Maryland State Archives

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State of Maryland, Report in RE: The Organization and Administration of the State Government. Part II. A Plan of Administrative Consolidation. April 15, 1921 (Griffenhagen & Associates, LTD., page 7

Summary of Report: Plan to consolidate administrative control over the government after a preceived proliferation of departments and agencies. Analysis and commentary on allcation of functions, creation of unified central control, and proper delegated authority. The goal is to create better coordination between agencies and checks on duties.

A Report to Dr. Frank J. Goodnow, Chairman and the Members of the Commission on Efficiency and Economy in the State Government of Maryland concerning Ineffieiency and Extravagance in Various Departments and Offices. January 17, 1916, Harvey S. Chase and Company, page 8

Summary of Report: Plan to gain greater fiscal control by the Comptroller and Treasurer over the state's budget in response to the monies being spread throughout all the state agencies without centalized oversight and control.

More information about the Goodnow Commission can be found in: Carl N. Everstine, The General Assembly of Maryland, 1850-1920 (Charlottesville, VA: The Michie Company, 1984), 576-586.

If business management does not stand still, but always advances, there is all the more reason why STate management should not stand still either. For while the mounting cost of private buisness falls chiefly upon the owners and consumers, the mounting cost of public business falls on everyone. It is to the interest of the few that private businesses should strive always for more efficiency and more economy. It is to the interest of all that the State Government should do that.

In working for this end, and in considering the problems involved, it is helpful to remember that buisness and Government are not the same, because government has a side, which business has not, where it is subjected to cross currents of popular forces, such as elections, changing administrations, public policies, state traditions and usages which the people want preserved.

Business often feels the reaction from these things, and prospers or suffers accordingly; but it does not have to contend with them directly, - in its own house. It does not have to reckon with these forces in building the structure of its own organization. Government does."
PAGE 15

"The object of Government is to meet the needs of the people. Government, in the words of the Maryland Declaration of Rights, is 'instituted solely for the good of the whole.'"
PAGE 15

"We want in Maryland a government, if we can get it, cheaper and better than the one we have, but we want to preserve all that is good, - and there is much that is good, - in our present institutions. The only changes we want are changes which will bring with them greater efficiency and greater economy, and which will square those State usages wna practises [sic] which experience has justified, and which, therefore, ought to endure. In a word, we want for Maryland a Maryalnd form of government."
PAGE 16

"The natural, logical thing now, - the sequence to what has gone before, - is to pause and view in its entirety our governmental machinery, and to re-cast the structure, coordinating the several agencies, preserving every storng feature and cutting out every weak one, so that we may have a practical, working - well-balanced whole, capable of operating better than the present one, and at less cost."
PAGE 19

Plan for the Reorganization of the Administrative Departments of the State Government of Maryland and for the Reduction of the Number of Elections in Maryland by the Regorganization Commission of Maryland. Adopted September 14, 1921.

Summary of report: An analysis of government administration which at the time was considered top heavy with too many boards and commissions acting independently but officially under the Governor who had no mechanism to supervise and make them accountable.

Catalog entry contains a link to -
Strengthening the Maryland Legislature: An Eagleton Study and Report by Alan Rosenthal, 1967. (A General Assembly-sponsored study by the Eagleton Institute of Rutgers University).

Pdf also contains "Principles of any Maryland Reorganization Plan" and a letter from Gov. Ritchie to Menken.

Source: GOVERNOR (General File) Reorganization Act, 1922, 1923, 1929 [MSA S1041-479, 2/30/3/19]

Related files:

GOVERNOR (Subject File) LM 213 - State Reorganization [MSA S1046-67, 2/31/4/39]

1922 Md. Laws chapter 29
http://aomol.msa.maryland.gov/megafile/msa/speccol/sc2900/sc2908/000001/000563/html/am563--41.html

1922 Md. Laws chapter 452
http://msa.maryland.gov/megafile/msa/speccol/sc2900/sc2908/000001/000563/html/am563--1003.html

The author of these articles did not mean, in most instances, for his comments to be a reflection upon the individual serving in the capacity. Rather, he stated "It is not his fault that he has an obsolete job." (The Sun, 14 July 1915.)

As a result of the articles and the report of the Goodnow Commission, then Attorney General Albert C. Ritchie helped draft legislation "to put the State upon a more efficient and economical basis." (The Sun, 7 February 1916.)

The newspaper articles cited above were found on microfilm in the MSA Government Publications catalog - COMMISSION ON EFFICIENCY AND ECONOMY (Newspaper Clippings Relating to Reports of Commission on Efficiency and Economy) 1914-1917, MdHR Roll 322-8, PD1538 (Note: Articles in pdf are arranged as they appear on the microfilm and are not necessarily in chronological order)

Commission to Study the Judiciary of Maryland, 1953, quoted in John Carroll Byrnes, "Evolution of the Circuit Court of Baltimore City, 1632-1997," in Histories of the Bench & Bar of Baltimore City (Baltimore: Baltimore Courthouse and Law Museum Foundation, 1997) 44-45.

The duplication of courts and clerks was also discussed by The Sun in 1915, when the author discussed the Register of Wills and 6 court clerks -
"...no sound reason can be given why there should not be one clerk at the head of all the offices, which really are divisions of one office. If every one of the present clerks were to die tomorrow, neither the bar nor the public would be inconvenienced in the slightest degree, so far as the clerk's official duties are concerned."
"State Wastes $21,000 in Court Clerkships." The Sun, 26 July 1915.

Summary of Report: Suggestions for increasing efficiency to consolidate departments doing overlapping work; to replace commissions/boards with single individual department heads; to employ merit system for all employees below the rank of department head; to fomulate policies as guidelines for administration of state's work/business

3 reports which discuss the transition from a war time economy and how to re-purpose the workforce at the conclusion of hostilities.

BUREAU OF INDUSTRIAL STATISTICS AND INFORMATION (Biennial Report) 1884-1885, 1st, 1886/01/01, MdHR 785500, 2/7/9/17, E13026