, 1st session (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1908), 293. 143 “To Relieve Car Shortage: Efficiency Bureau Formed by Railroad Presidents,” Chicago Tribune, January 8, 1907, 3. 144 “Recommend Suspension: Car Efficiency Bureau of the Railway Association Acts on Per Diem Rule on Cars,” Boston Globe, February 6, 1908, 11; “Car Shortage False Alarm: Efficiency Bureau Shows a Surplus,” Los Angeles Times, October 10, 1908, I-3; “Financial Markets,” New York Times, October 11, 1908, 12; “The Financial Situation,” New York Times, October 12, 1908, 14; “New Railway Place for Arthur Hale,” New York Times, November 26, 1908, 2. 145 “Railroad Efficiency the Aim of Managers, Says H. C. Adams,” Wall Street Journal, June 20, 1911, 5; Zion, 13. 146 “Make A Big Saving Through Efficiency,” Christian Science Monitor, February 18, 1913, 11. 147 J. A. Phillips III, “Roundhouse Days: Northern Pacific Railway and Building the Auburn Yard, 1910-1913,” White River Journal: A Newsletter of the White River Valley [Auburn, WA] Museum, April 2004, retrieved June 20, 2007: http://www.wrvmuseum.org/journal/journal_0404.htm; facsimile of badge with slogan, retrieved June 22, 2007: http://antiquesinternet.com/colorado/railroadmemories/dynapage/IP5130.htm. 148 “The Bureau of Efficiency: New Organization Embraces All Employes [sic] of the New Haven Railroad,” Newport [RI] Daily News, May 15, 1914, 6; “City News in Brief,” Hartford [CT] Courant, November 3, 1914, 11; “Efficiency Bureau is Very Active,” Hartford [CT] Courant, June 26, 1915, 3. 149 Remington Typewriter Company, Stenographic Efficiency Bureau: Cutting the Cost of Stenographic Service (New York: Remington Typewriter Company, 1914); How to Become a Successful Stenographer: For the Young Woman Who Wants to Make Good (New York: Remington Typewriter Company, 1916). 150 Classified ads, Atlanta Constitution, November 6, 1918, 15; January 1, 1919, 11. 151 ‘Help Wanted’ classified ads, Reno [NV] Evening Gazette, July 7, 1916, 7; August 4, 1916, 7; Kerry Ellen Pannell, “Origins of the Better Business Bureau: A Private Regulatory Institution in the Progressive Era,” paper presented at the 62nd annual conference of the Economic History As-

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sociation, St. Louis, October 11-13, 2002, 31, retrieved June 23, 2007: http://www.cs.indiana.edu/~yonliu/econdesk/pannell.pdf. For an example of one of its classified ads, see ‘Female Help—Wanted,’ Indianapolis [IN] Star, November 10, 1915, 12. 152 Classified ads, Los Angeles Times, August 26, 1924, A11; January 16, 1927, D3. 153 “Efficiency Bureau Organized by A.C.A.,” New York Times, August 9, 1914, X8. 154 “National Realty President Describes Qualifications of Ideal Real Estate Man,” Atlanta Constitution, February 23, 1913, 4. The organization is now called the National Association of Realtors. 155 “News of the Academies,” New York Times, July 27, 1913, X6; “Student Jobs Go Begging: N.Y.U. Bureau Has Demand for Men It Cannot Fill,” New York Times, November 7, 1915, 6. 156 “School of Commerce, Accounts and Finance: Announcements for the Year 1909-1910,” New York University Bulletin 9:15 (June 19, 1909), 15, New York University Archives. That wording was repeated without significant change in every annual bulletin through the 1919-20 edition. Email from Alissa Kleinman, Archival Assistant, New York University Archives, August 16, 2004, author’s files. 157 “Finds Work for Students: Efficiency Bureau of New York University Places Many Men,” New York Times, November 26, 1916, 7. 158 “Notes,” American Economic Review 8:1 (March 1918), 242. 159 Email from Alissa Kleinman, Archival Assistant, New York University Archives, August 16, 2004, author’s files. 160 Later that year the publisher changed its name to the Personal Proficiency Bureau. 161 Based on information in Oxford University OLIS catalog. 162 Based on information in WorldCat/OCLC. 163 Dave Rogers, The Complete Avengers (New York: St. Martin’s, 1989), 129. 164 TheAvengers.tv homepage, retrieved June 20, 2007: http://theavengers. tv/forever/peel2-2.htm.

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T

his study has examined the phenomenon of efficiency bureaus during the Progressive Era. For good government reformers, bureaus of efficiency were vehicles of change similar to bureaus of municipal research. Sadly, however, the former have been largely neglected by historians. The specific focus of this inquiry was on four bureaus of efficiency in Chicago and Milwaukee, two each in the public and nonprofit sectors. Following detailed reviews of these four case studies, the book examined other bureaus of efficiency (Chapter 5). Some, like the ones in Chicago and Milwaukee, were nonprofit or municipal agencies working to reform local government. Other public sector efficiency bureaus were within county government, school boards, and the federal government. Some nonprofit bureaus of efficiency were oriented to state government or multi-state regions. This chapter summarizes the experience of efficiency bureaus in the Progressive Era. First, as outlined in the Introduction, what can be learned from a more detailed knowledge of efficiency bureaus in juxtaposition to the more common and more frequently studied bureaus of municipal research? Second, what generalizations can be made about efficiency bureaus? The Introduction identified three questions to be applied to the efficiency bureaus in Milwaukee and Chicago. 1. What was the impact of these bureaus? Did they have a substantive impact and/or did they have an instrumental role in public policymaking? 2. Based on their activities and record, what did efficiency actually mean? 3. Was the sectoral affiliation of a BOE, whether in the public or nonprofit sector, discernibly important? Did it make a difference? Chapters 1-4 presented case-by-case answers to these questions. Below is a summary to provide an overview perspective. The last section of this chapter reflects on historical lessons applicable to the present.

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LOCUS OF Urban REFORM: MUNICIPAL RESEARCH BUREAUS VS. EFFICIENCY BUREAUS The growth in the number of bureaus of municipal research and efficiency bureaus during the Progressive Era led to the establishment in 1914 of the Governmental Research Association.1 This organization provided a national network for both kinds of agencies.2 Just a year earlier, Edward Sait, a professor of government at Columbia University and activist in the reform-oriented National Municipal League, had predicted that “With the advance in administrative ideals and methods, efficiency bureaus will become much commoner [sic].”3 His prediction proved wrong. In the governmental research movement during the Progressive Era, efficiency bureaus presented an organizational alternative to bureaus of municipal research. But slowly, in the struggle for survival, the (predominantly nonprofit) municipal research bureau format won out over the (predominantly governmental) BOE model. Today, the Governmental Research Association has no members that call themselves bureaus of efficiency or any variation on that generic title. All are bureaus of municipal research or outgrowths of that organizational template. Current members include the Citizens Research Council of Michigan, the Texas Taxpayers and Research Association, the Public Affairs Research Institute of New Jersey, and the Center for Governmental Research in New York (emphasis added). Public sector bureaus of efficiency disappeared gradually. Some were abolished due to adverse political developments, such as described in Chapters 1 and 3. Others lost their unique identity when they merged into larger agencies. The only BOE that existed in 2007, identified during the course of this inquiry, is the Bureau of Budget and Efficiency for the City of Rochester, New York (see Chapter 5). Although its title implies a bureau of efficiency, this agency is essentially a modern-day budget office burdened by an early twentiethcentury title that is frozen in place by the wording of the city charter. Its operations show little connection to the governmental efficiency bureaus described in this study. The function of administrative investigations and reports gradually shifted away from bureaus of efficiency, usually to budget offices and sometimes to legislative audit bureaus. Practically every contemporary municipal government has

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a budget office, a comptroller, and/or an auditor. All routinely study the operations of city agencies and make recommendations to improve managerial and program efficiency. But none (except Rochester) is called a bureau of efficiency. Yet, before the disappearance of efficiency bureaus, Chapter 5 documented the predominance of reform-oriented efficiency bureaus as public sector agencies, whether in city, school board, county, or federal governments. There were fewer nonprofit bureaus of efficiency dedicated to promoting good government than governmental ones. Instead, most of the nonprofit agencies advocating government reform were municipal research bureaus, with only two (Milwaukee and Boston) within muncipal governments. This presents a tentative observation, so far unexplored by historians, that the Progressive Era goal of reforming government gradually mutated into two organizational approaches, each best adapted to its sectoral home. Certainly, the nomenclature would reflect this. Citizens would be unlikely to want their tax dollars to fund a bureau of municipal research. After all, research would not be a tangible service or product that government would provide the citizenry. It was a nice thing perhaps, but lower on the priority list for scarce government tax revenues. If the do-gooders of society wanted to fund research through their own nonprofit, well, fine for them. On the other hand, having an efficiency bureau within the governmental structure would be something that likely would more likely appeal to taxpayers. Efficiency as a goal was a concrete activity that would be expected to “pay off” for the public-at-large. It would be a justifiable investment, with the presumption that government’s goods and services would be delivered more cheaply. That was something a taxpayer could get excited about. Also, a bureau of municipal research was a relatively constricting approach. It was dedicated to improving city government, whether the bureau of municipal research was nonprofit (the predominant model) or public sector (the exception to the rule). On the other hand, the concept of an efficiency bureau could be applied much more broadly. Not only could efficiency bureaus focus on reforming government (whether as nonprofit or public sector agencies), but they could also be oriented to promoting efficiency in business. Chapter 5 identified private sector bureaus of efficiency similar to their good government counterparts. These efficiency bureaus were aimed at increasing the business efficiency of for-profit corporations.

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Some were internal to individual companies and others were in the nonprofit sector, placed within associations working toward industry-wide efficiency. Nonetheless, in the government reform movement, bureaus of municipal research won out over bureaus of efficiency and the template of efficiency bureaus also disappeared from the private sector as well.

IMPACTS To assess the effectiveness of the four efficiency bureaus in Milwaukee and Chicago, this inquiry focused on the substantive impact of their recommendations and on whether these bureaus played significant roles in the local public policy-making process. Based on this framework, each individual case study (Chapters 1-4) of the two dyads of nonprofit and governmental bureaus of efficiency in Milwaukee and Chicago included a section titled “Impact: Assessing the Bureau’s Work.” In each of the four chapters, two criteria for an outcomes assessment were applied to the four efficiency bureaus under study. The following is a brief summary of those case-by-case presentations and results. Regarding their substantive impact, the conclusions in Chapters 1-4 were that all four had positively affected outcomes in local public policy, with their recommendations often being fully or partly adopted. As for playing an instrumental role in outcomes of local decision-making or not, a summary of the historical case studies in Chapters 1-4 documents that all of the bureaus had played instrumental roles in their metropolitan areas. Given the importance of basing conclusions about the effectiveness of historical organizations on outcomes rather than outputs, the impact criteria used here now permit an overall assessment of the Progressive Era efficiency bureaus examined in this study. The consistent case-by-case results have documented that all four efficiency bureaus in Chicago and Milwaukee had discernible and positive impacts. All four had their recommendations largely enacted and all four were instrumental in the policy-making process of their respective cities. Therefore, this inquiry concludes that these bureaus of efficiency made substantive contributions to their cities and accomplished this both by the adoption of their policy recommendations and by their importance in the local public policy process.

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WHAT DID EFFICIENCY BUREAUS MEAN BY ‘EFFICIENCY’? As described in the Introduction, Samuel Haber’s typology of efficiency during the Progressive Era outlined four categories: mechanical, commercial, personal, and social efficiency. Given the breadth of these four categories, they could mean just about anything when applied to reforming government. Now, the four case studies as well as the review of other bureaus of efficiency (in Chapter 5) will be summarized to determine what efficiency meant to efficiency bureaus. In addition, how did they operationalize their notions of efficiency? As it turns out, efficiency was as fuzzy a concept in concrete application as it was in the abstract discussions of Progressive Era good government reformers. However, one meaning eventually became dominant. Milwaukee’s Socialists explicitly called for promoting social efficiency, a term that in the twenty-first century would likely be called social justice. For the Socialists in Milwaukee, efficient government did not automatically mean cheaper government. Rather, it meant a government that properly allocated and used its capabilities to maximize the achievement of public purposes. However, in the second half of its existence, the number of MBEE reports focusing on social efficiency diminished and the proportion of studies using the public sector equivalent of mechanical and commercial efficiency increased. This shift reflected a focus on making the machinery of government work more smoothly and productively so that taxpayer funds were well spent. Belying the notion that the nonprofit Milwaukee Citizens’ Bureau of Municipal Efficiency (CBME) was a successor to the municipal Bureau of Economy and Efficiency, the CBME’s approach to efficiency excluded any attention to social efficiency. Rather, it operationalized a concept of efficiency held by the businessmen who founded it. These men wanted cheaper government. For them, efficiency meant cutting costs, reducing duplication, and eliminating excess personnel. They wanted the machine of government to run more smoothly. For CBME, the goal was to accomplish in government the mechanical and commercial efficiency that its funders were seeking in their private corporations.

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The Efficiency Division of the Chicago Civil Service Commission initially focused on accomplishing personal efficiency, a term that in the twenty-first century has been called personnel management or human resource management (sometimes shortened to HR). If the meritbased civil service system supported by good government reformers in the Progressive Era were to live up to its ideals, it would not be enough to simply hire new civil servants based on merit rather than patronage. Once they were hired, government needed a merit-based method of deciding if they should be promoted or not, even fired. Measuring and evaluating the performance of civil servants by using efficiency ratings was how the Division applied the concept of personal efficiency in government. Later, as the scope and mission of the Efficiency Division expanded, so did its definition of efficiency. It gradually included the meaning of promoting the efficient operation of government departments, a public sector equivalent of mechanical and commercial efficiency. This latter meaning of efficiency was also the one used exclusively by the Chicago Bureau of Public Efficiency. Therefore, a general summary of the meaning of efficiency for the four case studies is that it meant just about anything. However, a pattern is discernible. The governmental BOE in Milwaukee began with an emphasis on social efficiency, but gradually shifted to the governmental equivalent of mechanical and commercial efficiency. The meaning of efficiency similarly changed for the governmental BOE in Chicago. It started with personal efficiency, but then its work focused increasingly on a public sector version of mechanical and commercial efficiency. Meanwhile, the two nonprofit efficiency bureaus in Milwaukee and Chicago used a consistent approach to efficiency throughout their existence, translating mechanical and commercial foci of efficiency from the business sector to government. All four ended up in the same place. One meaning of efficiency, therefore, gradually became dominant. Efficiency came to mean rooting out corruption in the granting of contracts, eliminating waste, and identifying duplication of activities. This indicates the emergence of commercial and mechanical efficiency as the prevailing meaning for efficiency bureaus in both Chicago and Milwaukee. Gradually, the disparate reformers of the Progressive Era seemed to reach an unspoken consensus about what most of them could agree on when they called for efficiency in government and for efficiency bureaus. This interpretation of efficiency

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gradually became nonpartisan and non-ideological, a relatively universal and consensus standard. As an engineering term, it was not even a “value.” Rather, efficiency was (supposedly) value free, simply an imperative that no rational person, regardless of ideology, could seemingly disagree with. Efficiency sought to achieve cost-beneficial and productive government. Besides the bureaus of efficiency in the four case studies, other efficiency bureaus stretched the meaning of efficiency to cover unrelated endeavors. As evidenced in Chapter 5, those bureaus meant efficiency very broadly and fluidly, applying it to disparate situations and contexts. That entities called bureaus of efficiency could be found in the nonprofit, public, and business sectors provides one indication of the universality of the term. A college job placement office, an automobile examination service, publishing houses, and railroad datacollection offices had essentially the same title as public sector and nonprofit sector organizations intended to promote efficiency in the operation of government. This demonstrates the unlimited flexibility of the term and that it successfully tapped into a larger trend of the Progressive Era. Efficiency was a “good thing.” Therefore, being linked to it, if only by a title, was desirable. This also shows the essential elasticity, even meaninglessness, of the term. Haber summed it up well, noting that “[t]hrough its various forms, efficiency provided something to almost everyone’s taste.”4 The efficiency craze of the early twentieth century and beyond was so omnipresent that it meant all things to all people. In retrospect, the gradual disappearance of efficiency bureaus and the survival of nonprofit municipal research bureau approach seems relatively understandable. As the enthusiasm and idealism of the Progressive Era faded, the neutral term research was sustainable since it was empty of content, focusing rather on process, namely the need for nonprofit research organizations to contribute to public discourse. Research was a slogan that could survive the different political fads and fashions of later generations. The value of gathering and disseminating researched information was a widely accepted approach, spanning ideologies, classes, and parties. That meant the central thesis for maintaining nonprofit bureau of municipal research type organizations was inarguable, even timeless. On the other hand, bureaus of efficiency had a single goal. Despite the enthusiasm for efficiency during the Progressive Era, efficiency

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as a working concept became so flexible that it was largely emptied of significant meaning. The later intellectual attacks on efficiency, especially in public administration, made their point.5 Efficiency was not a science, was not value free, could not always be determined, and was not an end goal in and of itself. The belief in a one best way was naïve. Although calls for efficiency continue to resonate in American politics, the concept was and is little more than a bumper sticker slogan. Certainly, the desire for efficiency in government was then, and continues to be, a broadly shared value in the political economy. Yet, a bureau dedicated solely to efficiency seemed a narrow, even crimped, concept. Yes, “everyone” wanted efficiency in government, but government decision-making and public administration were about more than efficiency. Limiting a staff agency (whether public or private sector) by calling it an efficiency bureau dedicated only to the pursuit of efficiency was too constricting, notwithstanding the flexibility of the meaning of efficiency. If there was to be a bureau of efficiency (in either sector), then should there be peer entities for other desirable goals of government: a bureau of effectiveness, a bureau of accountability, a bureau of responsiveness, ad infinitum? The limitation of efficiency as the central organizing goal of an efficiency bureau was a crippling one, not enough to sustain the concept much beyond the enthusiasm of the Progressive Era. In this context, efficiency was a management fad. It was simply one of the first of seemingly endless offerings of the latest “new, new thing” that management gurus routinely invent. In the last few decades, other management fads have played the role that efficiency did during the Progressive Era, including management by objectives, planning-programming-budgeting, re-engineering, right-sizing, excellence, TQM, strategic planning, performance measurement, balanced scorecards, 360 reviews, six sigma, and Q-12.6

NONPROFIT VS. GOVERNMENTAL EFFICIENCY BUREAUS At the most general level, strong similarities exist between governmental and nonprofit efficiency bureaus. Their intellectual parentage in Progressive reformers and the efficiency craze of that era is apparent in both kinds of bureaus of efficiency. Whether in the public or

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nonprofit sector, these bureaus were committed to improving the efficiency of government in terms of comprehensive budgeting and accounting systems, rationalizing work processes, eliminating waste and duplication, improving the quality of government outputs, and strengthening political and administrative supervision. In the area of personnel, they pursued expanding the merit system through systemizing civil service assignments, formal job descriptions, performance ratings, and merit-based promotion decisions. Wrapped in the lingo of scientific management and the so-called science of government, these bureaus of efficiency were essentially efforts to promote modern and rigorous rationality in all aspects of government, including decision-making, analysis, financial systems, and personnel management. Bureaus of efficiency brought twentieth-century modernity to government, whether pushing for it from the inside or the outside. Close ties between bureaus within different sectors amplified this cross-sectoral similarity. For example, when the municipal Milwaukee Bureau of Economy and Efficiency (MBEE) was first getting organized, two staffers from the nonprofit Chicago Bureau of Public Efficiency (CBPE) briefly assisted in start-up efforts, with no apparent difficulty in crossing sectoral boundaries.7 Conversely, when the MBEE folded in 1912, the CBPE hired two of its now-unemployed staffers.8 When the nonprofit Milwaukee Citizens’ Bureau of Municipal Efficiency (CBME) was planning a work agenda in early 1914, its director told the board that he wanted to build on the MBEE’s Health Department reports (#13, 15, and 18 in Appendix A, Table 2). His presumption was that those MBEE reports were valuable and that the expertise of their author was equally valid for a nonprofit BOE.9 In 1916, J. L. Jacobs of the defunct Chicago CSC Efficiency Division was hired by the nonprofit CBME to provide consulting services on job classification systems. In each instance, professional expertise was transferable between sectors. In some cases, sectoral boundaries were porous, such as when the nonprofit CBME paid for staffers placed in governmental agencies or conducted examinations for the city’s personnel office. Such intermingling of nonprofit and governmental activities would be unacceptable now, when the legal line between the two is bright and distinct. Nowadays, for example, a nonprofit agency would not be permitted to fund an employee in a government agency.

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As noted earlier in this chapter, sectoral membership did not significantly affect the substantive impact and civic role of the four bureaus of efficiency. Whether governmental or nonprofit, each had a similar impact on outcomes. Likewise, both public and nonprofit efficiency bureaus eventually applied to government the concept of efficiency that grew out of mechanical and commercial efficiency. Professor and reformer Edward Sait had predicted this. In 1913, he tentatively suggested that one could not yet “settle the relative merits of public and private bureaus. Both have succeeded. There is room for both.”10 Another approach to analyzing whether sectoral affiliation matters would compare what the literature says about the respective strengths and weaknesses of nonprofit versus governmental bureaus of efficiency, and then examine whether those assumptions were borne out. Some writers of the time did not consider the sectoral affiliation of efficiency bureaus (or bureaus of municipal research) as important. In 1912, Professor William Bennett Munro described the public sector Milwaukee Bureau of Economy and Efficiency and the nonprofit Chicago Bureau of Public Efficiency as institutions “of the same type.”11 A decade later, Professor Charles Merriam considered the bureaus of efficiency he helped found in Chicago to be essentially similar because they used the same research methodology, which he called “municipal science.”12 Myrtile Cerf, who had worked for the MBEE, wrote in 1913 that sectoral affiliation was a distinctive and important characteristic. However, after analyzing the operations of governmental and nonprofit efficiency bureaus, he concluded that the difference in their legal status was relatively minor compared to the de facto reality of their activities. In his view, since most governmental bureaus of efficiency were staff agencies with only advisory powers, lacking the power to compel implementation of their recommendations, that meant their reports carried no more weight than similar reports from nonprofit efficiency bureaus.13 However, other contemporary writers pointed to identifiable advantages and disadvantages of governmental versus nonprofit bureaus of efficiency. Table 6-1 (page 204) presents a summary of the different predictions and expectations found in the literature. They addressed five categories: in-house vs. out-of-house; funding and permanence; big picture or narrow perspective (evocatively called “cheese-paring”); staffing; and democracy.14 Column A of Table 6-1

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summarizes five factors from the literature predicting the advantages governmental efficiency bureaus had over nonprofit ones. Column B presents the converse, the assumed advantages of nonprofit bureaus of efficiency over public ones. The theoretical predictions from the literature about sectoral advantages and disadvantages can now be contrasted with the four Milwaukee and Chicago efficiency bureaus. The results of the intersectoral analysis are presented in Table 6-2 (page 209). (For readers interested in a cell-by-cell application of sectoral advantages and disadvantages, see Appendix B.) The results depicted in Table 6-2 indicate that sectoral affiliation did not confer significant advantages to bureaus of efficiency in one sector over those in the other. The contemporary literature did not accurately predict the advantages and disadvantages of BOE sectoral affiliation. When it was somewhat accurate, the literature identified an almost imperceptible advantage for nonprofit efficiency bureaus. The greatest benefit of nonprofit bureaus of efficiency (and the closest to the predictions in the literature) was in the category of staffing. Nonprofit efficiency bureaus were more attractive places to work than public sector ones. Nonprofits paid better salaries, more frequently enacted pay raises and promotions for their staff, were more flexible in personnel policies, and provided better prospects for long-term employment. In short, each sector had some modest advantages over efficiency bureaus from the counterpart sector, but there was no clear trend. Public bureaus of efficiency had some apparent benefits deriving from their sectoral affiliation. To a slightly higher degree, nonprofit efficiency bureaus had some strengths over their governmental counterparts. So, for this particular slice of the political economy as well as this specific time in American urban history, although obvious legal differences existed between public and nonprofit bureaus of efficiency, on a de facto basis sectoral affiliation was not very important when measured by organizational effectiveness. How does this compare to contemporary times? It appears that the same juxtaposition of legal differences versus real world ones continues to hold true. In the first decade of the twenty-first century, a bright legal line marks sectoral boundaries. The inevitable controversies associated with suggestions to “privatize” government services indicate the significance of sectoral affiliation. Standards the citizenry automatically apply to government, such as freedom of information

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or legislative oversight, cannot be easily applied to the nonprofit sector (or business). The private status of the nonprofit sector and its independence from government (due to the Supreme Court’s 1819 Dartmouth decision) are often emphasized.15 In fact, one association of nonprofits uses as its title the term independent sector as a built-in way to continuously reinforce this message.16 Contemporary debates about issues such as nonprofit transparency and accountability to the public are largely framed around the inherent legal differences between the governmental and nonprofit sectors.17 Yes, government has the obligation to be transparent and accountable, but nonprofits do not. For example, when California enacted a law in 2004 imposing new requirements on nonprofits, the California Association of Nonprofits bemoaned this “dangerous precedent … establishing government mandates for practices that are best left to the discretion of individual organizations.”18 Whether a fair or an exaggerated reaction, this statement reflected the nonprofit sector’s attitude toward government oversight. Earlier that year, the Philanthropy Roundtable released a statement to the U.S. Senate Finance Committee, when the latter was considering legislation that would impose additional standards of behavior and accountability on nonprofits. The Roundtable’s statement enunciated principles for reviewing potential legislation, with each principle largely a statement of what government should not do regarding nonprofits.19 Without saying so explicitly, the group was against any new initiatives to change federal laws affecting nonprofits. Other nonprofit spokespersons were also quoted as opposing significant tightening of government regulation.20 There was a collective sigh of relief when no major legislation opposed by the nonprofit sector was passed during the 109th Congress (2005-06).21 At the heart of such a discussion lies ownership or, more specifically, “control over assets.”22 While citizens are the owners of government, nonprofits are legally private corporations guided by a board of directors. (However no one owns a nonprofit, since it is a nonstock corporation.23) Nonetheless, the conclusion of this historical analysis was that, in practice, sectoral affiliation was not especially significant in terms of the effectiveness of governmental and nonprofit efficiency bureaus in the early twentieth century. Similarly, in 2002 Professor Lester Salamon suggested that the de facto differences between the nonprofit and government sectors were relatively unimportant. In

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Table 6-1 Sectoral Assessment: Theoretical Advantages and Disadvantages of Sectoral Affiliation Key Factors

Governmental BOE Advantages = Nonprofit BOE Disadvantages (Column A)

In-House vs. Outof-House

[Cell #1] A government agency is more likely to cooperate with an in-house BOE than a nonprofit one, such as providing full access to documents. The recommendations of a public BOE are given greater consideration regarding implementation because it is less likely to have a hidden agenda than a nonprofit BOE.1

Funding & Permanence

Nonprofit BOE Advantages = Governmental BOE Disadvantages (Column B)

[Cell #2] The nonprofit BOE is independent and nonpartisan. It does not have to worry about the political repercussions of its actions, while the governmental BOE is accountable to elected officials who may wish to prevent embarrassment or promote pet projects. For example, a nonprofit BOE can use publicity to mobilize the support of public opinion, while a governmental BOE is constrained from being publicly hostile to another government agency. Similarly, due to its independence, a report from a nonprofit BOE would be more credible than that of a public BOE.2 [Cell #3] Few government [Cell #4] A governmental BOE agencies are ever terminated.3 is dependent on funding decisions of other political bodies. Therefore, a governmental BOE is assumed to be permanent, while Changes in political circumstanca nonprofit BOE can face dissolu- es can change its funding level, tion if its fund-raising is unsuccess- even its existence. On the other ful. A public BOE does not have to hand, the independence of a spend time on fund-raising, it gets nonprofit BOE makes it permanent, assuming it can indefinitely tax dollars. The dependence on fund-raising can distort the agenda raise adequate funding.5 of a nonprofit BOE. For example, since contributions come from the well-to-do, that could influence a nonprofit BOE to focus on reducing government spending and taxes.4

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Big Picture vs. “CheeseParing”

[Cell #5] The presumed permanence of a government agency means it is able to “undertake the long-run types of study” while such long-term studies would hold less appeal for a nonprofit BOE.6

[Cell #6] A nonprofit BOE is more able to study broader subjects (like social surveys or policy reviews) while a public BOE is usually limited to a more narrow focus on the internal operations of government agencies.7

Staffing

[Cell #7] A government BOE can attract employees due to job security and other benefits of the civil service.8

[Cell #8] A nonprofit BOE can attract employees with higher salaries than those usually offered to civil servants.9

Democ- [Cell #9] A public BOE racy strengthens democracy because it works in the public interest, not special interest groups; and helps make government work, thus improving citizen confidence in government.10

[Cell #10] Because of its educational and publicity orientation, a nonprofit BOE contributes more to the democratic goal of promoting an informed and active citizenry, thus strengthening civil society.11

Notes to Table 1 Treleven and Myers, 420. 2 Treleven, 278; Crane, “Research Agencies and Equipment,” 296; Cutting, 2; McDonald, 353; Truman, 2-3, 14; Andersen, 85. 3 Herbert Kaufman, Time, Chance, and Organizations: Natural Selection in a Perilous Environment, 2nd edition (Chatham, NJ: Chatham House, 1991). Since the mid-1980s, an extensive academic literature in public administration has developed on the subject of agency longevity and termination. 4 Crane, “Research Agencies and Equipment,” 299; Truman, 94; Andersen, 81. 5 Treleven, 278. 6 Andersen, 84. 7 Cerf, 42-43. 8 Andersen, 86. 9 Ibid. 10 Ibid., 84-85. 11 Truman, 14. Civil society is, of course, a contemporary phrase that was not in common usage at the beginning of the twentieth century.

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Table 6-2 Summary of Assessment of Sectoral Affiliation

Key: High: close correlation to predictions in the literature Medium: partial correlation to the literature Low: no correlation to the literature Key Factors In-House versus Out-ofHouse Funding and Permanence Big Picture versus “CheeseParing” Staffing Democracy General Summary of Trends

Governmental BOE Advantages [Cell #1]

medium [Cell #3]

Nonprofit BOE Disadvantages

Nonprofit BOE Advantages

[Cell #1] medium

[Cell #2] medium

[Cell #3]

[Cell #4]

Governmental BOE Disadvantages [Cell #2]

medium [Cell #4]

low

medium

medium

[Cell #5]

[Cell #5]

[Cell #6]

[Cell #7]

[Cell #7]

[Cell #8]

[Cell #9]

[Cell #9]

[Cell #10]

[Cell #10]

low to medium

medium

medium to high

medium to high

low

low

high

high

(na) low

low

high

[Cell #6]

medium

[Cell #8]

high (prob.)

high (prob.)

high

low

his view, a new paradigm was emerging called the new governance.24 It comprised a set of tools available to accomplish the public interest. Many of these tools, he argued, were outside the legal boundaries of the public sector, such as purchase-of-service contracting and grants. In each particular policy area, society needed to select the tool that was most effective in realizing the public interest. In Salamon’s

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twenty-first century world—a world not much different from the Progressive Era—sectoral affiliation was less distinct and less important in practice.

THE EFFICIENCY BUREAU IS DEAD, LONG LIVE EFFICIENCY Efficiency bureaus largely disappeared after the Progressive Era, but not totally. In the late 1990s, the South Korean Ministry of Governmental Administration contained an Administrative Efficiency Bureau, and the City of Rochester (New York) continues to have, as discussed in Chapter 5, a Bureau of Budget and Efficiency.25 In the twenty-first century, however, the bureau of efficiency terminology has found new life and new meaning with the increased importance of energy efficiency. Some governmental and nonprofit organizations promoting energy efficiency are called bureaus of energy efficiency or variations of that theme. For example, the central government of India has a Bureau of Energy Efficiency, the government of the Canadian province of Québec had an Energy Efficiency Bureau from 1988 to 1994, and the nonprofit higher education Worcester Polytechnic Institute (located in Massachusetts) had a project in Windhoek, Namibia, called the Renewable Energy & Energy Efficiency Bureau.26 Bureaus of efficiency, albeit with a different meaning, are still with us in the twenty-first century. As a subgenus of the good government movement, efficiency bureaus (mostly public sector as identified in Chapter 5) lost out to bureaus of municipal research (which were mostly in the nonprofit sector). Nonetheless, the results of these case studies provide modest lessons from the past that have applicability to the present. Were bureaus of efficiency a dead-end in American urban history? Certainly, a strict organizational interpretation of the results of this historical case study would suggest an unequivocal “yes.” None of the four bureaus of efficiency studied here in detail exists today. The two public sector efficiency bureaus were abolished, not just in an official sense, but de facto as well. The activities they engaged in literally disappeared from their municipal government, rather than migrating to a different department. The two nonprofit bureaus of efficiency continue to exist through successor organizations. Milwaukee’s CBME has changed its name several times since the 1920s and is now called

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the Public Policy Forum. Significantly, its current mission statement states its commitment to “the effectiveness of government and public policy,” but not to efficiency in local government.27 On the other hand, Chicago’s Civic Federation, which gradually eliminated the term efficiency from its title after swallowing the CBPE, continues to enunciate its dedication to “improvements in government efficiency.”28 Of the other governmental and nonprofit efficiency bureaus that were dedicated to public-sector efficiency (presented in the preceding chapter), only the one in Rochester, New York, survives to the present but solely in a titular sense. So, one conclusion would deem local bureaus of efficiency to have been a phenomenon of the Progressive Era that did not outlive the times. But this would be an incomplete, even misleading conclusion. As an idea, the goals of the efficiency bureau movement are alive and well in the United States. According to a 1998 volume on administrative reform, the “cult of efficiency” in government continued to be a vital and energized concept at the turn of the millennium.29 Efficiency is deeply embedded in the political culture and civic psyche as a permanent norm.30 The call for efficiency in local government continues to resonate in modern times.31 Just as public sector and nonprofit efficiency bureaus advocated for efficiency in local government, so too the contemporary push for efficiency emanates from both within municipal governments and from nonprofit organizations. In the public sector, for example, the newly elected mayor of Cleveland created, in 2006, a task force “to help City Hall run more efficiently.” He established efficiency teams of civil servants and citizens to bore into municipal departments and seek ways to cut operating budgets by 3 percent.32 His counterpart in Manchester, New Hampshire, said at his 2006 inauguration that of the many task forces he created, “my personal favorite [is] Government Efficiency.”33 In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans’ city government exhibited “an efficiency rarely seen in even the best-run governments” in the issuing of construction permits, said the New York Times.34 Although San Francisco had abolished its bureau of efficiency in the mid-1910s (see previous chapter), at the turn of the millennium, it revived the goals of the bureau by requiring all city departments to submit an annual “Efficiency Plan.”35

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Similarly, nonprofit organizations continue to push for efficiency in local government. But they are no longer called bureaus of efficiency. In some cases, the pursuit of efficiency in local government emanates from extant nonprofit bureaus of municipal research. In 2007, the mission of the Boston Municipal Research Bureau still included promoting “more efficient, effective and responsible government.”36 The Bureau of Governmental Research in New Orleans presents annual awards for civil servants “who have shown outstanding integrity, creativity, innovation, and efficiency.”37 During the Great Depression, the nonprofit Citizens Budget Commission was established in New York City due to the municipality’s precarious financial condition. It continues to exist to this day as a watchdog group to provide “scrutiny of the efficiency and fiscal standing of government.”38 The national association of such groups, the Governmental Research Association (founded in 1914 when several bureaus of efficiency still existed) described its mission in 2007 as including “efficient management of public programs.” It sought to continue serving as the national organizational umbrella for every “professional agency that places accountability, efficiency, and effectiveness in government at the top of its agenda.”39 However, the pursuit of municipal efficiency has not been limited to municipal research bureaus that survived into the twenty-first century. For example, the Reason Public Policy Institute, a right-of-center research and advocacy organization, released in 2002 “A Report Card on Efficiency in Service Delivery in California’s Largest Cities.”40 After the release of the report, its template for evaluating municipal government spread nationally, with other cities throughout the country seeking to demonstrate how efficient they were based on the Institute’s scoring method. Bureaus of efficiency may have died out, but not their underlying goal. Efficiency has remained a central goal for government in the new millennium, whether the push for it comes from within or without the walls of government. In that respect, little has changed conceptually from the days of the bureaus of efficiency in Milwaukee and Chicago, a century earlier. Their intellectual heirs have been as focused and change-oriented as nonprofit and public sector efficiency bureaus had been. The legacy of the seemingly anachronistic concept of a bureaus of efficiency remains alive and well in the twenty-first century. This string of urban history has not played itself out yet.

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The holy grail of municipal efficiency is likely to remain a viable and powerful concept well into the twenty-first century.

notes 1 Homepage of the Governmental Research Association, retrieved June 22, 2007: http://www.graonline.org/. 2 Bertelli and Lynn, 21-22. 3 Sait, 53. 4 Haber, 60. 5 Waldo; Herbert A. Simon, Administrative Behavior: A Study of DecisionMaking Processes in Administrative Organizations, 4 edition (New York: Free Press, 1997). 6 Matthew Stewart, “The Management Myth,” Atlantic 297:5 (June 2006), 80-87. 7 Commons, Eighteen Months’ Work of the Milwaukee Bureau of Economy and Efficiency, 5. 8 Sikes, “Chicago Bureau of Public Efficiency,” 456. 9 Minutes of the Meeting of the Board of Trustees, January 13, 1914, 9, Annual Minutes 1914-1939 Book, Minutes Books drawer, PPF. 10 Sait, 52. 11 Munro, “Current Municipal Affairs,” American Political Science Review 6:1 (February 1912) 96, emphasis added. 12 Merriam, “Human Nature and Science in City Government,” 461. 13 Cerf, 41-42. 14 The phrase “cheese-paring” is used in “Introduction; Citizen Agencies for Research in Government,” viii. While never defined, it highlights government reform efforts that focus on minute, even trivial, detail, presumably too minor to be significant to accomplishing the goal of making government more efficient. 15 Mordecai Lee, “Revisiting the Dartmouth Court Decision: Why the US has Private Nonprofit Agencies Instead of Public Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs),” Public Organization Review 7:2 (June 2007), 113-42. 16 Independent Sector homepage, retrieved June 20, 2007: http://www. independentsector.org/. 17 Mordecai Lee, “Public Reporting: A Neglected Aspect of Nonprofit Accountability,” Nonprofit Management & Leadership 15:2 (Winter 2004), 169-85.

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18 Robert Ford, “California, Supreme Court Deal With Fund-raising Issues,” Nonprofit Times 18:21 (November 1, 2004) 6. 19 U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Finance, Charity Oversight and Reform: Keeping Bad Things from Happening to Good Charities, 108th Congress, 2nd session, 22 June 2004, S. Hearing 108-603, Statement of Adam Meyerson, president, Philanthropy Roundtable, 421-22, retrieved June 22, 2007: http://finance.senate.gov/hearings/95482.pdf. 20 Brad Wolverton, “Charity and Foundation Officials Offer Criticism and Support for Proposals on Nonprofit Regulation,” Chronicle of Philanthropy, July 22, 2004; Bernard Stamler, “After a Spate of Scandals, A Debate on New Rules,” New York Times, November 15, 2004, F25. 21 Email blast from Panel on the Nonprofit Sector, “Subject: Senate Tax Bill Includes Charitable Reform,” November 18, 2005, author’s files. 22 John H. Goddeeris and Burton A. Weisbrod, “Why Not For-Profit? Conversions and Public Policy,” Elizabeth T. Boris and C. Eugene Steuerle, editors, Nonprofits and Government: Collaboration and Conflict (Washington, DC: Urban Institute, 1999), 237. 23 A board of directors or trustees is responsible for it, but the members of the board (whether as individuals or as a group) do not own the nonprofit. For example, when a for-profit corporation has surplus revenue, it can distribute a dividend to its owners (the shareholders). Nonprofits cannot distribute excess revenue to its owners, since it is a nonstock corporation. Similarly, when a for-profit corporation dissolves, the owners (stockholders) receive their share of the assets. But when a nonprofit disbands, no individuals can benefit financially from the assets. Those assets must be transferred to another nonprofit or are shifted to the government. Mintzberg, 76. 24 Lester M. Salamon, “The New Governance and the Tools of Public Action: An Introduction,” Lester M. Salamon, editor, The Tools of Government: A Guide to the New Governance (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 1-47. 25 Joong Yang Kim, “Direction for Developing the Korean Civil Service System,” Public Personnel Management 26:1 (Spring 1997), 89. 26 Homepage of the Bureau of Energy Efficiency, retrieved June 22, 2007: http://www.bee-india.nic.in/; Agence de l’efficacité énergétique, Gouvernement du Québec, retrieved June 19, 2007: http://www.aee.gouv. qc.ca/english/historique/historique.jsp; Worcester Polytechnic Institute Namibia Project Center, retrieved June 15, 2007: http://www.wpi.edu/ About/Africa/center.html.

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27 “Mission,” Public Policy Forum homepage, emphasis added, retrieved June 21, 2007: http://www.publicpolicyforum.org/aboutus/mission. php. 28 “About Us,” Civic Federation homepage, retrieved June 21, 2007: http://www.civicfed.org/about.html. 29 Harold Seidman, Politics, Position, and Power: The Dynamics of Federal Organization, 5 edition (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 3. 30 Bertelli and Lynn, 71, 101. 31 Hindy Lauer Schachter, “Does Frederick Taylor’s Ghost Still Haunt the Halls of Government? A Look at the Concept of Governmental Efficiency in Our Time,” Public Administration Review 67:5 (September/ October 2007), 800-10. 32 “Municipal mirror: Jackson wants city departments to take a look at themselves and figure out ways to serve the public more efficiently,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, May 20, 2006, B8. 33 “City of Manchester, Mayor Frank C. Guinta Inaugural Address, January 3, 2006,” 2, retrieved June 19, 2007: http://www.manchesternh.gov/ CityGov/MYR/files/A16CFF3A209E472ABFF8A8D2D7D4B9CB. pdf. 34 Bob Tedeschi, “City Hall Gets More Efficient, Despite a Hurricane (or Two),” New York Times, April 5, 2006, G7. 35 City and County of San Francisco, Office of the Controller, “Efficiency Plan, Revised December 1, 2005,” retrieved June 20, 2007: http://www. sfgov.org/site/uploadedfiles/controller/reports/EfficPlan.pdf. 36 Mission, Boston Municipal Research Bureau homepage, retrieved June 21, 2007: http://www.bmrb.org/mission.asp. 37 Information about BGR, Bureau of Governmental Research webpage, retrieved June 22, 2007: http://www.bgr.org/MainPages/aboutbgr.htm. 38 About the Citizens Budget Commission, retrieved June 19, 2007: http://www.cbcny.org/about.html. 39 Your State in Governmental Research, Governmental Research Association, retrieved June 23, 2007: http://www.graonline.org/. 40 Reason Public Policy Institute, “California Competitive Cities: A Report Card on Efficiency in Service Delivery in California’s Largest Cities,” Policy Study No. 291, February 2002, retrieved June 20, 2007: http:// www.reason.org/ps291.pdf.

Appendix A Reports Issued by Bureaus of Efficiency in Milwaukee and Chicago

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Bureaus of Efficiency Table 1 Social Surveys Issued by the Milwaukee Bureau of Economy and Efficiency

Bulletin #, date issued, & length: (NA), January 10, 1911, 148 pp. Title: Workmen’s Accidents (published by the Wisconsin Committee on Industrial Insurance).1 Appendices I-IV consisted of “a recent investigation in Milwaukee county of a limited number of industrial accident cases” (p. 59). Main authors, office titles, & expertise (if known): Appendices I-IV: Fred L. King, special investigator for the social survey, Superintendent of the Free Employment Bureau in Milwaukee; and Selig Perlman Summary and recommendations: The Bureau listed this report as one of the “Bulletins Issued.” However, it was not published as the others were and was not assigned a number in the sequence of the other reports. The report recommended passage of state legislation providing insurance for industrial accidents. Bulletin #, date issued, & length: #3, June 1911, 27 pp. Title: Garnishment of Wages (prepared in cooperation with the Wisconsin Consumers League)2 Main authors, office titles, & expertise (if known): (not identified) Summary and recommendations: Called for limiting the scope of garnishment laws and reforming procedures to provide more protections for wage earners from claims by creditors. Bulletin #3 was simply a reprint of a state government report that appeared in the Fifteenth Biennial Report of the Bureau of Labor and Industrial Statistics,3 without even changing the pagination. Bulletin #, date issued, & length: (NA), June 1911, 474 pp. Title: Housing Conditions (published by the Wisconsin Bureau of Labor) Main authors, office titles, & expertise (if known): Miss Perdue (?),5 staffer at Wisconsin Labor Commission (?) Summary and recommendations: This report is listed on one of the “In Press” lists published by the Bureau. However, this report was not published as the others were and was not assigned a number in the sequence of the other reports. It is likely, but not certain, that the reference in the “In Press” list is to a report on “Basement Tenements in Milwaukee” that was conducted in the winter of 1910-11 and published as part of the Fifteenth Biennial Report of the Bureau of Labor and Industrial Statistics of Wisconsin state government.6

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Bulletin #, date issued, & length: #4, June 1911, 18 pp. Title: Women’s Wages in Milwaukee (aka Proposed Minimum Wage Law for Wisconsin)7 (prepared in cooperation with the Wisconsin Consumers League)8 Main authors, office titles, & expertise (if known): Ruby Stewart, special investigator for the social survey; and Katherine Lenroot Summary and recommendations: Provided study of women’s wages in Milwaukee, summarized practices in the UK and Australia, proposed legislation and provided analysis of legislative proposal. Bulletin #, date issued, & length: #6, September 1, 1911, 15 pp. Title: Citizens’ Free Employment Bureau Main authors, office titles, & expertise (if known): Fred A. King, special investigator for the social survey, Superintendent of the Free Employment Bureau, Milwaukee Summary and recommendations: This was a retrospective report on the 3-month life of a temporary and voluntary employment bureau created in the spring of 1911 by the City and other institutions to help the large number of unemployed men find jobs.9 This was an early version of what became a common state government function: a job service office. Bulletin #, date issued, & length: #7, October 30, 1911, 16 pp. Title: Free Legal Aid Main authors, office titles, & expertise (if known): Fred A. King, special investigator for the social survey, Superintendent of the Free Employment Bureau, Milwaukee Summary and recommendations: The report advocated for the “need of free legal service in Milwaukee in certain important civil actions” (p. 10) for low-income workers who could not afford a lawyer. This helped lead to the now-common legal aid societies for civil actions and public defenders’ offices for criminal ones. Bulletin #, date issued, & length: #8, November 15, 1911, 36 pp. Title: The Newsboys of Milwaukee Main authors, office titles, & expertise (if known): Alexander Fleisher, special investigator for the social survey, special agent of the Bureau of Labor Summary and recommendations: Field investigation of working conditions for “Jewish and Italian newsboys belonging to the poorest class” (p. 75). Called for a minimum age for newsboys and an enforcement mechanism for that minimum age requirement. Bulletin #8 was a reprint of a state government report.10

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Bulletin #, date issued, & length: #17, March 31, 1912, 32 pp. Title: Recreation Survey (prepared for the City of Milwaukee School Board and City’s Child Welfare Commission) (also listed in Table 2) Main authors, office titles, & expertise (if known): Rowland Haynes, Field Secretary, Playground and Recreation Association of America Summary and recommendations: Collected basic data about recreational needs of city’s children and the inadequacy of available facilities and staffing. Recommended writing a comprehensive development plan and the need for cooperative relations with other relevant public and nonprofit groups. 1. It is likely, but not certain, that the never-published report by the Milwaukee Bureau is the same as the 1911 Wisconsin legislative Report of the Special Committee on Industrial Insurance. The titles of the issuing bodies are nearly identical. According to the information published by the Bureau, the report’s corporate author was the Wisconsin Committee on Industrial Insurance while the State Legislature’s report was authored by the Special Committee on Industrial Insurance. Also, Fred A. King co-authored the appendices of the legislative report (pp. 59, 61). Later that year, he was the author of Bulletins #6 and 7 from the MBEE. The summary information in this table is based on the assumption that the reports are the same document. 2. The Wisconsin Consumers League did not focus on the late twentieth and early twenty-first century meaning of consumer. Rather in the 1910s and early 20s, its orientation was on passing legislation to provide legal protections and fair wages for women and child workers. See, for example, its Report for 1917-1918 and its 1922 Summary of Protective Laws for the Working Women and Children of Wisconsin and A Legislative Program for 1923 (WHS Pamphlet Collection). 3. J. D. Beck, [Commissioner of Labor], Fifteenth Biennial Report of the Bureau of Labor and Industrial Statistics, State of Wisconsin, 1911-1912 (Madison, WI: Democrat Printing Company, 1911), 3-27. 4. Based on information in “Milwaukee Bureau of Economy and Efficiency,” typescript, n. d., located in a 3-ring loose-leaf binder titled “CGRB Activities, 1913-1929,” Box 199, PPF. 5. Her first name was not listed in the report. 6. J. D. Beck, 147-205. 7. The title on the outside cover of the Bulletin is Women’s Wages in Milwaukee and it is identified as Bulletin No. 4 of the Bureau. However, the title

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on the inside cover is Proposed Minimum Wage Law for Wisconsin: Bill, 317 S. Introduced by Senator Kleczka and 799 A. Introduced by Assemblyman Stern. Additional information on the inside cover includes “Prepared for the Wisconsin Consumers’ League, Under the Direction of John. R. Commons.” 8. Based on information in “Milwaukee Bureau of Economy and Efficiency,” typescript, n. d., located in a 3-ring loose-leaf binder titled “CGRB Activities, 1913-1929,” Box 199, PPF. 9. The statistics in the report on the “Nationality by Country of Birth” of the unemployed workers who used the services of the office hinted at the common views about race relations at the time (p. 10). The largest number (356) is listed as American, followed by German (202) and Polish (124). Near the end of the list is one person categorized as “colored.” In other words, an African-American male had no “country of birth,” just a racial designation. While he was born in some country, in this case presumably the US, he was not eligible for listing in the same category as white people born in America. 10. J. D. Beck, 61-96.

Table 2 Efficiency Surveys Issued by the Milwaukee Bureau of Economy and Efficiency Bulletin #, date issued, & length: #2, June 1911, 23 pp. Title: Proposed Consolidation of Fire and Police Alarm Telegraph Systems Main authors, office titles, & expertise (if known): John E. Treleven, staff, Secretary of the Bureau, previously staffer to Wisconsin Tax Commission Summary and recommendations: Construct combined alarm system for city’s fire and police departments instead of separate systems Bulletin #, date issued, & length: #5, June 1911, 78 pp. Title: The Refuse Incinerator (also listed in Table 3) Main authors, office titles, & expertise (if known): Myrtile Cerf, staff, civil engineer and accountant, formerly with Ernest Reckitt & Co., Chicago Summary and recommendations: Reorganize administration and operations of the incinerator, install cost accounting system, and various engineering changes.

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Bulletin #, date issued, & length: #10, December 15, 1911, 38 pp. Title: Plumbing and House Drain Inspection Main authors, office titles, & expertise (if known): Fayette H. Elwell, staff, accountant, formerly professor of accounting at Marquette University, Milwaukee Summary and recommendations: Reorganize structure, staffing, and work processes of Division of Plumbing Inspection to increase efficiency and save money. Bulletin #, date issued, & length: #11, December 30, 1911, 42 pp. Title: Water Works Efficiency (1): Water Wastes Survey Main authors, office titles, & expertise (if known): Ray Palmer, staff, consulting engineer, former Commissioner of Gas and Electricity, City of Chicago, and electrical engineering graduate of UW-Madison; and W. R. Brown, staff, sanitary engineer, Chicago Summary and recommendations: Examined statistics of water usage in relation to amount pumped and average levels of consumption. It identified some significant factors contributing to wasting water, including breaks in water pipes, improper installation of plumbing fixtures, etc. It ended with seven suggestions to reduce waste in pumping. Bulletin #, date issued, & length: #12, January 15, 1912, 27 pp. Title: Reorganization of the System of Garbage Collection Main authors, office titles, & expertise (if known): Robert E. Goodell, staff, cost accountant, formerly with Marwick, Mitchell & Co., Chicago Summary and recommendations: Reviewed operation of garbage pickup and recommended changes in collection procedures to reduce staffing and save money. Bulletin #, date issued, & length: #13, January 30, 1912, 51 pp. Title: Health Department (1): Milk Supply Main authors, office titles, & expertise (if known): Selskar M. Gunn,1 staff, sanitarian and assistant professor of public health at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Summary and recommendations: Recommendations to improve the Health Department’s control and supervision of milk delivered to and sold in Milwaukee, including hiring additional staff.2

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Bulletin #, date issued, & length: #14, February 15, 1912, 26 pp. Title: Water Works Efficiency (2): Present Capacity and Future Requirements Main authors, office titles, & expertise (if known): Frederick Eugene Turneaure, consulting expert, Dean, College of Engineering, University of Wisconsin-Madison (1903-37) Summary and recommendations: The growth rate of the city would make its water intake and pumping capacities inadequate in the near future. Expansion of the Water Works needed to be planned and implemented. Bulletin #, date issued, & length: #15, February 29, 1912, 29 pp. Title: Health Department (2): Education and Publications Main authors, office titles, & expertise (if known): Selskar M. Gunn, staff, sanitarian and assistant professor of public health at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); and Fred W. Luening, sanitarian and chief, Division of Education and Publications, Health Department, City of Milwaukee Summary and recommendations: Work plan for newly created Division of Education and Publications in the City Health Department. Goal was to disseminate information and educational materials to the citizenry (in part directly and in part through other public and nonprofit organizations) to encourage good public health practices. Bulletin #, date issued, & length: #16, March 15, 1912, 36 pp. Title: Water Works Efficiency (3): Operating Efficiency Main authors, office titles, & expertise (if known): Ray Palmer, staff, consulting engineer, former Commissioner of Gas and Electricity, City of Chicago, and electrical engineering graduate of UW-Madison Summary and recommendations: Recommendations for improving the efficiency of the water works and for the longer-term, expanding capacity to match population growth and increased demand. Bulletin #, date issued, & length: #17, March 31, 1912, 32 pp. Title: Recreation Survey (prepared for the City of Milwaukee School Board and City’s Child Welfare Commission) (also listed in Table 1) Main authors, office titles, & expertise (if known): Rowland Haynes, Field Secretary, Playground and Recreation Association of America Summary and recommendations: Collected basic data about recreational needs of city’s children and inadequacy of available facilities and staffing. Recommended preparation of a comprehensive development plan and the need for cooperative relations with other relevant public and nonprofit groups.

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Bulletin #, date issued, & length: #18, April 15, 1912, 42 pp. Title: Health Department (3): Communicable Diseases Main authors, office titles, & expertise (if known): Selskar M. Gunn, staff, sanitarian and assistant professor of public health at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Summary and recommendations: Contained detailed recommendations for how the Health Department could improve its responses for containing outbreaks of communicable diseases. 1. That same month Gunn published a short article about efficiency in public health departments, but he did not explicitly mention Milwaukee in his generalizations and recommendations. Gunn’s involvement with the Milwaukee Bureau of Economy and Efficiency was considered important enough to be mentioned in his obituary. Selskar M. Gunn, “Economy and Efficiency in Health Administration Work,” National Municipal Review 1:1 (January 1912), 49-53; “S. M. Gunn, 61, Dies; Health Authority,” New York Times, August 3, 1944, 19. 2. In 1911, the primary modes of transportation were trains and horsedrawn wagons. The only residential refrigeration available were ice boxes.

Table 3 Cost Accounting Report Issued by the Milwaukee Bureau of Economy and Efficiency Bulletin #, date issued, & length: #5, June 1911, 78 pp. Title: The Refuse Incinerator (also listed in Table 2) Main authors, office titles, & expertise (if known): Myrtile Cerf, staff, civil engineer and accountant, formerly with Ernest Reckitt & Co., Chicago Summary and recommendations: Reorganize administration and operations of the incinerator, install cost accounting system, and various engineering changes.

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Table 4 Reports and Studies Issued by the Milwaukee Citizens’ Bureau of Municipal Efficiency Date issued & length: April 1913, 135 pp. Title: Preliminary Survey of Certain Departments of the City of Milwaukee Main authors, office titles, & expertise (if known): Henry Bruère, Director, NYBMR, national leader in municipal reform movement; and other NYBMR staffers Summary and recommendations: 196 recommendations for reforms in the agencies of city government covered in the survey and overall suggestion for the establishment of a NYBMR-type nonprofit organization in Milwaukee. Date issued & length: October 15, 1914, 10 pp. Title: Consolidation of the Building Inspection, Boiler Inspection and Smoke Inspection Services Main authors, office titles, & expertise (if known): CBME staff Summary and recommendations: Merge three inspection services to save money and increase efficiency. Date issued & length: January-February 1915, 58 pp. Title: Cost Accounting System, Department of Public Works Main authors, office titles, & expertise (if known): W. B. Holton, Jr., NYBMR staff Summary and recommendations: Ten recommendations to establish a cost accounting system for the Bureaus of the Department, with detailed functional codes, procedures, and forms. Date issued & length: December 1915, 18 pp. Title: Certain Features of Administration of the Milwaukee Fire Department Main authors, office titles, & expertise (if known): CBME staff Summary and recommendations: Omnibus organizational audit of the Fire Department with scores of recommendations for administrative changes. Date issued & length: 1916, 26 pp. Title: Reorganization of the Bureau of Purchases and Supplies, Department of Public Works Main authors, office titles, & expertise (if known): CBME staff Summary and recommendations: 28 “principal recommendations” to improve the operations, documentation, and expenditures of city purchasing and storing activities.

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Date issued & length: March 1916, 14 pp. and 136 pp. Title: The Street Lighting Question: A Summary and Street Lighting Reports: A Pamphlet of Reference Main authors, office titles, & expertise (if known): Ray Palmer, consulting engineer, former Commissioner of Gas and Electricity, City of Chicago, and electrical engineering graduate of UW-Madison Summary and recommendations: Due to conflicts about the installation of street lighting system (some technical, some judgmental), the CBME hired an expert to evaluate the competing recommendations. However, his report did not resolve the conflict, nor did a summit meeting called by the CBME of all interested parties. Date issued & length: June 2, 1916, 14 pp. Title: Central Control of Motor Vehicles Main authors, office titles, & expertise (if known): CBME staff Summary and recommendations: Establish centralized control over the maintenance and operation of all motor vehicles owned by city government Date issued & length: October 28, 1916, 45 pp. Title: Review of Movement for Standardization of Public Employments Main authors, office titles, & expertise (if known): J. Lewis Jacobs, efficiency engineer,1 former head of the Efficiency Division of the Chicago Civil Service Commission Summary and recommendations: Vigorous criticism of plan for standardization of civil service positions prepared by the Milwaukee city government’s Bureau of Municipal Research and proposal of substitute approach recommended for adoption. Date issued & length: January 1, 1917, 18 pp. Title: A More Effective Form of Municipal Organization for Milwaukee Main authors, office titles, & expertise (if known): CBME staff Summary and recommendations: Recommendations to reorganize structure of city government to separate politics and administration, and to create a Commission of Administration comprising the key agency administrators and commissioners.

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Date issued & length: July 1917, 17 pp. Title: A Proposed Organization to Consolidate the Accounting, Stenographic, Clerical and Filing Work of the Department of Public Works Main authors, office titles, & expertise (if known): John F. Putnam, CBME director, accountant; and CBME staff Summary and recommendations: Nine recommendations that would lead to a centralized support staff for the Department in order to save money on staffing and facilitate the introduction of new laborsaving machines. Date issued & length: February 1918, 7 pp. Title: A Discussion of the Referendums Relating to the Re-organization of the Common Council (Bulletin No. 8) Main authors, office titles, & expertise (if known): CBME staff Summary and recommendations: For an upcoming referendum on reorganizing the size, length of term, and form of election of the Common Council, the CBME recommended one of the six alternatives on the ballot as the most preferable. Date issued & length: August-September 1918 Title: Accounting System, Department of Health Main authors, office titles, & expertise (if known): Harold L. Henderson, acting CBME director, accountant; and CBME staff Summary and recommendations: Recommendations to establish a cost accounting system for the Department, with detailed functional codes, procedures, and forms, identical to the system the CBME had recommended for other city agencies. Date issued & length: 1920, 48 pp. Title: A Method of Controlling Food Consumption in Milwaukee County Institutions Main authors, office titles, & expertise (if known): CBME staff Summary and recommendations: Ten recommendations to reduce food costs by buying lower-priced foodstuffs that still met all nutritional requirements for the diets of residents at county institutions. 1. While Roberts spells it Louis, it is spelled Lewis in several documents of the Chicago Civil Service Commission’s Efficiency Division where he worked (see Chapter 3). However, he normally did not use his full name, preferring to refer to himself in professional situations as J. L. Jacobs. Roberts, So-Called Experts, 18, 20, 51. Beyer, who had worked at the City of Milwaukee’ Bureau of Municipal Research, referred to Jacobs as an

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“efficiency engineer,” but it apparently was neither a formal professional term nor an indication of an educational credential. Beyer, “Classification and Standardization of Personal Service.”

Table 5 Reports and Studies Issued by the Efficiency Division of the Chicago Civil Service Commission Date issued & length: March 1911, 73 pp. Title: Charts of Organization of All Departments of the City of Chicago, as in Effect March, 1911 Summary and recommendations: A preliminary step in advancing the civil service system was called “charting the service.”1 This entailed creating a comprehensive database—depicted in tables of organization—of each city department and agency with basic information on all personnel positions assigned to that organization, including job category, position level, and salary range. This information was considered essential for a Civil Service Commission to have adequate information for decisionmaking. For it to be useful, it also needed to be updated regularly (see such reports below). Date issued & length: December 7, 1911, 44 pp. Title: Preliminary Report, Police Investigation Summary and recommendations: Twenty-two recommendations for changes to root out graft and corruption, mostly focusing on establishing a merit-based personnel system that would create a more professionalized force, independent of political pressures and criminal temptations. Date issued & length: February 1912, 57 pp. Title: Charts of Organization of All Departments of the City of Chicago, as in Effect February, 1912 Summary and recommendations: An updating of the March 1911 version. Professor Joseph Kingsbury called this “one of the most useful” of the Division’s outputs. According to him, “Department heads found these charts useful in showing unbalanced organization, duplication of work, and lack of cooperation between bureaus.”2 The information in the charts was considered so newsworthy that the Chicago Tribune published them in its Sunday edition on February 18, 1912 and additional information in the next day’s paper.3

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Date issued & length: March 7, 1912, 54 pp. Title: Final Report, Police Investigation Summary and recommendations: While still containing the same number of recommendations (twenty-two) as the preliminary report in December 1911, only some in the final report were verbatim from the earlier one. Others were revised, expanded, or somewhat new, but all still dealt with a broad range of internal structure, operations, ethics, personnel systems, and law enforcement. Date issued & length: May 10, 1912, 59 pp. Title: Building Department Inquiry Summary and recommendations: Thirty-two recommendations for eliminating widespread bribery, promoting agency reorganization, creating a proper filing system, exercising the full powers of the department, and improving coordination with other departments having related responsibilities. Date issued & length: November 15, 1912, 64 pp. Title: Appropriations and Expenditures, Bureau of Streets, Department of Public Works Summary and recommendations: The City Council’s Finance Committee requested a study of the patterns of funding and spending in each aldermanic ward for garbage and snow removal. Presumably, there were concerns that political factors governed the allocation of appropriations rather than actual need and usage. The Division’s study concluded with recommendations of funding allocations for 1913 based on the data it collected for 1912. Date issued & length: January 8, 1913, 1 page Title: Offices & Places of Employment Excepted from City Civil Service, 1913 Summary and recommendations: While only a one-page chart, this published document embodied the effort of the CSC in general and the Division in particular to reduce the proportion of exempt positions in municipal employment. By documenting nearly 8,000 positions with an annual payroll of nearly $10 million, the Division was aiding the reformers from outside government who were pressing to reduce these “abuses.”

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Date issued & length: March 1913, 16 pp. Title: Analysis of Employment and Charts Showing Departmental Organizations and Distribution of Employes [sic]4 Summary and recommendations: An updating of the charts of all city agencies (see 1911 report above) along with a detailed summary of a revised civil service system approved by the City Council by ordinance in 1913. Date issued & length: July 7, 1913, 40 pp. Title: Department of Electricity Summary and recommendations: Unlike most of the preceding reports, this survey had little relation to the Division’s traditional civil service focus. Rather, it was akin to a program and organizational audit, reflecting a change in the Division’s focus. This publication was a compilation of four freestanding reports on discrete activities or subunits of the department. Each of the four reports concluded with detailed recommendations for changes. Date issued & length: September 20, 1913, 71 pp. Title: Engineer and Janitor Service, Board of Education Summary and recommendations: Twenty-seven recommendations to change the compensation rates, supervision, documentation, and promotion for school engineers, custodians, and janitors. Date issued & length: October 13, 1913, 113 pp. Title: Bureau of Streets, Department of Public Works Summary and recommendations: Unlike the November 1912 report on the Bureau (but like the July 1913 report), this study was an overall review of the functioning of the Bureau. It had forty-nine recommendations regarding policies and operations. Date issued & length: March 30, 1914, 66 pp. Title: Prison Labor and Management, House of Correction Summary and recommendations: An overall agency audit, concluding with twenty recommendations to improve the workings of the department, most unrelated to civil service issues.

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Date issued & length: April 10, 1914, 553 pp. Title: Budget of Educational Estimates and Expenditures, Board of Education Summary and recommendations: Created a unified and uniform budgeting and accounting system for all financial aspects of the operations of the K-12 public school district. About a month later, the Division released a second brief report, essentially containing the front matter of the April 1914 report. However, the second report contained budget figures extending through May 2, 1914, while the first report ended with figures as of April 8, 1914. Date issued & length: April 19, 1915, 160 pp. Title: Organization and Administration, Department of Health Summary and recommendations: Compilation of eight separate reports about the Department’s subunits and other aspects of its operations. Each report covered the technical aspects of that unit’s area of specialization (with the assistance of outside experts) as well as review of administrative operations. Each report concluded with dozens of specific recommendations for reform and improvement. Date issued & length: December 9, 1915, 24 pp. Title: Standardization of Methods, Systems, Organization and Employment Control, City Collector’s Office Summary and recommendations: Twenty-four recommendations covering all phases of the operations of the collector’s office, including administration, permit and license issuance, cash management, automation, and staffing. 1. Russell Whitman, Thomas W. Swan, and Robert Catherwood, “The Civil Service Commission of the City of Chicago,” Bureau of Streets; Civil Service Commission; and Special Assessment Accounting System of the City of Chicago: Reports Submitted to the Chicago Commission on City Expenditure, Bulletin #10 (Chicago: Chicago Bureau of Public Efficiency, 1911), 75. 2. Kingsbury, “Merit System in Chicago from 1915 to 1923,” Part 4, 183. 3. “Supplementary Civil Service Charts Show How City Is Served,” Chicago Tribune, February 19, 1912, 13. 4. CSC Chicago, Analysis of Employment, 7-16. Unlike other reports, this publication is listed in the Bibliography because its second half is a cumulative summary by the Efficiency Division of its activities through 1912.

232

Bureaus of Efficiency

Table 6 Reports and Studies Issued by the Chicago Bureau of Public Efficiency Bulletin #, date issued, & length: #1, January 9, 1911, 53 pp. Title: Methods of Preparing and Administering the Budget of Cook County, Illinois Summary and recommendations: Recommended a unified and systematic budgeting and accounting system for county government. Also urged a public hearing on the proposed budget for the upcoming year to get reactions and opinions of citizens and civic groups. Bulletin #, date issued, & length: #2, May 20, 1911, 14 pp. Title: Proposed Purchase of Voting Machines by the Board of Election Commissioners of the City of Chicago Summary and recommendations: This was the beginning of a long-running battle initiated by the CBPE to prevent the Election Board from signing a contract to buy 1,200 voting machines without any approval or appropriations from the City Council. Bulletin #, date issued, & length: #3, June 21, 1911, 41 pp. Title: Street Pavement Laid in the City of Chicago: An Inquiry Into Paving Materials, Methods and Results Summary and recommendations: This highly technical report focused on the content and process of contracts the city let for street paving. It urged that the standards be made public to assure that there was no built-in bias to favor one particular contractor or one particular provider of paving materials. Bulletin #, date issued, & length: #4, July 1911, 71 pp. Title: Electrolysis of Water Pipes in the City of Chicago Summary and recommendations: A technical report that urged engaging in practices to prevent underground water utility pipes from being affected by electricity generated by electric trolleys and the El and then conducted through the earth and causing deterioration of the pipes. Bulletin #, date issued, & length: #5, September 16, 1911, 63 pp. Title: Administration of the Office of Recorder of Cook County, Illinois Summary and recommendations: Generally, the office “is well managed” (p. 26). It made some minor suggestions regarding personnel supervision and revision of state laws controlling recorders.

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Bulletin #, date issued, & length: #6, October 9, 1911, 11 pp. Title: A Plea for Publicity in the Office of County Treasurer1 Summary and recommendations: The Treasurer had refused to permit the Bureau to study the operations of his office. The CBPE, in an unusual move, was appealing to the citizenry to bring pressure to bear on a particular subject. Bulletin #, date issued, & length: #7, October 1911, 20 pp. Title: Repairing Asphalt Pavement: Work Done for the City of Chicago Under Contract in 1911 Summary and recommendations: Focused on shoddy street pavement work done by private contractors and the necessity for city-financed repairs. Bulletin #, date issued, & length: #8, October 30, 1911, 6 pp. Title: The Municipal Court Acts: Two Related Propositions Upon Which the Voters of Chicago Will Be Asked to Pass Judgment at the Election of November 7 - Vote No Summary and recommendations: The first in the category of reports that urged the citizens how to vote on a referendum in the upcoming election. The Bureau argued that the constitutionally-required vote on proposed laws for municipal courts contained many flaws that would perpetuate bad government. Bulletin #, date issued, & length: #9, December 1911, 52 pp. Title: The Water Works System of the City of Chicago Summary and recommendations: This report had been prepared by Dabney H. Maury for the Merriam Commission, but it had not been published before the Commission dissolved. It called for many changes in the management and policies of the utility to cut costs, improve quality, and increase operating efficiency. Bulletin #, date issued, & length: #10, December 1911, 112 pp. Title: Bureau of Streets; Civil Service Commission; and Special Assessment Accounting System of the City of Chicago Summary and recommendations: Like publication #9, these three reports had been prepared for the Merriam Commission, yet had not been published before the Commission dissolved. All were similar in criticizing current city policies and urging changes to improve operations and integrity.2

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Bulletin #, date issued, & length: #11, December 1911, 68 pp. Title: Administration of the Office of Coroner of Cook County, Illinois Summary and recommendations: Called for dozens of changes in the operations of the office, especially the use of a permanent cadre of jurors for inquests. Also called for changing the office from elected to appointed. Bulletin #, date issued, & length: #12, December 1911, 26 pp. Title: Administration of the Office of Sheriff of Cook County, Illinois Summary and recommendations: Praised the new record keeping system, but criticized over-staffing and excessive salary levels of staffers. Bulletin #, date issued, & length: #13, December 1911, 50 pp. Title: Administration of the Office of Clerk of the Circuit Court and of the Office of Clerk of the Superior Court of Cook County, Illinois Summary and recommendations: “Generally speaking, the work of both offices is well performed, but the cost has been excessive and could be greatly cut down by reduction and reorganization of the force” (p. 8). Bulletin #, date issued, & length: #14, December 19, 1911, 15 pp. Title: The Judges and the County Fee Offices Summary and recommendations: The judges, as a group, had legal oversight of all “county fee offices” (such as treasurer, recorder, and clerks of court). This report criticized the judges for blandly complimenting the CBPE’s reports #5, 6, 11, and 13 while refusing to take corrective actions, especially regarding excessive staffing. “It is time for the people of Cook county to wake up and demand that the waste of public funds be stopped” (p. 3). Bulletin #, date issued, & length: #15, December 1911, 16 pp. Title: The Park Governments of Chicago: General Summary and Conclusions Summary and recommendations: Continuing an ongoing theme that Merriam had researched even before his election as alderman, the CBPE called for consolidating into one unified park district the ten separate park districts in Chicago, each of which had taxing and bonding powers. Bulletin #, date issued, & length: #16, December. 1911, 182 pp. Title: The Park Governments of Chicago: An Inquiry Into Their Organization and Methods of Administration Summary and recommendations: This highly detailed statistical compendium provided background data to justify the recommendations contained in report #15.

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Bulletin #, date issued, & length: #17, November 1912, 27 pp. Title: The Office of Clerk of the Circuit Court and the Office of Clerk of the Superior Court of Cook County, Illinois: A Supplemental Inquiry Into Their Organization and Methods of Administration Summary and recommendations: A review of the lack of implementation of most of the recommendations in report #13 and an analysis of some areas not covered in the first report. Timed to influence decisions leading up to the approval of these offices’ budgets for 1913. Bulletin #, date issued, & length: #18, November 1912, 43 pp. Title: Administration of the Office of the Clerk of the County Court of Cook County, Illinois Summary and recommendations: Reviewed all aspects of operations of this office with scores of recommendations for changes to eliminate overstaffing, professionalize record keeping, and increase efficiency. Timed to influence decisions regarding this office’s budget for 1913. Bulletin #, date issued, & length: #19, November 1912, 26 pp. Title: The Office of Sheriff of Cook County, Illinois: A Supplemental Inquiry Into Its Organization and Methods of Administration Summary and recommendations: “The present annual cost of administering the office of Sheriff can be reduced by $57,300 without impairing the efficiency of the service rendered” (p. 5). Reviewed status of suggestions made in report #12 and added new ones. Timed to influence decisions about this office’s budget for 1913. Bulletin #, date issued, & length: #20, December 30, 1912, 19 pp. Title: Growing Cost of Elections in Chicago and Cook County Summary and recommendations: By compiling the total annual cost of conducting elections, the Bureau hoped to arouse public indignation and to persuade state legislators to modify state laws to reduce costs of elections. This was also part of an effort by reformers to establish nonpartisan offices in local government. Bulletin #, date issued, & length: #21, January 1, 1913, 12 pp. Title: The Voting Machine Contract: A Protest Against Its Recognition in Any Form by the City Council of the City of Chicago Summary and recommendations: A continuation of report #2, urging the city council not to feel bound by the contract signed by the Board of Election Commissioners for a large order of voting machines.

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Bulletin #, date issued, & length: #22, November 1913, 67 pp. Title: The Office of County Treasurer of Cook County, Illinois: An Inquiry Into the Administration of Its Finances with Special Reference to the Question of Interest on Public Funds Summary and recommendations: Follow-up to report #6. Very critical of the handling of public funds by the County Treasurer, especially the fate of interest paid by banks on county accounts. Declared the operations of the office and office holder “scandalous” (p. 4). Bulletin #, date issued, & length: #23, December 1913, 25 pp. Title: The Nineteen Local Governments in Chicago: A Multiplicity of Overlapping Taxing Bodies with Many Elective Officials; Chicago’s Greatest Needs are the Unification of Its Local Governments and a Short Ballot Summary and recommendations: Like reports #15 and 16, a continuation of the Merriam-originated push for consolidating local governments. Bulletin #, date issued, & length: #24, March 30, 1914, 13 pp. Title: The Bond Issues to be Voted Upon April 7, 1914 Summary and recommendations: The CBPE urged rejection of all but two of the bonding proposals. Its plea was especially addressed to women, since this was the first election when women could vote locally. Bulletin #, date issued, & length: #25, July 9, 1914, 10 pp. Title: A Second Plea for Publicity in the Office of County Treasurer Summary and recommendations: Follow-ups to reports #6 and 22. An explicit attempt to prevent the reelection of the incumbent. Bulletin #, date issued, & length: #26, March 1915, 27 pp. Title: The Nineteen Local Governments in Chicago (Second Edition) Summary and recommendations: The CBPE printed 10,000 copies of report #23. When that supply was exhausted, it updated the report before reprinting it. Since its publication only fifteen months earlier, the number of local governments had increased from nineteen to twenty-two and the number of local elected officials went up from 236 to 251 (p. 4). Bulletin #, date issued, & length: #27, January 1917, 97 pp. Title: Unification of Local Governments in Chicago Summary and recommendations: Following up on reports #15, 16, 23, and 26, this report was aimed primarily at persuading the state legislature to enact laws to consolidate local governments in the Chicago area.3 In particular, it called for a city manager for the City of Chicago.

Appendix A

237

Bulletin #, date issued, & length: #28, October 1917, 60 pp. Title: The City Manager Plan for Chicago Summary and recommendations: A renewed effort from report #26 to lobby the state legislature to impose a city manager plan on Chicago and to shift city elections to a nonpartisan basis. Included a detailed bill draft (pp. 17-47). Bulletin #, date issued, & length: #29, October 30, 1917, 6 pp. Title: The County Bond Issues to be Voted Upon November 6, 1917 Summary and recommendations: Recommended approving only one of four bonding proposals by Cook County. Bulletin #, date issued, & length: #30, November 5, 1917, 11 pp. Title: Primary Days and Election Days as Holidays: An Instance of Governmental Absurdity and Waste Summary and recommendations: Continuation of report #20, pointing out that the election on the next day was limited to local judicial posts and no statewide offices. Questioned the benefit of closing all government offices and having election day as a legal holiday under state law. Bulletin #, date issued, & length: #31, December 12, 1917, 23 pp. Title: Chicago’s Financial Dilemma: Reply of the CBPE to a Letter from the Chairman of the Committee on Finance and the City Comptroller Asking Civic Organizations to Co-operate in Urging a Special Session of the Legislature to Provide Financial Relief for the City Summary and recommendations: The CBPE took advantage of city’s fiscal crisis and its request for help in lobbying the legislature for relief to indicate that the city’s inadequate budgeting procedures were underlying causes for the problem. For example, it asked, “just what amount of additional revenue is actually required by the City, for just what it is to be expended, and just how it is to be raised” (p. 20)? Bulletin #, date issued, & length: #32, December 1917, 207 pp. Title: The Water Works System of the City of Chicago Summary and recommendations: Continuation of report #9, a highly detailed and technical report about the need for reforms in the municipal water utility, including reducing water waste and installing meters for all users.

238

Bureaus of Efficiency

Bulletin #, date issued, & length: #33, July 1918, 20 pp. Title: Universal Metering of Chicago’s Water Supply: The Need for It; What It Would Accomplish Summary and recommendations: Follow-up on reports #32 and 9, aimed at convincing the city council to approve universal metering of all water utility customers. Bulletin #, date issued, & length: #34, September 1918, 58 pp. Title: Excess Condemnation: Why the City of Chicago Should Have the Power, in Making Public Improvements, to Take Property in Excess of Actual Requirements; Lessons to be Drawn from Certain Unfortunate Aspects of the Twelfth Street and Michigan Avenue Widening Projects and the Proposed Ogden Street Extension Summary and recommendations: This report was intended to bolster reformers’ general support for a constitutional convention to rewrite the state’s constitution. It argued that the current constitution prevented the city from buying entire real estate parcels for road construction, but instead limited it to purchasing only the minimum needed for the roadway. This legal stricture led to undevelopable lot remnants left in the hands of the private owners. Permitting the city to condemn (i.e. obtain by exercising the power of eminent domain) entire parcels would then facilitate consolidating such remnants into economically viable size lots that could be sold and developed. Bulletin #, date issued, & length: #35, October 21, 1918, 3 pp. Title: Chicago’s Special Need for a Constitutional Convention Summary and recommendations: Continuing the highly specific argument in report #34 for a constitutional convention, this report laid out the CBPE’s general goals for a new state constitution: (1) consolidation of local governments; (2) a short ballot (i.e. elimination of many minor elected offices); (3) court reorganization; and (4) local government revenue reform. Bulletin #, date issued, & length: #36, June 3, 1919, 17 pp. Title: Proposed Tax Increases for the City of Chicago, the Board of Education, and Cook County Summary and recommendations: Urged the legislature to defeat proposals for legislation approving tax increases/expansions for Chicago and Cook County. In part, the arguments used were a continuation of report #31 as well as the CBPE’s general platform in support of reorganization of city government.

Appendix A

239

Bulletin #, date issued, & length: #37, September 5, 1919, 12 pp. Title: Shall the City of Chicago Employ Permanently 1,000 Additional Policemen? A Proposition to be Voted Upon at the Primary Election September 10, 1919 – Vote No Summary and recommendations: Based on statistics it developed, the CBPE argued that Chicago was not “underpoliced” as claimed and had more per capita officers than New York. Furthermore, the tax increase needed to fund this increase would cause a major financial burden and probably another bailout by the state legislature. Bulletin #, date issued, & length: #38, January 1920, 23 pp. Title: Consolidation of Local Governments in Chicago: Draft of a Proposed Article of the Constitution of the State of Illinois Providing for the Consolidation of Local Governments Having Jurisdiction Wholly or Partly Within the City of Chicago Summary and recommendations: This report was intended to influence the constitutional convention then underway to include in the new constitution an article that would implement the CBPE’s stated goals of consolidating the (by that time) 24 units of government within the City of Chicago. A detailed draft of the article was included (pp. 15-20) to implement the recommendations repeated in reports #15, 16, 23, 26, 27, and 35. Bulletin #, date issued, & length: #39, April 6, 1920, 19 pp. Title: The City Bond Issues to be Voted Upon April 13, 1920 – Vote No Summary and recommendations: Opposition to all four city bonding proposals on the ballot. Bulletin #, date issued, & length: #40, January 1921, 23 pp. Title: The High Cost of Elections in Chicago and Cook County Summary and recommendations: Continuation of positions taken in reports #20 and 30, with the specific goal of influencing decisions of the constitutional convention then underway. Bulletin #, date issued, & length: #41, February 15, 1921, 15 pp. Title: The City Bond Issue to be Voted Upon February 22, 1921 – Vote No Summary and recommendations: Opposition to bailing out deficit spending by the city through a bond issue.

240

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Bulletin #, date issued, & length: #42, May 31, 1921, 6 pp. Title: The Jail Bond Issue to be Voted Upon Monday, June 6, 1921 – Vote No Summary and recommendations: Opposition to approving funding for a county jail before a specific construction plan has been recommended and approved by county government. Bulletin #, date issued, & length: #43, June 6, 1921, 16 pp. Title: Proposed Increases in Revenue for the Chicago Schools (and insert of 11x17 table: Effect of Proposed Tax Rates on Amounts of Taxes Levied in Chicago and Cook County) Summary and recommendations: Intended to influence the legislature’s response to a request from the Chicago school board for approval of tax increases. The CBPE supported an increase, but less than requested by the schools. Bulletin #, date issued, & length: #44, April 1, 1922, 8 pp. Title: A Protest Against the Proposed New County Road Tax Summary and recommendations: Opposed creating a new tax for county road expenses, especially because the county had not yet exhausted road construction money approved in a bond issue. Bulletin #, date issued, & length: #45, April 4, 1922, 6 pp. Title: Suggestions for Avoiding an Unnecessary Increase in School Taxes Summary and recommendations: Continuation of position taken in report #43, this time oriented to the school board itself. Bulletin #, date issued, & length: #46, April 22, 1922, 4 pp. Title: A Second Protest Against the Proposed New County Road Tax Summary and recommendations: Continuation of position taken in report #44, but addressed to the public-at-large. Bulletin #, date issued, & length: #47, June 1, 1922, 11 pp. Title: The City Bond Issues to be Voted Upon June 5, 1922 – Vote No on Both Propositions Summary and recommendations: Opposition to both proposals for city bonds to finance bridge construction and extension of the street lighting system. Bulletin #, date issued, & length: #48, October 1922, 158 pp. Title: The Proposed New Constitution for Illinois to be Voted Upon December 12, 1922 Summary and recommendations: Purely factual summary of the contents of the proposed new constitution with comparisons to the contents of the current one.

Appendix A

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Bulletin #, date issued, & length: #49, November 1922, 31 pp. Title: Shall the Proposed New Constitution Be Adopted? Proposition to be Voted Upon at a Special Election December 12, 1922 – Vote Yes Summary and recommendations: This was an advocacy report, released as a companion to report #48. The CBPE had been actively involved in the constitutional convention.4 Now it was urging voters to ratify the proposed new constitution because it contained some elements of the Bureau’s ongoing reform agenda, including consolidation of the Cook County courts, reform of county government, home rule for the City of Chicago, a modest shortening of the ballot, and charter power to the city to consolidate local governments. Bulletin #, date issued, & length: #50, March 1923, 40 pp. Title: A Proposed System of Registering Voters and of Canvassing the Registration Lists in Chicago5 Summary and recommendations: Continuation of reports #20, 30 and 40; focusing on ways to reduce the costs of the registration process. Bulletin #, date issued, & length: #51, November 1, 1923, 11 pp. Title: Tax and Bond Propositions to be Voted Upon November 6, 1923 Summary and recommendations: Urged approval of one of four tax and bond propositions. Bulletin #, date issued, & length: #52, February 18, 1924, 8 pp. Title: Excessive Tax Levies for Cook County Bond Payments Summary and recommendations: Exposed practice of imposing unnecessarily high tax levies to pay off bonds and then diverting excess revenue to the general fund. Bulletin #, date issued, & length: #53, October 29, 1924, 15 pp. Title: The City Bond Issues to be Voted Upon November 4, 1924 Summary and recommendations: Of three bond proposals, the Bureau supported one and opposed two. Bulletin #, date issued, & length: #54, February 19, 1925, 16 pp. Title: The Bond Issues to be Voted Upon February 24, 1925 Summary and recommendations: Supported all seven bonding questions. Bulletin #, date issued, & length: #55, April 14, 1925, 8 pp. Title: A Protest Against the Chicago Sanitary District’s Bonding Bill Summary and recommendations: Effort to convince the state legislature to increase debt limit for Sanitary District to 3.5 percent of assessed valuation of property instead of to five percent, as District had requested.

242

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Bulletin #, date issued, & length: #56, May 12, 1925, 6 pp. Title: Suggestions for Changes in the Chicago Sanitary District’s Bonding Bill Summary and recommendations: Continuation of report #55, urging the legislature to sustain the governor’s veto of the bonding bill it had passed. Urged passage of a new bill granting the Sanitary District the power to issue bonds up to four percent of the assessed valuation. Bulletin #, date issued, & length: #57, April 7, 1926, 22 pp. Title: Bond and Tax Propositions to be Voted Upon April 13, 1926 Summary and recommendations: Supported fifteen of seventeen bonding proposals. Bulletin #, date issued, & length: #58, October 27, 1926, 21 pp. Title: County and Park Bond Issues to be Voted Upon November 2, 1926 Summary and recommendations: Supported five of six bonding proposals. The one it opposed was to finance county road construction. Bulletin #, date issued, & length: #59, December 22, 1926, 8 pp. Title: The Condition of the Educational Fund of the Chicago Public Schools Summary and recommendations: As a result of its reports #43 and 45, the CBPE decided to conduct an in-depth review of the school district’s finances. This was a brief interim report. The eventual results were released in reports #62 and 63. Bulletin #, date issued, & length: #60, March 30, 1927, 12 pp. Title: The City Bond Issues to be Voted Upon April 5, 1927 Summary and recommendations: Supported six of eight bond issue propositions for city construction projects. Bulletin #, date issued, & length: #61, June 13, 1927, 12 pp. Title: A Protest Against the Bills Sponsored by Mayor Thompson and Other City Authorities for the Dual Purpose of Increasing the City’s Bonding Power and of Diverting the School Building Fund Tax to General City Uses and Other Purposes Summary and recommendations: Effort to persuade the state legislature to defeat bills that would increase the city’s bonding power and permit it to shift tax revenues intended to pay off school construction expenses to general city spending.

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243

Bulletin #, date issued, & length: [#62],6 December 1927, 264 pp. Title: Chicago School Finances, 1915-1925: Financial and Statistical Statements and Explanatory Text; with Addenda for 1926 Summary and recommendations: Detailed statistical compendium of the finances of the Chicago school district. This report had been promised in publication #59. It was intended to provide credible baseline data as the basis for developing solutions to the district’s financial crisis. This was the only report that the CBPE ever charged for ($1.00), although it was distributed free to key opinion leaders who would have a role in solving the problem. Bulletin #, date issued, & length: [#63], December 1927, 36 pp. Title: Chicago School Finances, 1915-1925: General Summary and Conclusions of a Report Summary and recommendations: An excerpt of the first chapter of report #62, intended for free distribution to a broader audience. It consisted of a slightly condensed version of pp. 13-30 of #62. While some conclusions about fiscal trends were stated, the CBPE made no specific recommendations for solutions. Bulletin #, date issued, & length: [#64], April 5, 1928, 14 pp. Title: The Bond Issues to be Voted Upon April 10, 1928 Summary and recommendations: Of thirty-three bonding questions, the CBPE recommended opposing all thirty-one from the city and supporting two from the Lincoln Park District. Bulletin #, date issued, & length: [#65], May 31, 1928, 12 pp. Title: Tax and Bond Propositions to be Voted Upon June 4, 1928 Summary and recommendations: Of five bonding and tax levy questions, the Bureau recommended supporting two and opposing three. Bulletin #, date issued, & length: [#66], November 1, 1928, 12 pp. Title: The Bond Issues to be Voted Upon November 6, 1928 Summary and recommendations: Of five bonding issues, the CBPE recommended supporting three and opposing two. Bulletin #, date issued, & length: [#--],7 June 3, 1929, 8 pp. Title: House Bill 633 and Proposed Amendments Summary and recommendations: Addressed to the state legislature while it was dealing with a bill relating to the finances of the Chicago Board of Education. Sought to persuade the legislature to adopt three amendments sponsored by the CBPE. The issues related to reports #62 and 63.

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Bulletin #, date issued, & length: [#67], October 22, 1929, 18 pp. Title: Tax and Bond Propositions to be Voted Upon November 5, 1929 Summary and recommendations: Of six bonding and tax referenda, the Bureau recommended supporting five and opposing one. Bulletin #, date issued, & length: [#68,] October 27, 1930, 24 pp. Title: The Bond Issues to be Voted Upon November 4, 1930 Summary and recommendations: Of twelve bonding issues, the CBPE recommended supporting eleven and opposed only the state’s conservation and recreation bonding proposition. Bulletin #, date issued, & length: [#69], February 19, 1931, 23 pp. Title: The Bond Issues to be Voted Upon February 24, 1931 Summary and recommendations: Of ten bonding issues, the Bureau supported six and opposed four. 1. The plea for publicity relates to a lesser used meaning of the word, that of either giving something a more public quality and condition or being open to public observation and knowledge. 2. One of the three authors of the Civil Service Commission report was Robert Catherwood, a local attorney active in the Civil Service Reform League. Separately, he pushed for the creation of the city CSC’s Efficiency Division (see Chapter 3) and later was appointed president of the county’s CSC. Catherwood, “Widening of the Area of the Functions of Civil Service Commissions.” 3. Letter from CBPE Chairman Julius Rosenwald to all members of the state legislature, February 26, 1917. CBPE 1910-1919 Folder, Box 134, Anita McCormick Blaine Papers, McCormick Collection, WHS. 4. Pegram, 207-08. 5. According to political scientist Joseph Harris, this report was authored by CBPE staffer George Sikes after he had “traveled widely, making a study of different systems in operation” during 1922. Harris, “Permanent Registration of Voters,” American Political Science Review 22:2 (May 1928), 351. 6. Up to this report, the numbering system is based on formal designations by the CBPE, reflected in the numbered and chronological list of “Prior Publications,” often printed on the inside covers of its reports. However, such lists were not presented in the remainder of the Bureau’s publications. Therefore, from this report forward, the numbering is informal and, to reflect this, is presented in brackets. The numeric designations are

Appendix A

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based on penciled notations by the librarians of the University of Chicago library on each subsequent report. Email from Sandra Roscoe, Reference and Business Information Center, Regenstein Library, University of Chicago, July 1, 2004, author’s files. 7. This publication is not included in the final compilation of all numbered CBPE reports at the University of Chicago Regenstein Library.

Appendix B Comparison of Advantages and Disadvantages of Sectoral Affiliation

APPENDIX B COMPARISON OF ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF SECTORAL AFFILIATION Summary of Cell #1 (from Table 6-1) Key Factor In-House versus Outof-House

Governmental BOE Advantage = Nonprofit BOE Disadvantage A government agency is more likely to cooperate with an in-house BOE than a nonprofit one, such as providing full access to documents. The recommendations of a public BOE are given greater consideration regarding implementation because it is less likely to have a hidden agenda than a nonprofit BOE.

From comments contained in some reports of the Milwaukee Bureau of Economy and Efficiency (MBEE) and the Chicago CSC’s Efficiency Division, public bureaus of efficiency generally received cooperation from the agencies they were investigating. However, similar cooperation was also usually the case when nonprofit efficiency bureaus sought to send staffers to review a public agency’s documents, interview employees, etc. Naturally, there were some exceptions, but when they occurred with nonprofit bureaus, they generally led to major public controversies. It is difficult to discern if the degree of implementation of recommendations was directly connected to the perception that public efficiency bureaus lacked a hidden agenda while nonprofit bureaus of efficiency supposedly had them. Regarding governmental efficiency bureaus, the MBEE certainly had an agenda, driven by the orientation of the Socialist Party and John Commons’s commitment to reorienting government away from its traditional hand-in-glove relationship with business. However, that agenda was not hidden. Similarly, Chicago’s Efficiency Division was created to help implement the agenda of the reformers on the Board of Alderman and, sometimes, the mayor. So, again, there was an agenda, but it was not hidden. Regarding nonprofit efficiency bureaus, both the Milwaukee Citizens’ Bureau of Municipal Efficiency (CBME) and the Chicago Bureau of Public Efficiency (CBPE) had an overall agenda of honest, efficient government that was also somewhat tilted towards the general interests of the business

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and wealthy class for small, less expensive, and less intrusive government. While this special interest agenda was often wrapped in the rhetoric of reform, it, too, was relatively explicit. It appears that the degree of consideration given to recommendations was more directly related to the relative friendliness or unfriendliness of the mayor towards the source of recommendations. Reform oriented mayors generally sought to have the agencies in their administrations implement recommendations from bureaus of efficiency, whether public or nonprofit. Conversely, anti-reform mayors were more resistant to such recommendations. Therefore, a rough qualitative summary of the results of the comparison would be: • The literature was partly correct and partly incorrect about the advantage of governmental efficiency bureaus = medium • The literature was partly correct and partly incorrect about the disadvantage of nonprofit efficiency bureaus = medium

Summary of Cell #2 Key Factor In-House versus Outof-House

Nonprofit BOE Advantage = Governmental BOE Disadvantage The nonprofit BOE is independent and nonpartisan. It does not have to worry about the political repercussions of its actions, while the governmental BOE is accountable to elected officials who may wish to prevent embarrassment or promote pet projects. For example, a nonprofit BOE can use publicity to mobilize the support of public opinion, while a governmental BOE is constrained from being publicly hostile to another government agency. Similarly, due to its independence, a report from a nonprofit BOE would be more credible than that of a public BOE.

Chicago’s nonprofit CBPE was quite independent and was willing to criticize publicly public officials whenever necessary and appropriate. For example, reports #2, 6, 14 and 61 (see Appendix A, Table 6) sharply criticized, respectively, the members of the Elections Board, county treasurer, county judges overseeing county fee offices, and the mayor. However, Milwaukee’s CBME bent over backwards to avoid public squabbles with elected officials and strongly preferred engaging in behind-the-scenes efforts to promote change and efficiency. In general, the CBPE was much more oriented to publicity, not just by

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the number of reports it issued (seventy in twenty-two years), but by the number of those reports that were deliberately aimed at a broad civic audience such as its recommendations to the voters on bonding and tax referenda. While the CBME may have issued reports at approximately the same annual rate as its counterpart in Chicago, the audience for these reports was largely geared to policymakers and bureaucrats. They were not written in a language that would engage the interest of the public-atlarge, even those who were active in civic affairs. The MBEE, as a public BOE, reflected the implications of the Socialist takeover of city government. Therefore, its reports called for changes in municipal operations and policies. However, while these reports were implicitly or explicitly critical of the status quo, they did not have a tone of hostility and confrontation. In Chicago, the Efficiency Division’s public reports were sometimes extremely critical, specifically identifying instances of graft or corruption. Other reports bore a more neutral tone of proposing changes for improvement of internal operations. In general, the Division’s reports were written in a technocratic language, quite different from the inflammatory tone and hyperbole that a nonprofit BOE would have the option of engaging in. The overall issue of the credibility of nonprofit BOE reports versus those from governmental bureaus of efficiency is more difficult to judge. In general, credibility is in the eye of the beholder. The key constituencies for BOE reports were newspapers, elected officials (and their party associates), and bureaucrats. It appears that the sectoral affiliation of a BOE was a basic determinant of its credibility with these three attentive publics. Newspapers were often active partners in the reform coalition of a metropolitan area. Therefore, dailies often functioned as the “house organ” for nonprofit efficiency bureaus, whether on their editorial pages or in their news coverage. The journalistic premise was that nonprofit BOE conclusions and recommendations were credible. (Naturally, with the partisan press, the slant was based on whether its party was in power or not.) As a broad generalization, elected officials and bureaucrats sought to avoid major public fights with nonprofit bureaus of efficiency, but that was often a reflection of the implications for news coverage. As would be expected, politicians and public administrators pursued their self-interest. That orientation led to ad hoc responses. Sometimes a conciliatory public attitude towards critical nonprofit BOE

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reports was appropriate and at other times circumstances dictated major public donnybrooks. Similarly, for governmental efficiency bureaus, sectoral affiliation was a major determining factor regarding their credibility with newspapers, elected officials, and senior government managers. Generally, the publications that were reform-oriented, i.e. on the same side as the public sector BOE, treated BOE reports as credible. For example, the Socialist newspaper and Socialist politicians were supportive of “their” MBEE and naturally viewed its reports and recommendations as credible. Conversely, other political parties and their papers questioned the credibility of the MBEE reports. Bureaucrats simply sought to survive. The same pattern can be seen with the Efficiency Division. When reform oriented politicians were in positions of influence (such as Alderman Charles Merriam), its reports were considered credible. When Mayor William Hale Thompson won election, he sought to undermine the Division and shut it down. The reform and partisan orientations of Chicago area newspapers similarly dictated their view of the credibility of Divisional reports and recommendations. The existence of an elaborate political machine in Chicago had an effect on public administrators, who were more likely to have political rather than civil service affiliations. That, again, was a key factor in how they treated critical reports. In summary, an approximate qualitative conclusion of the results of this comparison shows: • The literature was partly correct and partly incorrect about the advantage of nonprofit bureaus of efficiency = medium • The literature was partly correct and partly incorrect about the disadvantage of governmental bureaus of efficiency = medium

Summary of Cell #3 Key Factor Funding & Permanence

Governmental BOE Advantage = Nonprofit BOE Disadvantage Few government agencies are ever terminated. Therefore, a governmental BOE is assumed to be permanent, while a nonprofit BOE can face dissolution if its fund-raising is unsuccessful. A public BOE does not have to spend time on fund-raising; it gets tax dollars. The dependence on fundraising can distort the agenda of a nonprofit BOE. For example, since contributions come from the well-to-do, that could influence a nonprofit BOE to emphasize reducing government spending and taxes.

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Political decision makers terminated both public sector efficiency bureaus after only a few years. Neither achieved institutionalization and permanence. They did not last for longer than half a decade. Their track record is the opposite from the “normal” dynamic of government agencies that never die. This anomaly suggests that governmental bureaus of efficiency did not benefit from the usual conditions that contributed to public sector permanence. They did not have any powerful external constituencies or special interest groups protecting them through lobbying. Their modest civic support was not motivated by pecuniary gain and was, therefore, lacking in salience compared to other economically driven special interest groups. Also, the work products of public sector efficiency bureaus, by definition, consistently challenged the status quo of government, provoking hostility, bureaucratic enmity, and all-around disfavor from inside players with sophisticated tactics for behind-the-scenes organizational combat. Governmental bureaus of efficiency created political and bureaucratic migraine headaches. The solution was to eliminate the overt cause of the headache, instead of solving the underlying problem. However, while in existence, senior managers of governmental efficiency bureaus did not have to spend much of their time on funding issues, since appropriations from the city councils were relatively stable and smooth during those few years. On the other hand, nonprofit bureaus of efficiency were highly dependent on fund-raising for continued existence. Board members and even top staffers had to commit discernible amounts of time to the care and feeding of past and potential contributors. Still, no documentation was found to confirm that a nonprofit BOE adjusted its philosophy for fund-raising purposes. The doctrine of efficient and businesslike government was incorporated into the culture of both nonprofit efficiency bureaus at conception. Fund-raising efforts were geared to wealthy individuals who already had commercial or ideological interests that were in harmony with that orientation. Therefore, a rough qualitative summary of the results of the comparison therefore would be: • The literature was mostly incorrect about the advantage of public efficiency bureaus and correct in a small part = low • The literature was partly correct and partly incorrect about the disadvantage of nonprofit efficiency bureaus = medium

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Summary of Cell #4 Key actor Funding & Permanence

Nonprofit BOE Advantage = Governmental BOE Disadvantage A governmental BOE is dependent on funding decisions of other political bodies. Changes in political circumstances can change its funding level, even its existence. On the other hand, the independence of a nonprofit BOE makes it permanent, assuming it can indefinitely raise adequate funding.

The putative advantage nonprofit bureaus of efficiency having a better chance at organizational survival was roughly confirmed by the case study of the CBME. While the agency faced some rocky financial times, it gradually expanded its funding base and achieved organizational stability. Even though it changed its name in 1921, the same organization continues to exist today (since the several subsequent name changes were not prompted by mergers with other organizations). Chicago’s CBPE was an opposite case study. This bureau faced such major fund-raising problems that when it merged with the Civic Federation in 1932, it was near its demise. The merger was not of equals. In 1941, less than a decade after the so-called merger, the joint organization’s formal name reverted to the pre-merger name of the Civic Federation. As for public sector efficiency bureaus, their shaky status was borne out by the two parallel historical case studies. In both cases, changes in the political winds affected the funding of the organizations—down to zero. The short durations of the MBEE and the Efficiency Division confirm the instability of funding provided for governmental bureaus of efficiency. Therefore, an approximate qualitative conclusion of the results of this comparison shows: • The literature was partly correct and partly incorrect about the advantage of nonprofit bureaus of efficiency = medium • The literature was correct about the disadvantage of governmental bureaus of efficiency = high

Summary of Cell #5 Key Factor

Governmental BOE Advantage = Nonprofit BOE Disadvantage

Big Picture vs. “CheeseParing”

The presumed permanence of a government agency means it is able to “undertake the long-run types of study” while such long-term studies would hold less appeal for a nonprofit BOE.

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Neither public BOE was long-lived. Milwaukee’s public sector BOE lasted for two years and then was abolished with an elective change in administrations. Similarly, Chicago’s Efficiency Division lasted five years and then was abolished with the election of a new mayor. So, neither governmental BOE was ever in a situation to engage in long-range studies whereas both nonprofit efficiency bureaus existed for nine years or more. Their reports often reflected general topics of long run interest to the agency. For example, the CBME was interested in installing uniform accounting systems in all municipal departments and agencies. It released several reports exclusively on this topic and others that included discussion of it. Similarly, the CBPE had an ongoing commitment to promote consolidation of the number of local units of government in the metropolitan area. It released many reports on this topic, including #15, 16, 23, 26, 27, 35, and 38 (see Appendix A, Table 6). However, these types of broad themes would not be categorized as individual studies that were conducted over a long period of time. Therefore, a rough qualitative summary of the results of the comparison shows: • The literature was incorrect about the advantage of public efficiency bureaus = low • The literature was correct about the disadvantage of nonprofit efficiency bureaus = high

Summary of Cell #6 Key Factor Big Picture vs. “CheeseParing”

Nonprofit BOE Advantage = Governmental BOE Disadvantage A nonprofit BOE is more able to study broader subjects (like social surveys or policy reviews) while a public BOE is usually limited to a more narrow focus on the internal operations government agencies.

None of the reports issued by the CBME and the CBPE could be categorized as social surveys, in the sense of examining social problems that required new governmental programs to alleviate the suffering of everyday citizens. Some of them are about relatively large-scale change, such as the CBME’s report on a total reform and reorganization of municipal government or the CBPE’s support for a constitutional convention to revise the entire structure of local gov-

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ernment (#35, 38 and 49, see Appendix A, Table 6). However, even these reports are not broad issues of the times. The preponderance of reports issued by these two nonprofit bureaus of efficiency represented what indeed was dubbed a “cheese paring” approach. Most reports were quite narrow and focused on relatively small ways to increase the efficiency of the operations of a government agency or a category of activity. Many publications focused on staffing, civil service protections, accounting, financial controls, and contracting. Conversely, the MBEE conducted several major social surveys about broad societal conditions (see Appendix A, Table 1) such as on free legal aid, living conditions, and employment bureaus. However, it also issued reports on narrower, more technical subjects as well. None of the reports of the Efficiency Division could be considered about extensive social conditions. So, like the nonprofit efficiency bureaus, many of the studies issued by the two public sector bureaus of efficiency would be in the “cheese paring” category, by focusing on small-bore internal and technical matters relating to the management of municipal agencies. An approximate qualitative conclusion of the results of this comparison shows: • The literature was incorrect about the advantage of nonprofit bureaus of efficiency = low • The literature was partly correct and partly incorrect about the disadvantage of governmental bureaus of efficiency = medium

Summary of Cell #7 Key Factor

Governmental BOE Advantage = Nonprofit BOE Disadvantage

Staffing

A government BOE can attract employees due to job security and other benefits of the civil service.

Based on the information collected, there was no mention of a hiring advantage that the MBEE and the Efficiency Division had over the CBME and the CBPE regarding attractiveness to employees due to job security and other benefits of government employment. The staff of Milwaukee’s municipal BOE were technically not employees of the city, but more like contract staff, funded from an appropriation that had hired Professor Commons to conduct efficiency studies. Efficiency Division employees were hired through a

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civil service process and had civil service protections. However, those protections were not strong enough to prevent newly elected Mayor Thompson’s appointees to the Civil Service Commission from firing the Division’s staff, claiming an inadequate volume of work. Those released employees were replaced by temporary hires who were not under the civil service. Conversely, for the two nonprofit efficiency bureaus, there was ongoing turnover of staff, although a few worked there for long periods. Based on the information obtained, it was not possible to make conclusions whether staff turnover at nonprofit bureaus of efficiency was more, less, or similar to governmental efficiency bureaus. Hence, a rough qualitative summary of the results of the comparison would be reflected as such: • The literature was incorrect for the advantage of public efficiency bureaus = low • The literature was indeterminate for the disadvantage of nonprofit efficiency bureaus = (no assessment possible)

Summary of Cell #8 Key Factor

Nonprofit BOE Advantage = Governmental BOE Disadvantage

Staffing

A nonprofit BOE can attract employees with higher salaries than those usually offered civil servants.

While it is difficult to compare salaries (due to varying levels of expertise, experience, longevity, and responsibilities), the minutes of the CBME and the CBPE board and executive committee meetings are replete with decisions to raise staff salaries to reflect good service, changing circumstances, and attractiveness of continued employment with the organization. Naturally, there are also discussions of releasing employees due to poor performance, lack of funding, or changes in organizational agenda. An approximate qualitative conclusion of the results of this comparison shows: • The literature was probably correct for the advantage of nonprofit bureaus of efficiency (but this was not definitively demonstrated) = high (probably) • The literature was probably correct for the disadvantage of governmental bureaus of efficiency (but this was not definitely demonstrated) = high (probably)

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Summary of Cell #9 Key Factor

Governmental BOE Advantage = Nonprofit BOE Disadvantage

Democracy

A public BOE strengthens democracy because it works in the public interest, not special interest groups; and helps make government work, thus improving citizen confidence in government.

The general claim of increased public trust in government by public efficiency bureaus is virtually impossible to document. Therefore, the ultimate claimed benefit is unknowable. However, the more specific claim that governmental bureaus of efficiency pursued the public interest is, generally, affirmed by the experiences of the MBEE and the Efficiency Division. A review of the topics of the studies they conducted, the conclusions summing up each report, and the recommendations made for corrections and improvements generally substantiate the claim of working in the public interest (see Appendix A, Tables 1-3 and 5). In particular, the social surveys of the MBEE (see Appendix A, Table 1) often called for greater governmental intervention in social problems to promote fairness and equal opportunity and to reduce suffering in American society. Given the general inclination of the Progressive movement for social reform and social justice, the promotion of such reforms by the MBEE would be viewed, from the perspective of the times, as an elite-driven, activist orientation that happened to correspond with the political ideology of the Socialist party. Yet, a review of the implied converse assertion, that nonprofit efficiency bureaus were subject to capture by special interest groups is only lightly borne out by the work of the CBME and the CBPE. It is correct that nonprofit bureaus of efficiency, generally, reflected the worldview of the business upper class of society. They strongly preferred low taxes to high taxes, small government over big government, and decreased government spending to increased spending. However, the records of these two nonprofit efficiency bureaus do not demonstrate a rigid, dogmatic anti-government philosophy. Rather, they promoted standards of financial prudence, balanced budgets, and vigorous review of capital projects proposed for bonding. This could be considered a centrist and moderate approach.

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For Milwaukee, when the CBME’s approach is compared to that of Milwaukee’s “sewer socialists,” there is little difference. The platform of the Socialist mayors and aldermen was clean and efficient government. More often than not, the CBME’s positions were in general harmony with the governing philosophy of the Milwaukee Socialists. In Chicago, the CBPE (as well as the Efficiency Division) was frequently at odds with the many governmental units in the metropolitan area that were dominated by machine politics, graft, and corruption. In that respect, the Chicago nonprofit BOE was more the voice of the public interest than that expressed by elected and public officials. Therefore, a rough qualitative summary of the results of the comparison is: • The literature was correct about the advantage of public efficiency bureaus = high • The literature was incorrect about the disadvantage of nonprofit efficiency bureaus = low

Summary of Cell #10 Key Factor

Nonprofit BOE Advantage = Governmental BOE Disadvantage

Democracy

Because of its educational and publicity orientation, a nonprofit BOE contributes more to the democratic goal of promoting an informed and active citizenry, thus strengthening civil society.

As with Cell #9, the ultimate claims about strengthening civil society are so broad as to be immeasurable. Still, by the very nature of being viable, active, and long-lived nonprofit organizations, both the CBME and the CBPE inherently contributed to civil society. However, neither agency was based on mass membership. Rather, each was funded by a very small cadre of the business and wealthy elites who shunned any interest in involving large numbers of citizens. For example, the CBPE did not regularly publish annual reports since its base was small enough for personal contacts. Regarding publicity, both organizations began with the same aversion to using publicity to influence public opinion and pressure government officials. Similarly, both boards retained tight control over all public statements made in the name of the agency. However, while the CBME general-

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ly avoided public criticism of government leaders, the CBPE gradually evolved to use publicity in two circumstances. First, it promoted maximum publicity when a government official refused to cooperate with its research and seemed to be protecting corrupt practices (see, for example, reports #6 and #25 in Appendix A, Table 6). Second, it issued recommendations to the voters regarding upcoming bond and tax referenda (see, for example, reports #64 to #69 in Appendix A, Table 6). These latter publications, by their nature, sought to maximize publicity and outreach to the electorate. The results of these recommendations indicate a substantial harmony between the CBPE’s view and the voters’ decisions (Table 4-4), implicitly confirming the positive contribution by the CBPE to democracy. Yet, regarding public efficiency bureaus, it could be argued that they, too, strengthened democracy in ways somewhat similar to their nonprofit counterparts. Certainly, they could not directly contribute to a stronger civil society since, by sectoral affiliation, they were part of the public sector. However, they too issued reports that often were aimed at the citizenry-at-large, not just to a small readership of relevant public officials. The MBEE published some reports on shocking living conditions of the poor and the Efficiency Division released publicly exposés of graft and corruption in municipal departments. The secondary (but explicit) purpose of these kinds of reports was to educate the citizenry-at-large and promote pressure from public opinion to right the wrongs that had been exposed. An approximate qualitative conclusion of the results of this comparison shows: • The literature was correct about the advantage of nonprofit bureaus of efficiency = high • The literature was incorrect about the disadvantage of public bureaus of efficiency = low

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Index bi-sectoral identity of efficiency bureaus, 25–26, 50, 80, 126, 146 accountability for nonprofits vs. board of directors/board of trustees, government entities, 206 historical terminology changes, accounting system, efficiency of, 87n19 46–47, 55, 119, 121–23, 164– Board of Education (NYC), Bureau 65. See also cost control of Reference, Research and advocacy. See politics Statistics, 171 Allen, William H., 52, 68, 74, Board of Public Affairs, Wisconsin, 88n27, 174 54, 174 Allis, Charles, 71 BOE (bureau of efficiency). See American Efficiency Bureau, 179 efficiency bureaus American exceptionalism, 15 Borden Milk Company, 176 American Railway Association, 177 Boston (Massachusetts) Municipal anti-democratic strain in Progressive Research Bureau, 212 movement, 73–74 Boston School Committee’s bureau Atlanta (Georgia) Business of efficiency, 171 Efficiency Bureau, 177 Bristol (Connecticut) Bureau of audits by efficiency bureaus. See Efficiency, 176 surveys by efficiency bureaus Brownlow Committee, 110n6 Automobile Club of America, 178 Brown Office Efficiency Bureau, “The Avengers” (TV series), 179 Indianapolis, 178 Bruère, Henry, 69 budgeting and accounting system, B efficiency of, 46–47, 55, 119, 121–23, 164–65. See also cost B. & T. Efficiency Bureau, 178 control Bading, Gerhard A., 50, 67 Buffalo (New York) Bureau of Bakers’ Efficiency Bureau, 176 Efficiency and Research, 171 Beard, Charles A., 52 Bureau of Budget and Efficiency, Beck, Elmer, 53 City of Los Angeles, 162–63 Becker, Sherburn M., 41 Bureau of Budget and Efficiency, Bell, Joseph, 52 Rochester, 164 Berger, Victor, 43, 44, 59n10, 68 Bureau of Civic Efficiency, Chicago, Bertelli, Anthony, 18 173–74 big picture vs. detailed (“cheeseBureau of Economics and Public paring”) focus, 204, 208, 209, Efficiency, Southern Commercial 252–53 Congress, 175–76 A

278 Bureau of Economy and Efficiency, New York, 164–65, 186n65 Bureau of Efficiency, Bristol, Connecticut, 176 Bureau of Efficiency, CSC of City of Los Angeles, 160–61 Bureau of Efficiency, CSC of Los Angeles County, 166–68, 188n86 Bureau of Efficiency, NYC Commissioner of Accounts, 161–62, 181n23 Bureau of Efficiency, U.S., 25–26, 63n53, 110n11, 172 Bureau of Efficiency, Wayne County, 188n86 Bureau of Efficiency and Research, Buffalo, 171 bureau of efficiency (BOE). See efficiency bureaus Bureau of Governmental Research, New Orleans, 212 Bureau of Municipal Efficiency, Milwaukee, 106 Bureau of Municipal Efficiency and Economy, Sacramento, 163 Bureau of Municipal Research, Milwaukee, 51, 62n39, 68 Bureau of Public Efficiency and Economy, Des Moines, 173 bureau of public efficiency vs. municipal research designation, 118 Bureau of Reference, Research and Statistics, NYC Board of Education, 171 Bureau of Research and Efficiency, Kansas City Public School District, 170–71 Bureau of Research & Efficiency, Los Angeles Public School District, 171

Bureaus of Efficiency business efficiency, bureaus promoting, 158, 176–78, 179 Business Efficiency Bureau, Atlanta, 177 business elites and CBME, 72, 73–75, 77, 86 and CBPE, 120 ideology of efficiency for, 68–69, 85 opposition to social efficiency approach, 46 as reformers in Chicago, 117 C California, efficiency bureaus in Los Angeles, City of, 160–63 Los Angeles County, 166–68, 188n86 Los Angeles Public School District, 171 Sacramento, 163 San Francisco, 63n49, 159–65 Callahan, Raymond, 169 Calumet & Hecla, 176 Canadian civil service system, 106 Car Efficiency Bureau for railroad industry, 177 Catherwood, Robert, 166 CBME (Citizens’ Bureau of Municipal Efficiency), Milwaukee. See Citizens’ Bureau of Municipal Efficiency (CBME) CBPE (Chicago Bureau of Public Efficiency). See Chicago Bureau of Public Efficiency (CBPE) Cerf, Myrtile, 204 CFL (Chicago Federation of Labor), 101, 105 Chernow, Ron, 17 Chicago, Illinois

Index Citizens’ Committee on Public Expenditures, 133 City Club, 95–96, 117, 118– 19, 124, 125 Civic Federation, 20, 103, 132–35, 211 Civil Service Commission’s establishment, 97 Civil Service Reform League, 97 efficiency bureau overview, 20 good government movement in, 95–96, 103, 117 Public Efficiency Bureau, 173 United Charities, 126 women as reformers in, 117 See also Chicago Bureau of Public Efficiency (CBPE); Efficiency Division of CSC, Chicago Chicago Bureau of Civic Efficiency, 173–74 Chicago Bureau of Public Efficiency (CBPE) big picture vs. detailed focus, 253–54 vs. CBME, 121 creation of, 118–22 criticism of, 28 democracy strengthening role, 256, 257–58 and efficiency definition, 144–45 funding, 119, 121, 123, 125, 126, 129–30, 131–33, 252 and government operations, 247–48 historical context, 117–18 impact of, 136–44 independence of, 248–49 introduction, 20, 117

279 and MBEE, 51, 203 merger and demise of, 132–35 as nonprofit bureau, 108, 145–46 organization and operations, 122–26 permanence, 252 publicity as vehicle for reform, 120–21, 148–49n24 reports, 62n40, 121, 125–26, 127–30, 135, 149n32, 153n78, 232–45 staffing, 123–24, 129, 133–34, 254–55 Chicago Charter Convention, 96 Chicago Citizens’ Committee on Public Expenditures, 152n63 Chicago Federation of Labor (CFL), 101, 105 Chicago Mental Efficiency League, 173 Chicago Municipal Efficiency Commission (MEC), 96–97, 104 Chicago Women’s League, 173–74 Citizens’ Bureau, Milwaukee, 79, 82. See also Citizens’ Bureau of Municipal Efficiency (CBME) Citizens’ Bureau of Municipal Efficiency (CBME), Milwaukee big picture vs. detailed focus, 253 vs. CBPE, 121 creation of, 69–71 democracy strengthening role, 256, 257–58 and efficiency definition, 85, 199 funding, 71, 77–78, 79, 90n54, 252 and government operations, 247–48 historical context, 67–69

280 impact of, 82–85 introduction, 20, 67 and Jacobs, 106 lack of independence, 248 and MBEE, 67, 203 naming issue, 70–71, 87n11, 87n16 nonprofit vs. governmental status of, 85–86 organization and operations, 72–80 permanence, 252 renaming and refocusing of, 81–82 reports, 73–74, 75–76, 78, 81, 91–92nn69–70, 225–28 staffing, 75, 79–80, 82, 254–55 Citizens’ Committee on Public Expenditures, Chicago, 133 Citizens’ Governmental Research Bureau, Milwaukee, 82. See also Citizens’ Bureau of Municipal Efficiency (CBME) City Club of Chicago, 95–96, 117, 118–19, 124, 125 City Club of Milwaukee, 41, 50, 56, 67, 68 city government efficiency bureaus efficiency as criterion of success, 20, 23–24 Los Angeles, 160–63 and nonprofit research bureaus, 18, 247–50 NYC Water Supply, Gas and Electricity department, 164–65, 186n65 overview, 20 San Francisco Bureau of Efficiency, 159–60 transformation into budget offices, 197

Bureaus of Efficiency See also Efficiency Division of CSC, Chicago; Milwaukee Bureau of Economy and Efficiency (MBEE) Civic Federation of Chicago, 20, 103, 132–35, 211. See also Chicago Bureau of Public Efficiency (CBPE) civil servants. See personal efficiency approach Civil Service Commission (CSC) Cook County, Illinois, 166 establishment of Chicago’s, 97 federal, 96, 172 Los Angeles, City of, 160–61 Los Angeles County, 166–68, 188n86 San Francisco, 159–60 See also Efficiency Division of CSC, Chicago Civil Service Reform League, Chicago, 97 Columbus Laboratories, 176 commercial efficiency approach, 24, 199. See also accounting system, efficiency of Commissioner of Accounts (NYC) Bureau of Efficiency, 161–62, 181n23 commission form of local government, 17 Common Council, Milwaukee, 41–42, 43, 47, 50, 84 Commons, John R., 43–47, 52, 54, 55–56, 60, 174 Connecticut, efficiency bureau in, 176 conservatives approach to efficiency, 42, 46, 49–51, 68–69, 85 fears of leftists, 72–73

Index

281

Cook County, Illinois, CSC Efficiency Division, 166 Cooper, John Milton, Jr., 15 Co-operative Citizenship, 75, 78 corporate interests. See business elites corruption in government, 41–42, 95, 102, 103, 104, 161 cost control CBME, 81, 85 CBPE/Civic Federation, 135, 136–37, 234, 235, 238– 39, 240, 243 and Chicago good government reform, 117 efficiency as, 44 and Efficiency Divisions in Chicago government, 97, 103 Kansas City’s Bureau of Research and Efficiency, 170 LA’s Bureau of Budget and Efficiency, 162–63 MBEE, 46–47, 53, 57, 224 county government efficiency bureaus, 81–82, 165–68, 188n86 Crane, Charles, 120 CSC (Civil Service Commission). See Civil Service Commission (CSC) Customs Service efficiency bureau, 172 Cutting, Fulton, 162 D Davis, John W., 25 democracy, contribution to nonprofits vs. governmental entities, 204, 208, 209

Progressive call for changes, 16–17 Deneen, Charles, 96 Des Moines (Iowa) Bureau of Public Efficiency and Economy, 173 detailed (“cheese-paring”) vs. big picture focus, 204, 208, 209, 252–53 District of Columbia and efficiency bureaus, 25, 172 division vs. bureau designation, 95, 109n2 Dutch Efficiency Bureau, 179 E economic theory and Milwaukee’s efficiency bureau, 43 educational efficiency bureaus, 168–71, 178, 188–89n90, 196 effectiveness of efficiency bureaus. See public policy role of efficiency bureaus; substantive effect of efficiency bureaus efficiency, definitional issues business perspective on, 85 CBME, 85, 199 CBPE, 144–45 continuation of focus on, 211 Efficiency Division of Chicago’s CSC, 106–7, 200 flexibility of term, 178–79, 179n1, 201 loss of substantive meaning, 201–2 MBEE, 44, 56–57, 199 and mechanical efficiency approach, 96 overview, 23–25

282 reformist vs. conservative views of, 45–46, 51, 68 summary of, 199–202 Efficiency Bureau, Muskegon, 163 Efficiency Bureau, Norfolk, 163–64 Efficiency Bureau, Rochester Board of Education, 169–70, 196 Efficiency Bureau, Wisconsin, 174 efficiency bureaus for business improvement, 158, 176–78, 179 impact assessment overview, 21–22, 198 introduction, 15–30 in Ireland, 172–73 vs. municipal research bureaus, 18–19, 24, 157–58, 196–98 name variations, 20 national context overview, 157–59 research considerations, 19–20 summary introduction, 195 transformation of, 210–13 See also nonprofit efficiency bureaus; public sector efficiency bureaus Efficiency Division of CSC, Chicago big picture vs. detailed focus, 253, 254 and county-level efficiency bureau, 166 creation of, 95–97 democracy strengthening role, 256, 257, 258 and efficiency definition, 106–7, 200 and efficiency entity levels and labels, 34n32 funding, 97, 99–100, 112n23, 252

Bureaus of Efficiency impact of, 104–6 introduction, 20, 95 nonprofit vs. governmental structures, 108 organization and operations, 98–100 permanence, 252 politics of, 101–3, 229 reports, 101, 102, 107, 228–31 staffing, 98, 99–100, 102, 254–55 efficiency ratings, 96 Eisnach, Eldon, 16 elections. See politics elitist ideas for Progressivism, 17, 256. See also business elites Elser, Albert, 71 Ely, Richard T., 43 employees, government. See personal efficiency approach employment agencies, 177–78 energy efficiency, 210 Everts, Leslie S., 45, 47 Executive Office of the President (EOP), 110n6 F federal government CSC, 96, 172 efficiency bureaus, 25–26, 63n53, 110n11, 171–73 Merriam’s reform influence in, 110n6 Progressive influence on structure of, 16 fictional bureaus of efficiency, 179 Finegold, Kenneth, 55, 134 Fisher, Walter L., 118, 146 for-profit business efficiency bureaus, 158, 176–78

Index

283

Fosdick, Raymond B., “Fearless,” 161, 162, 181n23, 182–83n35 funding CBME, 71, 77–78, 79, 90n54, 252 CBPE, 119, 121, 123, 125, 126, 129–30, 131–33, 252 Des Moines Bureau of Public Efficiency and Economy, 173 Efficiency Division of Chicago’s CSC, 97, 99– 100, 112n23, 252 Los Angeles, City of, CSC Bureau of Efficiency, 160 Los Angeles County Bureau of Efficiency, 167 MBEE, 46, 47, 58, 60n13, 252 nonprofit efficiency bureau challenges, 68 nonprofits vs. governmental entities, 204, 207, 209, 250–51 Wisconsin Efficiency Bureau, 174 G Gallun, Arthur, 71 GAO (Government Accountability Office), 107 Gaynor, William, 161, 186n66 Getting at the Facts, 70 Gill, Norman, 67 global reach of Progressive Era, 15, 23 good government movement in Chicago, 95–96, 103, 117 and efficiency organizations’ evolution, 197

in Milwaukee, 41–42 philosophy of, 174 See also Progressive Era Gould, Alan, 144 Gould, Lewis, 15 government nonprofits and oversight of, 206 as target of efficiency reforms, 16–18, 173–76 See also federal government; good government movement; public sector efficiency bureaus Government Accountability Office (GAO), 107 Governmental Research Association, 196, 212 Griffenhagen, Edwin, 99, 106 Gurda, John, 54 H Haber, Samuel, 24, 38n75, 199, 201 Hall, Peter Dobkin, 27 Hinckley, Thomas, 71, 72, 73, 75–76, 89n39 Hirshfield, David, 183–84nn39–40 Hoan, Daniel, 52, 62n42 Hodges, LeRoy, 175, 176 Hoffer, Peter Charles, 23–24 Hull House, 24, 106 I Illinois. See Chicago, Illinois immigration and Progressivism, 17 independent sector as nonprofit label, 206

284

Bureaus of Efficiency

Indianapolis (Indiana) Brown Office Efficiency Bureau, 178 industrialization, Progressivism as response to, 16 in-house vs. out-of-house bureaus, 204, 207, 209, 247–48 Institute for Public Service, NYC, 88 institutionalization of efficiency bureaus, 59, 79, 81 Insull, Samuel, 148n16 Interstate Commerce Commission, 177 Interstate Efficiency Bureau, Reno, 177–78 Ireland, government efficiency bureau in, 172–73 J Jacobs, J. Lewis, 99, 100, 102, 106, 111n18, 112n20, 203 journalism, 16, 31n7, 73. See also media justice approach to efficiency. See social efficiency approach K Kanigel, Robert, 23 Kansas City Public School District Bureau of Research and Efficiency, 170–71 Keeler, Harris, 124–25, 133–34, 136 Kellog, Paul U., 45–46 Kerstein, Edward, 52 Kingsbury, Joseph, 228

L labor movement, opposition to efficiency bureaus, 101–2, 103, 105 LaFollette, Robert M., Sr., 44 Lane, Robert Hill, 171 leftist politics, 41–42, 48–51, 57–58, 67, 72–73 legal vs. operational differences, nonprofit vs. governmental entities, 205–6 Legislative Reference Bureau, Wisconsin, 53 leisure time, growth of, 15–16 local governments. See city government efficiency bureaus Los Angeles, City of, 160–63 Los Angeles County, 166–68, 188n86 Los Angeles Public School District, 171 Louisiana, research bureau in, 212 Lynn, Laurence, Jr., 18 M management fad, efficiency as, 202 MBEE (Milwaukee Bureau of Economy and Efficiency). See Milwaukee Bureau of Economy and Efficiency (MBEE) McCarthy, Charles, 53–54 McGerr, Michael, 15 mechanical efficiency approach bureau comparison, 253–54 CBME, 69–70, 71, 81, 85, 199 CBPE, 119, 121, 122–23, 127–29, 144–45, 232–34, 235–37, 242 Chicago’s MEC, 96

Index definition, 24 Efficiency Division of Chicago’s CSC, 98–99, 106–7, 200, 229, 230–31 Irish efficiency bureau, 172–73 Los Angeles, City of, CSC Bureau of Efficiency, 160 Los Angeles County Bureau of Efficiency, 167 MBEE, 57, 64n67, 199, 221–24 New York Bureau of Economy and Efficiency, 164–65, 186n65 and nonprofit vs. governmental bureaus, 203 NYC Commissioner of Accounts Bureau of Efficiency, 161 as prevailing approach over time, 200–201 railroad industry, 177 San Francisco Bureau of Efficiency, 159 MEC (Municipal Efficiency Commission), Chicago, 96–97, 104 media on CBME, 84–85 on CBPE, 134, 144 and Efficiency Division of Chicago’s CSC, 97, 105 journalism’s influence on public opinion, 16, 73 and muckraking journalism, 16, 31n7 Melcher, George, 170–71 member vs. subscriber status for nonprofit organizations, 79 Mental Efficiency League, Chicago, 173

285 Merriam, Charles E., 95–96, 110– 11n14, 110n6, 119, 136, 204 Merriam Commission, 96, 107, 117, 147n11 Michigan, efficiency bureaus in, 163, 188n86 Miles, James, 99 Milwaukee, Wisconsin Bureau of Municipal Research, 51, 62n39, 68 Citizens’ Governmental Research Bureau, 82 City Club, 41, 50, 56, 67, 68 Common Council, 41–42, 43, 47, 50, 84 efficiency bureau overview, 20 good government movement in, 41–42 NYBMR’s survey of, 69–70 See also Citizens’ Bureau of Municipal Efficiency (CBME); Milwaukee Bureau of Economy and Efficiency (MBEE) Milwaukee Bureau of Economy and Efficiency (MBEE) big picture vs. detailed focus, 253, 254 and CBME, 67 creation of, 43–45 democracy strengthening role, 256, 257, 258 and efficiency definition, 44, 56–57, 199 and Efficiency Division of Chicago’s CSC, 108 funding, 46, 47, 58, 60n13, 252 and government operations, 247, 249, 250 historical context, 41–43 impact of, 52–56

286 interaction with nonprofits, 51, 67, 203 introduction, 20, 41 naming confusions, 60n20 nonprofit vs. governmental nature of, 57–59 organization and operations, 45–48 permanence, 252 and politics, 48, 49–51, 58–59 reports, 46–47, 48–49, 56–57, 218–24 San Francisco on demise of, 63n49 staffing comparison, 47–48, 254–55 Milwaukee Bureau of Municipal Research, 51, 62n39, 68 Ministry for Industry and Commerce, Ireland, 172–73 Missouri, efficiency bureau in, 170–71 Mitchel, John, 186n66 Moley, Raymond, 19, 33n27 morals approach to efficiency. See social efficiency approach muckraking journalism, 16, 31n7 Municipal Efficiency Commission (MEC), Chicago, 96–97, 104 municipal government efficiency bureaus. See city government efficiency bureaus Municipal Research Bureau, Boston, 212 Municipal Research Bureau, Milwaukee, 51, 62n39, 68 municipal research bureaus vs. bureau of public efficiency designation, 118 vs. efficiency bureaus, 24, 157–58, 196–98 introduction, 18–19

Bureaus of Efficiency as nonprofit organizations, 36n57, 157 See also nonprofit efficiency bureaus Munro, William Bennett, 204 Muskegon Efficiency Bureau, 163 Myers, Percy H., 45, 53 N National Association of Real Estate Exchanges, 178 National Resources Planning Board, 110n6 The Netherlands, Dutch Efficiency Bureau, 179 Nevada, efficiency bureau in, 177–78 new governance paradigm, 209 New Haven Railroad, 177 New Orleans Bureau of Governmental Research, 212 newspapers. See media New York Bureau of Municipal Research (NYBMR) as advisor to Milwaukee efficiency bureaus, 68, 69–71 and blurring of nonprofit/ government lines, 19 and Commissioner of Accounts Bureau of Efficiency, 162 and county-level efficiency bureaus, 165–66 overview, 18 politics of, 74 New York City (NYC) Board of Education’s Bureau of Reference, Research and Statistics, 171

Index Bureau of Economy and Efficiency, 164–65, 186n65 Commissioner of Accounts’ Bureau of Efficiency, 161–62, 181n23 Institute for Public Service, 88 Water Supply, Gas and Electricity department, 164–65, 186n65 See also New York Bureau of Municipal Research (NYBMR) New York state Buffalo Bureau of Efficiency and Research, 171 Department of Efficiency and Economy, state government, 19, 172 Rochester Board of Education Efficiency Bureau, 169– 70, 196 Rochester Bureau of Budget and Efficiency, 164 New York University, 178 nonprofit efficiency bureaus and blurring of public/private distinction, 46, 57–59, 80, 108 businesses as targets of, 176–78 contemporary forms, 212 as efficiency advocates, 18 vs. governmental, 25–28, 68, 125–26, 202–10, 214n23, 247–58 independence and financing, 131 labeling of, 118, 206 and MBEE, 51, 67, 203 member vs. subscriber status, 79 New York University, 178

287 reporting traditions, 125–26, 249 survey of, 173–76 and use of “nonprofit” terminology, 27 See also Chicago Bureau of Public Efficiency (CBPE); Citizens’ Bureau of Municipal Efficiency (CBME); municipal research bureaus Norfolk Efficiency Bureau, 163–64 Northern Pacific Railroad, 177 O O’Dwyer, William, 183–84n40 office operations, efficiency movement application to, 177 O’Hern, Joseph P., 169 Olson, Frederick, 54 operational efficiency approach. See mechanical efficiency approach operational vs. legal differences, nonprofit vs. governmental entities, 205–6 outcomes approach for bureau impact, 21, 198. See also public policy role of efficiency bureaus; substantive effect of efficiency bureaus out-of-house vs. in-house bureaus, 204, 207, 209, 247–48 ownership issues and nonprofits, 206 P pain vs. pleasure economy, 15–16 Patton, Simon, 15

288 permanence, nonprofits vs. governmental entities, 204, 207, 209, 250–51 personal efficiency approach application to civil servants, 51, 96–97 CBPE, 122–23, 234 definition, 24 Efficiency Division of Chicago’s CSC, 98–99, 104, 106–7, 200, 228, 229, 230 Los Angeles, City of, CSC Bureau of Efficiency, 160 Los Angeles County Bureau of Efficiency, 167 and nonprofit vs. governmental bureaus, 203 Norfolk Efficiency Bureau, 163–64 San Francisco Bureau of Efficiency, 159 Pfiffner, John, 163 Pittsburgh Survey, 45–46 politics CBME, 67, 72–74, 84 CBPE, 120, 124, 127, 128, 129, 136–44, 145, 238, 239, 241 conservatives, 42, 46, 49–51, 68–69, 72–73, 85 Cook County CSC Efficiency Division, 166 corruption in government, 41–42, 95, 102, 103, 104, 161 and criticism of efficiency movement, 24–25 Efficiency Division of Chicago’s CSC, 101–3, 229

Bureaus of Efficiency Los Angeles, City of, CSC Bureau of Efficiency, 160–61 Los Angeles County CSC Bureau of Efficiency, 167–68 MBEE, 48, 49–51, 58–59 and nonpartisan government service agencies, 62n42 nonprofit vs. governmental bureaus, 247, 249–50, 251 NYBMR, 74 and professionalization of public administration, 18, 32n17 Progressive call for electoral changes, 16–17 Socialist Party, Milwaukee, 41–42, 48–51, 57–58, 67, 72–73 and universality of efficiency drive, 42 U.S. Bureau of Efficiency, 172 women’s activism in, 42–43 Pollack, Willits, 80 private sector business efficiency bureaus, 158, 176–78, 179 history of relationship to public sector, 27–28 See also business elites; nonprofit efficiency bureaus professional efficiency experts, emergence of, 99 professionalization of government, 17, 98–99, 167 progress, definitional issues, 15 Progressive Era adoption of efficiency goals, 23–25

Index anti-democratic strain in, 73–74 efficiency bureaus’ role in, 19–20 government reform overview, 16–18 social changes of, 15–16 timeline for, 15 Wilson’s contribution to, 16, 23, 35n42 women’s role in, 42–43, 45, 117, 173–74 prostitution in Milwaukee, reform of, 42 public administration, establishment of, 17, 18, 23, 25, 32n17 Public Efficiency Bureau, Mental Efficiency League, Chicago, 173 publicity as vehicle for reform CBME, 72–76, 78 CBPE, 120–21, 148–49n24 Efficiency Division of Chicago’s CSC’s avoidance of, 100 nonprofit vs. governmental agencies’ use of, 249 and sectoral affiliation confusion, 146 Public Policy Forum, Milwaukee, 82, 211. See also Citizens’ Bureau of Municipal Efficiency (CBME) public policy role of efficiency bureaus, 56, 84–85, 105–6, 143–44, 198 public school system efficiency bureaus, 168–71, 188–89n90, 196 public sector efficiency bureaus as agents of government, 19, 157 contemporary versions of, 211

289 county level, 81–82, 165–68, 188n86 demise of, 196 educational, 168–71, 178, 188–89n90, 196 federal, 25–26, 63n53, 110n11, 171–73 in Ireland, 172–73 labeling of, 118 vs. nonprofit, 25–28, 125–26, 202–10, 214n23, 247–58 state level, 19, 171–72, 174 See also city government efficiency bureaus; government public vs. private sector, historical conceptual development, 27–28 publishing houses, use of efficiency bureau terminology, 178 Putnam, John F., 78, 80 R Raadschelders, Jos, 23 race relations and MBEE social survey, 221n9 railroad industry, efficiency bureaus for, 177 Rastall, Benjamin M., 44–45, 47, 54 Reason Public Policy Institute, 212 referenda recommendations by CBPE overview, 127 as share of report subjects, 128, 233, 236, 241 and staffing levels, 129 and substantive impact, 137–44 reformers vs. Socialists in Milwaukee, 50

290 Remington Typewriter Company, 177 Reno Interstate Efficiency Bureau, 177–78 reports CBME, 73–74, 75–76, 78, 91–92nn69–70, 225–28 CBPE, 62n40, 121, 125–26, 127–30, 135, 149n32, 153n78, 232–45 Efficiency Division of Chicago’s CSC, 101, 102, 107, 228–31 Kansas City Bureau of Research and Efficiency, 170 Los Angeles, City of, CSC Bureau of Efficiency, 163 MBEE, 46–47, 48–49, 56–57, 218–24 Merriam Commission, 96 New York Bureau of Economy and Efficiency, 165 nonprofit vs. governmental bureau impact, 125–26, 249 NYC Commissioner of Accounts Bureau of Efficiency, 162 Rochester Board of Education Efficiency Bureau, 170 San Francisco Bureau of Efficiency, 159 Southern Commercial Congress Bureau of Economics and Public Efficiency, 175 U.S. Bureau of Efficiency, 172 Wisconsin Efficiency Bureau, 174 Rightor, C. E., 26 Robson, William, 22

Bureaus of Efficiency Rochester Board of Education Efficiency Bureau, 169–70, 196 Rochester Bureau of Budget and Efficiency, 164 Rockefeller, John D., Sr., 74 Rolph, James, 159, 160 Rose, David, 41 Rosenwald, Julius, 118, 119–20, 125, 147n5, 148n15, 152n58 S Sacramento Bureau of Municipal Efficiency and Economy, 163 Sait, Edward, 196, 204 Salamon, Lester, 206, 209–10 Sands, Herbert R., 120, 124, 150n34 San Francisco Bureau of Efficiency, 63n49, 159–65 Schiesl, Martin, 54–55, 144 scientific management, 23, 24, 42, 99, 203 Scoville, Harry F., 167 sectoral affiliation advantage/disadvantage comparison, 247–58 blurred lines between, 25–26, 50, 80, 126, 146 overview, 25–28 and substantive impact of organization, 204–10 summary distinctions in, 202–10 terminology issue, 36n52 See also nonprofit efficiency bureaus; public sector efficiency bureaus Seidel, Emil, 42, 43, 50 Sikes, George, 124–25, 136, 146 social efficiency approach bureau comparison, 253–54

Index CBPE’s avoidance of, 145 definition, 24, 199 MBEE, 44, 45–46, 48–51, 52–53, 57, 58, 218–21 and nonprofit efficiency bureaus, 173 Socialist Party, Milwaukee, 41–42, 48–51, 57–58, 67, 72–73 Southern Commercial Congress Bureau of Economics and Public Efficiency, 175–76 staffing for efficiency bureaus CBME, 75, 79–80, 82, 254–55 CBPE, 123–24, 129, 133–34, 254–55 Cook County Efficiency Division, 166 Efficiency Division of Chicago’s CSC, 98, 99– 100, 102, 254–55 MBEE, 47–48, 254–55 nonprofits vs. governmental entities, 123, 204, 205, 208, 209, 254–55 NYC Commissioner of Accounts Bureau of Efficiency, 161–62 state-wide efficiency entities, 19, 171–72, 174 Stenographic Efficiency Bureau, Remington, 177 Stettner, Edward, 15 Still, Bayrd, 54 subscriber vs. member status for nonprofit organizations, 79 substantive effect of efficiency bureaus and bureau outcomes, 21–22 CBME, 82–84 CBPE, 127–29, 136–43 definition, 21

291 Efficiency Division of Chicago’s CSC, 104–5 Los Angeles, City of, CSC Bureau of Efficiency, 163 MBEE, 52–56 and sectoral affiliation, 204–10 summary of impacts, 198 surveys by efficiency bureaus CBPE, 126, 128 Efficiency Division of Chicago’s CSC, 99 establishment of, 18 MBEE, 45–46, 218–21 NYBMR, 69–70 Sutherland, Douglas, 133 T Tammany Hall political machine, 161 task forces and efficiency, 211 Taylor, Frederick Winslow, 23, 42, 162, 182n31 Thompson, Henry S., 165, 186n66 Thompson, William Hale, 28, 102, 103, 105 Training School for Public Service, 18, 19 Treleven, John E., 45, 52, 53 Truman, David, 92n76, 143 trustees for nonprofit efficiency bureaus, need for visibility of, 77 U United Charities of Chicago, 126 United States Steel Corporation, 176 U.S. Bureau of Efficiency, 25–26, 63n53, 110n11, 172

292

Bureaus of Efficiency V

Vogel, August, 71 Vogel, Donald, 67 W Water Supply, Gas and Electricity department, NYC, 164–65, 186n65 Wayne County (Michigan) Bureau of Efficiency, 188n86 Weber, Gustavus, 106 Welton, Benjamin F., 161, 162 White, Leonard, 25, 163 Wilson, Woodrow, 16, 23, 35n42 Wisconsin, efficiency bureaus in, 53, 174. See also Milwaukee, Wisconsin women, social activism of, 42–43, 45, 117, 173–74 Women’s League of Chicago, 173–74 workers as beneficiaries of governmental reform, 43–44 work products. See reports Z Zion, E. R., 159, 160, 180n11