All very well said, but it does not answer. Hoary-headed age in loose, falsifying methods of accounting neither commands respect nor can stand as reason or excuse for continuing such methods. It most certainly has no warrant as argument in extenuation for the continuance of such methods by the present administration. “Why?” Well, there are several reasons. Mr. Hitchcock, it appears, has been aware for some two years or more that the practice we are here discussing was a questionable one, even if he was not fully informed as to the dangers--the waste, the fraud, the crookedness--which that practice might easily be made to cloak. Yet he has not only continued the practice, but, it would appear has further indulged or encouraged its growth. Let us look at the published evidence on this point. A _reduced_ deficit in the showing of the Postoffice Department for the year 1910 was somewhat _evidently_ desired. To that end, the practice we are criticising charges 1910 with $6,786,394.11 for expenditures “on account of previous years,” all of which, save $65,553.53, as previously shown, were expenditures made on account of the year 1909. Now, in a footnote to page 278 of the 1910 report, Third Assistant Postmaster General Britt presents a somewhat confusing, if not confused explanation of his showing of the “Revenues and expenditures” for the year. One statement in the explanation, however, is resonantly loud in its clearness. “On the other hand,” says Mr. Britt, “expenditures made in the first three months of the fiscal year, 1911 on account of the fiscal year 1910 and prior years are not included in the reported deficit for the year 1910. _The amounts are approximately equal._” I italicize that last statement. Let’s see: 1910 was made to pay (in accounting only, of course), $6,786,394.11 of 1909 and prior expenditures and, in an exchange, as simple as swapping Barlows, $7,132,112.23 of 1910 expenditures are shunted onto the year 1911! “The amounts are approximately equal,” says Mr. Britt. Well, the difference is only $345,718.12--a mere trifle, of course, in a shuffle of millions. But if that trifle had been added to the 1910 expenditures, where it rightly belonged, the 1910 deficit would have shown up a trifle _over_ instead of a trifle _under_ six million dollars, as given in the published report--a very important matter along in the closing days of 1910. Then, too, when our President and his Postmaster General so warm up to a surplus of $220,000, it is possible, if not probable, that a trifle like $345,000 might have been a convenience as a deficit _reducer_ in December, 1910. On page 19 of Mr. Hitchcock’s report, he presents the following as one of thirty “Improvements in Organization and Methods” accomplished by the Postoffice Department during the year ended June 30, 1911: