Of course, gentlemen, when you come to make your recommendations, you will have to deal with broad principles for the conduct of the Government business; but those broad principles must be supported by definite plans ready to be given immediate effect. I believe in broad principles, but I do not want them so broad that they will not apply to any given case. I want a general scheme, but also a way to make that general scheme effective in each department, each bureau, each section and subdivision touched by your committee. I do not want you in any case to recommend a change simply for the sake of making a change; nothing could be more foolish. But never hesitate for a moment in basing your recommendations upon the conditions actually found and the best way to meet them, no matter how radical may be the departure from established methods required. As I have said before, remember that in the vastly larger number of cases the essential need will not be for new legislation, but for better organization and improved methods under existing law. Now and then you will find where there must be a change in law, but the essential thing will be to change methods so that we can better administer the existing law. There is, however, one fundamental weakness in the Government service which can not be remedied without additional legislation. That weakness lies in the faulty distribution of work among the different departments. It is one of the most serious of all the obstacles to good executive work, to effective work, and to economy in the public service. No matter how well a bureau or division may be organized and directed, you can not get the best work out of it unless it is associated with, and co-operating with, the other bureaus and divisions which are engaged in cognate lines of work and with which it naturally belongs. Good teamwork is as much needed in the executive civil service as it can possibly be anywhere else. And it is the only way to prevent duplication of work. Your own work is most important, but it covers only half of the field. To put the departments on the best and most economical working basis the President, as I have already recommended, should be given power to transfer any part of the work of a department to another department, as was done in the case of the Department of Commerce and Labor. In closing I wish to say a word of acknowledgment of the public-spirited and most valuable co-operation of the American Association of Public Accountants, which has been promised to the Committee on Department Methods. I wish to thank them, and I wish to thank you, gentlemen, for the invaluable work that you are doing. TO THE EXECUTIVE COUNCIL OF THE AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR AND THE REPRESENTATIVES OF LABOR ASSOCIATED WITH THEM, AT THE EXECUTIVE OFFICE, MARCH 21, 1906 _Gentlemen_: