Public opposition to the application of business principles to government affairs is well illustrated in the location and erection of public buildings. Chicago has a federal building which was intended to accommodate, and does hold, not only the post office, but serves as court house, custom house and shelters all other federal offices. It cost nine million dollars and is ill-suited for anything. There are plenty of architects who can design a court house, or a post office, or an office building, but no one has yet appeared, and no one ever will be found, who can combine the three without ruining all. During the period of construction, the Chicago post office occupied temporary quarters on the lake front in a wooden building, veneered with brick, built expressly for the purpose. Unquestionably it was the most convenient, and therefore the best post office in the United States. This of course is from the standpoint of a business man. Everyone connected with it regretted its abandonment for the huge, imposing but outrageous new building. The architect’s pride centered in its enormous dome. All the mail had to be taken from the basement up a steep incline and, until they began using heavy gasoline trucks, it required four horses to pull out from under the building what one horse could haul to the depot. Pittsburgh wanted a building equally imposing, and Congress appropriated a million dollars to buy a site. That sum would pay for nothing suitable in the central part of the city. The newspapers had all purchased property at the top of the hill, in the newer part of the city, and the Secretary of the Treasury was expected to locate the Federal Building accordingly. He did not do so and for this reason: There were no street cars going near the proposed site. It was before the advent of gasoline trucks and the mail would have to be hauled up the long inclines by teams. In slippery weather a team of horses, unless freshly shod, cannot climb that hill with an empty wagon. Inspired by the experience at Chicago, the Secretary decided to give Pittsburgh the best post-office service in the world. An entire block near the principal depot was purchased, at fifty percent or more above its market value. But that was relatively cheaper than anything else offered, and less proportionately than what the government is usually compelled to pay. A suitable site for a business enterprise employing a like number of people, and doing an equal volume of business, would be tendered on a silver platter. The people’s government never got “something for nothing” until we entered the war. What it then got and where it got it is quite generally surmised.