334 
BruncJcen—Private and Public Business. 
business experience may not also be a good public administra¬ 
tive officer. That conclusion would be contradicted by the ex¬ 
perience of every day. The statement merely means that busi¬ 
ness skill and experience is not in itself a guarantee of good ad¬ 
ministrative ability. 
Among the habits fostered by private business life and inim¬ 
ical to efficiency in public affairs is, first of all, that of con- 
sidering*every expenditure a loss unless it brings a return in 
profits or interest. Here is a concrete example of this kind of 
error: In the city of Milwaukee the question is now being dis¬ 
cussed whether the municipality had better dispose of its garb¬ 
age in a plant owned by itself. Men of undoubted business 
capacity argue against this plan on the ground that probably 
the city would not reap a profit on its investment for the pur¬ 
pose, although they admit that the sum heretofore annually paid 
to contractors is greater than any possible loss it could suffer 
in the enterprise. 
Of much greater disadvantage for efficiency in public affairs 
is the fact that to most business men it is impossible to become 
used to acting according to the rules the law prescribes. With 
the most scrupulous intention to comply with restrictions that 
seem to them foolish technicalities, they cannot always resist 
the temptation to make short cuts across them if thereby they 
can expedite business or effect economy. This phase of the sub¬ 
ject is particularly noticeable in the small administrative boards 
which are entrusted with special branches of administration, 
like municipal park, library, or museum boards. They are 
often intentionally composed of men without other experience 
in public life, with the well-meant intention of “ keeping them 
out of politics. ” The blunders frequently made by boards of 
this kind, through sheer lack of experience and the inopportune 
application of the methods of private business, would be an in¬ 
structive and sometime startling chapter in the history of mu¬ 
nicipal government. 
A third and still greater disadvantage of private business train¬ 
ing is the arbitrary habits which it fosters, and the almost en¬ 
tire absence of training in the art of persuading others. The 
business man is accustomed to issue orders; he is likely to become 
