The Researcher’s Digest: June Research made elementary by Dayton bureau; Washington bibliography of state publications; responsibility of citizens for increasing government costs; distribution of research bulletins; Rochester birthday.

T H E popular conception of the expert as one who knows more and more

about less and less is often bulwarked by the expert’s irritating habit of using big words, high-sounding words, and words with technical meanings. There- fore it happens that the expert frequently finds himself handing out his knowledge to an exclusive audience composed of other experts who neither appreciate his wisdom nor profit by his warnings. And the general public remains in the dark.

To bring light painlessly, nonirritat- ingly, to the governmentally “unwashed” is the increasingly frequent aim of the research bureaus. Now comes the Day- ton Research Association with an ap- pealing d d d t Priiwel- of Moiitgomcry County Governineizt (March 1940).

In twenty-one mimeographed pages, using capital letters exclusively, with a plentiful leavening of simplified maps, pic- torial diagrams, and drawings, the asso- ciation delves into the historical past, tells how the county grew, explains govern- mental structure and governmental cost, outlines the duties of each of the county departments, and winds up with ten pre- cepts under the heading “SO, What About It?”

According to the research bureau, the answer to that question is that improve- ment in government is gradual, and must result from knowledge of the facts and the realities. Point number 7 is: “A Study of Government Should Eegin with an Elementary Outline (A Primer), Disregarding the Extent of Education of ‘The Pupil’ Along Other Lines.” The Dayton Research Associations’ Adult Priiiier admirably fills the bill.

Seeing Eye Streams of publications issue from

government offices and John Q. Citizen, as usual in the dark, doesn’t realize that the specific information he wants on the care and feeding of moths, the location of vacation camp sites, and the whys and wherefores of the tax collector’s office, is available to him at the price of a two- cent stamp and an envelope addressed to “the government.”

The Bureau of Governmental Re- search of the University of Washington has therefore constituted itself a seeing eye for blind Mr. Citizen in the state of Washington. Report No. 41 (March 1, 1940) is a list of periodical and other current publications issued by offices, de- partments, and institutions of the state of Washington.

The foreword to Publicatiom of the State of Washingtoi t supplies the inci- dental information that the state pub- lishes “over two hundred biennial, annual, semi-annual, and other periodical publications and has in print approxi- mately 1,250 other individual publications of current and general interest which with few exceptions are available to the public.”

Milwaukeeans Want Too Much An unusual tack on the question of

rising government costs is taken by the Citizens’ Bureau of Milwaukee in i ts bulletin of May 4. Instead of reviling government officials for their spending ways, the Bureau admonishes : “Mil- waukeeans should STOP DEMANDING IN- CREASED EXPENDITURES !”

The bureau studied the Financial Sta- tistics of Cities of the United States

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Bureau of the Census and found that Mil- waukee’s per capita operation and main- tenance expenditures for general depart- ments was 15 per cent more in 1937 than in 1926, comparing with a 7 per cent increase in the costs of the twenty-five largest cities in the United States. Pen- sions to public employees, health and hospitals, police, recreation and sanita- tion, were among the items whose cost increased in greater proportion than simi- lar costs in other cities.

Transmission Belt for Research A new arrangement which it deems

to have vast potentialities for increasing the circulation of research bureau pub- lications has been developed by the Citi- zens’ Bureau of Governmental Research of New York State. The bureau offers to taxpayer and civic groups in the state, at minimum prices, copies of its bulletins in bulk, for distribution to members of the interested groups through their own channels. There are two price schedules : one for copies of the bulletin on the bureau’s own masthead; another for copies on the masthead of the distributing organization, with a special message from the organization to its own members printed above the body of the bulletin.

Says the bureau: “The advantages of this arrangement are: a saving to the bureau of more than $9,000 a year in printing and mailing costs ; the securing of select mailing lists; the actual or im- plied endorsement of the distributing or- ganizations ; and the awakening of inter- est in government of many people who would not otherwise receive data on ad- ministrative improvements and economy in public affairs.”

GRA Constitution Fails A proposed new constitution for the

Governmental Research Association was turned down by fifty-four votes to sixty- nine in a mail balloting, reports the GRA‘s April Bulletin. Tabulated as part

of the negative vote were fifty-nine non- voters. The organization is now con- sidering amendment of its old constitu- tion. Fundamental question before the membership is the delimitation of membership.

Silver Anniversary The Rochester Bureau of Municipal

Research was twenty-five years old on Saturday, April 20.

Research Bureau Reports Received

Bibliography Publicatians of the State of Waslhing-

ton. Compiled by Lloyd W. Schram. Bureau of Governmental Research, Uni- versity of Washington, Seattle, March 1, 1940. 35 pp. mimeo.

County Government An Adult Primer of Montgomery

County Government. Dayton, Ohio, Re- search Association, March 1940. 21 pp. mimeo.

Finance Pertinent Financial Data, City of

Baltimore. As a t January 1, 1940. Bal- timore, Md. Commission on Govern- mental Efficiency and Economy, Inc.. 1940. 15 pp.

Personnel Progress with a No-Hiring Policy.

Boston Municipal Research Bureau, Bui- ietin, May 6, 1940. 8 pp.

Proportional Representation Baltimore Elections and Proportional

Representation. A report by the staff of the Baltimore Commission on Govern- mental Efficiency and Economy, Inc., April 1940. 28 pp. mimeo. (For a re- view of this publication see page 431 of this issue.)