34 
PARK AND CEMETERY. 
many parks? Can it ever expend too 
much money for them? No absolute 
standard by which to measure exists. 
Parks are comparatively new. Park 
ideals are comparatively new. Park 
extension is merely one of the ex- 
pressions of the progress of mankind. 
It represents a public ideal of life. 
Progress never is the same every- 
where. Cities differ in their attitude 
towards the park problem. The wis- 
dom of park expenditures hence be- 
comes a relative one. It is a matter 
of a test for every city to determine 
whether it is abreast of that public 
ideal or. behind in the movement. 
That test necessarily involves a com- 
parison. A comparison can only be 
effective when like things are com- 
pared. Today park departments are 
encountering great difficulties in find- 
ing like things to compare, whether 
on the financial or the physical side 
of Parks. The object of my visit 
here is to invite your particular at- 
tention to the necessity of finding 
common ground upon which to make 
comparative studies which will an- 
swer the question whether you are 
doing more or less than other cities 
and whether you are administrating 
your duties more or less efficiently. 
This common ground is found in the 
adoption of a uniform plan for the 
keeping of accounts for parks and for 
the keeping of the physical records 
of areas and improvements and gen- 
eral park facilities. 
Now I believe that I am fairly safe 
in assuming that when you put the 
question to yourself: “How can I 
demonstrate the wisdom of park ex- 
penditures and the wisdom of park 
extensions?” you will come to the 
conclusion that all the facts which 
are needed for a reply to that question 
such as an intelligent and reasonable 
individual might expect are not at 
hand in the records of your city, a 
fact for which you are not neces- 
sarily responsible. The information 
which may be necessary to arrive at 
a judgment of the service rendered 
by parks to the public is contained, 
as just suggested, in the financial rec- 
ords on the one hand, and in the 
physical records, the records of park 
areas, general improvements, oppor- 
tunities for recreation, and so on, 
on the other. Now then turning to 
the financial records of today — and 
I am speaking in a general way only 
— we find that the financial reports of 
parks as issued are primarily reports 
of cash accounts. 
By cash accounts are meant ac- 
counts which present statements of 
amounts of cash expended for various 
purposes in such a manner as to en- 
able the comptrolling officer to de- 
termine whether such expenditures 
have been charged against the proper 
appropriations and have been legally 
made and whether all cash has been 
properly accounted for. The items 
in cash accounts may be grouped in 
any convenient way, by amounts, or 
alphabetically, or in any other man- 
ner that facilitates the bookkeeping 
and checking up of items. 
In order that accounts may ex- 
press economy and efficiency of ser- 
vice they must be grouped with a 
different object in view. All ac- 
counts which relate to one par- 
ticular type of public service or one 
particular function must be arranged 
accordingly so that the relation of 
one to the other may be shown, and 
the expenditures as made be inter- 
preted in the light of the physical 
facts of service rendered. Such ac- 
counts are cost accounts. They are 
based upon the functional grouping 
of expenditures. Cost accounts 
necessarily also are cash accounts in 
that they show how much cash was 
paid out and what for, but since they 
may run counter to the accounts 
called for by appropriations they may 
not be convenient for use by the 
comptrolling officers. 
I have here a good illustration of 
a cash account in the form of a 
statement of the expenditures for 
parks and boulevards in one of our 
large cities. 
Here is a list of the items, follow- 
ing in succession down the page, the 
expenditures being recorded by in- 
dividual parks and boulevards. I am 
just giving you the stub-items on the 
list: Plantation, spraying, drainage, 
sports, stables, field house, kinder- 
garten, shower bath, eating house, 
grading, sub-station, lightning ar- 
resters, and so on. Now, you will 
notice that we have here in promis- 
cuous arrangement a record of ex- 
penditures without any reference to 
the function that is performed by 
this or that particular object to 
which the expenditure refers. Thus 
drainage appears next to sports, the 
one related to the function of recrea- 
tion, the other to an entirely different 
function. Note again: field house and 
kindergarten, shower bath and eat- 
ing house, grading and sub-station, — 
no functional relation of one to the 
other, no grouping of objects for 
which expenditures were made to re- 
veal general policy, to show expendi- 
tures in this particular city for pub- 
lic recreation, for those things that 
attract the public, or expenditures for 
those objects which are primarily 
for the convenience and comfort of 
the public; or for those objects which 
may be classed as general improve- 
ments of landed areas, and so on. 
The entire report is arranged much 
in that way. This is a good illustra- 
tion of a cash account. It shows 
where the money went, and for what 
it was paid out. But you miss en- 
tirely the functional arrangement of 
the accounts through which service 
values may be expressed. The im- 
portant question before you, I take 
it, is what shall we consider to be the 
proper functional arrangement of 
park accounts today? As to this 
functional grouping of the items of 
expenditure, we should be in general 
agreement if real progress is to be 
made. And I trust that with the prop- 
osition submitted in a general way 
in the printed form, a copy of which 
I hope is in possession of all of you, 
we shall take a step in the direction 
towards a uniform grouping of ex- 
penditures in the park service, that 
is, to a uniform system of accounting. 
The Census Bureau came forward 
as you notice with this particular 
plan already in print, but I want to 
emphasize the fact that the Census 
Bureau has no desire to dominate in 
this movement. The Census Bureau 
has no desire to force its views, or 
attempt to force its views, upon the 
administrators of the parks of this 
country. As that printed form plain- 
ly states on the outside of its cover, 
it is a suggested form submitted for 
discussion. It would, however, not 
be just to the Census Bureau if I 
did not state here today that we are 
interested in the problem of uniform 
accounting in the park department 
for certain very legitimate reasons. 
Permit me to digress for just one 
moment. I dare say that most of you 
do not understand why it happens 
that the United States Census Bureau 
is interested in uniform accounting. 
Back in 1889, the Congress of the 
United States passed an act author- 
izing the collection of statistics of 
cities. Originally this work was done 
by the Bureau of Labor. In 1902 it 
was transferred to the Census Bureau 
in the Department of Commerce 
and Labor. Now, under this act, the 
Director of the Census is authorized 
annually to collect statistics of cities 
of over 30,000 and in every ten years 
of cities of over eight thousand popu- 
lation. The work was organized and 
agents were appointed to visit these 
