228 Urdahl—The Present Fee System in the United States. 
committees in the large towns illustrate this very well, while 
much of the fraud in the office is so easily and skillfully con¬ 
cealed that it is never found out. This is accomplished all the 
more easily where no account of any kind is required of the fees 
of office received by an official. 
But the tendency has been to demand an account from every 
officer who collects fees, and to fix a maximum limit to the 
amount which may be kept as salary over and above office ex¬ 
penses. This, however, offers a loop-hole for almost as much 
corruption as the old system. The official appoints his clerks, 
and, as a rule, is responsible to no one for their number and 
character. He employs several times the number of clerks 
actually needed to do the work, some of them holding several 
positions in as many distinct capacities, in order to draw double 
or quadruple salary. Sometimes the officer himself holds sev¬ 
eral minor positions besides his regular office. In other words, 
the provision allowing an official to pay his office expenses out 
of the fees collected, furnishes an opportunity for enormous 
frauds. The office expenses often more than swallow up all the 
fees collected. 
The only remedy is to enforce the most rigid system of ac¬ 
countability, so that every fee collected is paid into the treas¬ 
ury. It is bad business management to allow an official to pay 
and appoint his own clerks. No private enterprise could exist 
for any length of time which employed such methods. A pri¬ 
vate establishment always pays its subordinates from the gen¬ 
eral treasury, and keeps a sharp watch over their salaries and 
efficiency. The same economy must be applied to public affairs 
if they are to be well administered. All the corruption is not, 
as a rule, caused by bad legislation; the laws creating the var¬ 
ious offices and making provisions for their emoluments, were 
legitimate and proper at the time when they were enacted. But 
most of them were enacted very early in the history of the 
country, and few, if any, radical changes have been made in 
them. But they have simply outlived their period of useful¬ 
ness. Economic conditions have changed, while the laws have 
not been changed to fit them. The fee-bill which would yield 
barely enough revenue to support the sheriff of New York in 
