Does that broad accusation of the President approve or disapprove our previously expressed opinion of governmental department service in general and of the postoffice department in particular? Notice the statements I have taken the liberty to _italicize_. Permit me to repeat a few of them: “The chief difficulty in securing economy and reform _is the lack of accurate information as to what the money of the government is spent for_.” Does not that fully bear out what Judge Moon said in discussing the Senate resolution to appropriate $50,000 more for a second-class mail commission--devote fifty thousand more after the government had already spent several hundred thousands delving into the same subject and got little or nothing of value, by reason of the loose, careless and _wasteful_ methods of the federal postal department? … “_There is no means for determining the relation of current surplus or deficit._” An _inviting_ business situation that, is it not? Especially “inviting” is it to officials and subordinates who want something they have not earned, who want to _find_ something. “No operation account is kept, and no statement of operations is rendered showing the expenses incurred--_the actual cost of doing business_--the actual cost of doing business on the one side and the revenues accrued on the other.” Now, my dear reader, don’t you know that such a method or system, or lack of method or system, would put a western corn farm in “financial distress” the first season and out of business the second? A cattle ranch, handled on such loose, _ignorant_ methods would be sold out in a year. What, in reduction, does this _unqualified_ statement of our President mean? It means that the heads of governmental departments _do not know_; that their subordinates _do not know_, and, therefore, our President, our Senators and our Congressmen _do not know_. Nor can they, under existing conditions and methods, _find out_. They cannot find out even the common--the basic--essentials of business methods and management which Job Fraser, down in “Egypt,” must know in order to keep his hen range out of bankruptcy. Do you remember a quotation, some pages back, from the joint commission which investigated the postoffice department? The investigation which _rummaged_ into the second-class mail schedule particularly? If you do not remember, turn back and read it again. It fits like the skin of an Alberta peach to what the President has just said (March 3, 1911), in his message from which we have quoted. While collecting millions of revenue beyond all possible expenditures, under competent, honest management, our federal postoffice department would have gone into bankruptcy save for the backing of the government’s treasury--_for the backing of your money_.