fect drainage, which makes flying possible the year around. Void of fog, it is not an uncommon sight to see airplanes landing at the field on Christmas Day. The Federal Government has already realized the importance of the Spokane airport to its military program of aerial defense, by locating the 41st Division Air Service Unit, Washington National Guard, at the scene of the national air races. Major John T. Fancher, Commander of the Unit, is managing director of the National Air Derby Association. His division of air service includes the 116th observation squadron, 116th photographic section. and 116th medical detachment. Ten Government planes are being flown under the regular army instruction of Lieutenant C. V. Haynes. For three summers this airport has been the northwest base for pilots flying Federal forest patrol planes over the vast and richly timbered area of Washington, Idaho and Montana. Three large steel hangars have been constructed at Government expense. Cities throughout the Northwest are determined to carry forward the slogan of the National Aeronautic Association-"Make America First in the Air." It was largely this slogan which aided in the promotion of the two Derbies, which will be flown by commercial airplanes only. The Northwest has long wanted a northern air mail line which would link together the rapidly increasing population of the Pacific Northwest with the eastern cities. Linking-in Cities and Towns Along the houic Therefore, the National Air Derby from New York is far more than a colorful sporting event, as the rules and regulations governing it link-in as many cities and towns along the route as possible. Pilots in the race are being ordered down for over-night stops and stops at five-minute control stations, for the purpose of stimulating an "air-mindedness" across the entire United States. TH Air-Mail Flying Field for HE artist's drawing, completed on July 20, of the Post Office Department's conception of the new Post Office Building to be erected in Chicago when Congress supplies funds to carry out the authorization already made, is reproduced in the accompanying illustration. In a statement issued with this drawing, John H. Bartlett, Acting Postmaster General, says: "In addition to providing the most up-to-date equipment for mail handling, including some altogether new time- and labor-saving features, plans Under the rules of the New York race, the first leg will be from Roosevelt Field to Cleveland, Ohio, where a five-minute landing will be made. The second leg will be to Chicago for another five-minute landing. St. Paul has been designated as the first over-night stop for A class planes, which will hop off at 5 A. M., September 21, on their last day's flight into Spokane. Aberdeen, N. Dak., Miles City and Butte, Mont., are the five-minute control stations into Spokane. Intermediate landing fields, where the planes will find gasoline and oil awaiting them, have been designated for A class planes at La Crosse, Wis., Lemmon, S. Dak., Billings and Missoula, Mont., Bellefonte, Pa., and Bryan, Ohio. Contestants in the B class will leave Roosevelt Field at 5:30, September 19, and will fly the first leg of their journey to Bellefonte, Pa., for not less than a five-minute stop. The second leg will be into Cleveland, and the third leg into Bryan, Ohio. Chicago will be the last leg of the first day's flying. As in New York, the start of the second day's journey will be from Chicago at 5 o'clock on September 20, with the first hop into St. Paul, Minn., the next into Fargo, N. Dak., the next into Bismarck, N. Dak., and the end of the second day's flying into Glendive, Mont., for an over-night stop. The start from Glendive the following morning will be for a five-minute stop at Billings, and then on to Missoula before the final dash into Spokane. These stops will serve to show the feasibility of landings, and will no doubt result in still further increasing the nation-wide interest in airports and aviation which has resulted from the recent exploits of American aviators at home and abroad. EDITORIAL NOTE.-For references to several sources of information on airports and aviation, see THE AMERICAN CITY for July, 1927, page 5. Another source from which valuable data on aviation can be secured is the Daniel Guggenheim Fund for the Promotion of Aeronautics (598 Madison Avenue, New York), which is sponsoring Colonel Lindbergh's three-months' air tour in the interest of commercial aviation. Chicago Post Office Roof for the new building picture an air-mail flying field on the roof, and the prediction is made that by the time the building is completed-in six or seven years-this feature will be a practical one. "The new building is to be erected on a site bounded by Canal and Clinton, Harrison and Polk Streets. The plot is 320 by 7942 feet, making 6 acres of ground space. It is contiguous to the Chicago Union Depot, making possible direct handling of mails to and from trains entering that station. The building is to be six stories high. The height of adjacent buildings at present would not interfere with landing airplanes on the roof. "Platforms on the first floor provide for train and mail car separations in a manner not previ PROFUSED NEW POST OFFICE, CHICAGO, at CANAL AND POLK STREETS, WITH AIRPORT ON ROOF The Acting Postmaster General says that this drawing should be entitled "A Glimpse into the Future, or Taking Time by the Forelock" SOME OF THE TONS OF PAPER NEW YORKERS SCATTER OVER THE STREETS DURING A POPULAR CELEBRATION Fifteen minutes after the parade had passed, the Department of Street Cleaning water sweepers were at work. The first view was taken on lower Broadway when Lindbergh arrived; the second, on Fifth Avenue between 26th and 27th Streets A Model City Purchasing System By Louis Brownlow OW can the city buy more and better HOO In answer to that question I am going than fifteen or twenty thousand and for those of more than half a million. In this city the purchasing agent buys all supplies and materials and lets minor contracts for repairs and small jobs — for all the city departments, including the water-works and the schools. That the inclusion of the latter might be difficult in cities where the school district is entirely independent of the city. government, I admit, but nevertheless it would save many taxpayers' dollars. Requisition for purchases come to the purchasing agent from any city employee authorized to make them, buy without competition in any amount below $500. But he gets competitive bids in every case-I will discuss emergency purchases later -down to one dollar. He keeps a record of these bids, whether they come in writing, over the telephone, or how. He posts on the bulletin board the notice that he intends to buy certain things and when. He does everything he can to get as many bids as he can. Centralized Purchasing and Emphasizing the fact that municipal Mr. Brownlow is a strong believer in centralized purchasing for municipalities. In one of the other letters of the series he says: "The centralized purchasing office is a necessity if the affairs of a city are to be well managed and if the money of the taxpayer is not to be wasted. There are limits, of course, in the size of the city in which one purchasing agent may handle all the work of the city, and in the very large cities decentralization of detailed work is necessary, but even in the largest of cities there should be a unification of direction and policy control cver all the purchasing agencies of the city." EDITORIAL NOTE.-Municipal and state purchasing agencies are discussed in a ten-page chapter of the Standards Yearbook for 1927, published by the U. S. Department of Commerce. but always with the signature of the responsible head of the department in which he is employed. Thus the purchasing agent holds responsible to him for the integrity of the requisition the heads of departments and no one else. For the schools, operating independently in all other respects, the requisitions come from the schools' business manager. When the requisition is received, it gives the character of the supplies desired, the amount estimated to be needed, and some indication of the exact class of supply to be bought. Based on this the purchasing agent gets competitive prices. He has no mark of $100 or $500 or $1,000 at which to begin to get competition-although the law says that he may When the bids are all in, he arranges for tests if need be, or for other means of comparing the products as well as the prices. If the product be well standardized, the price comparison alone is made and the award goes to the lowest bidder. Then a purchase order is made out in quintuplicate five copies with one operation of a specially designed typewriter. The original goes to the auditor. The auditor examines the order, sees that there is sufficient balance in the proper appropriation of the budget to pay for the goods when received, and charges the estimated cost of the total order He against that balance-even though delivery and One copy goes to the auditor, one to the requisitioner, one is retained by the purchasing agent and, in this particular city, the other goes to the city manager, who returns it to the head of the finance department for notation. This last copy then comes back to the purchasing agent, so that he has two files, one by name of the vendors, alphabetically, and one by serial number. The copy that goes to the requisitioner is most important. It has upon its face a blank to be filled in under the title "advice of material received." When the goods come, the receiving person who must have this copy fills in the statement of the goods received, their weight or count or other quantity measure, and their condition on arrival-good or bad. Then this copy goes back to the auditor, and the auditor will not pass the claim for payment until he has this copy duly certificated by the official who has received the goods. When the goods are paid for, the files will show a complete record of the transaction. The original requisition on file with the purchasing agent, the copy on file with the department that ordered the goods, the copies of the purchase order in two files in the purchasing office, and the auditor's copy with the statement that the goods have been received in full quantity and in good condition, attached to the files as supporting voucher for the payment made. With this the purchasing agent has his file of the prices submitted by other bidders to show the range of the competition. The history of any transaction may thus be run down in a few minutes. The fact that the system is operated by human beings means that there will be mistakes, and the very perfection of this system makes these mistakes show up. The consequence is that errors that under another system would be utterly undetectable here come to the top to be made much of by political opponents and others who for reasons of their own would prefer less publicity in city. purchases. Who Shall See to the City? The installation of a proper centralized purchasing agency under the right sort of man will save the city treasury much money, but it will inevitably bring on a whole lot of political trouble. The question arises at the very beginning: Shall the city buy where it can get the best prices? Or shall it buy from home-town merchants? There is political dynamite in that. Then: Shall the city buy from a firm in which a member of the city council or a city commissioner is a partner or a stockholder? I have held it to be wiser to buy from local merchants when they can supply the goods needed at the lowest price, freight and drayage being considered, or when the difference in time of delivery outweighs a slight advantage in price. But I hold that the bids of outside dealers should be invited and welcomed and that orders should be placed with them when they make the best offer, all things considered. The argument that because a man is a taxpayer he is entitled to the city business, is not sound when pursued to the point that it will cost all other taxpayers more money to give it to him. Then, so curious is human nature, the very fact that outside bids are to be taken will reduce the amount of the home folks' bids. I have seen it happen. As to the second question, I have known cities where the rule that no purchase could be made from any firm in which a member of the city administration was interested has been strictly applied, and I have known cities where there was no such rule, in which the purchases were made without favoritism. I also have known cities in which the prohibition existed but was ignored. From my experience, I believe that it is better to have such a rule and to enforce it rigidly. I formerly did not think so, and felt that under certain circumstances the rule might operate to the city's disadvantage. But I have changed my mind. The city purchasing agent ought to be like Caesar's wife, and he ought to refuse to receive a bid from any firm in which any member of the city administration is interested, if the laws and the charter so permit, and in many cities they do. It will give the purchasing agent an independence which is absolutely necessary to the success of his work. A good purchasing agent will be reasonable concerning emergency purchases made at night, or when there is no time for the routine, but he will be inflexible in seeing to it that every such emergency purchase is fully explained and is completed with due observance of all the formalities. The more red tape required after emergency purchases-none should be required before the purchase-the less will be the temptation to invent emergencies. Standards of Quality and Price Standards of quality as well as of price will be kept in mind. This brings up the extremely difficult matter of machinery and of patented and specialized articles where it is impossible to get direct competition. The best practice is to write open specifications and get the widest possible range of prices and then make the selection on the basis of performance tests and operating costs. In this phase of the work the opinion of the department head that is to use the machinery or appliance must be considered, and he always should be represented at the performance tests, or consulted as to the application of measures of quality. Yet even in this field, the very existence of a well-managed purchasing agency will tend to obtain closer prices for the city, especially when the purchasing agent is backed, as he ought always to be, with a city finance department so organized that it always discounts its bills. Many a city loses thousands of dollars a year because the bills have to go before the council or some other legislative body for formal approval before they can be paid. This delays them a month, and the cash discount is lost. I have never seen such a public formality of approval of bills amount to anything, and when it can be dispensed with in favor of the control of a modern financial organization controlled by a continuous audit, the city will save much money. None of this will have the full beneficial effect unless the purchasing agent is an able man, a good trader, an honest man and a hard S worker with a thick skin, who doesn't mind the slings and arrows of outrageous political gossip. If the purchasing agent is a crook, or a would-be crook, such a system will cramp his style so much that he will soon be reporting to the city council that all the red-tape should be abolished in the interest of economy. If the purchasing agent is a well-meaning ignoramus, this system will compel the employment of a chief clerk who will get some good out of it. In other words, regardless of the type of man at the head of the purchasing department, some such system as I have been describing will save the city money. The better the man at the top, the more money will be saved. For the lack of such systems, easy to install as they are, the cities and towns of the country are wasting every year hundreds of millions of dollars of tax money. (Copyright, 1927, by Current News Features, Inc.) Automatic Signal Systems Reduce IX of fifteen cities in New York State where electric traffic signals have been installed have already been able to reduce the number of traffic officers on duty. Two others expect to do so as soon as the public becomes sufficiently familiar with signal-controlled traffic. Two cities were able to remove men from corners where signals have been installed and place them on duty at certain times during the day at school street corners, or for parking regulation duty in congested sections. Kingston, among the five other cities, has installed signals only at particularly dangerous locations, and under conditions dissimilar to those in the average city. Gloversville and Salamanca have each installed but one light, so far, with no expectation of its replacing traffic officers. In Newburgh, only one of the ten lights installed is at an officer-controlled corner, and that is a corner where there is particularly heavy left-hand-turn traffic. There is no indication of disappointed expectations on the part of any of the fifteen cities, according to the recent report of the New York State Bureau of Municipal Information on "Reduction of Traffic Officers by Installation of Traffic Signals," upon which the above statements are based. On the contrary, several cities express unqualified enthusiasm for results already accomplished through the installation of automatic traffic-control systems. From Little Falls: "After personal investigation of our new trafficcontrol system, I cannot speak too highly. I feel proud to recommend it to you. It is very gratifying to note the wonderful change in our traffic since we have installed this ideal system on the main thoroughfares of our city. This addition has met with the approval of both the city officials and the public. It has reduced three of the traffic officers and has reduced our traffic accidents fully eighty per cent. I should like to see every dangerous street intersection of our city equipped with this good traffic-control system." Rochester Reports: "We find that the traffic signal is a great benefactor both to the motorist and the traffic policemen. The city of Rochester is rapidly installing more of them in outlying districts at dangerous intersections. These signals are controlled by individual motors which are started at 7 a.m. and turned off at 11:30 p.m. by officers in the precincts where they are located. In this way the motor is given a much needed rest." And from Mount Vernon: "Our traffic light system comprises twenty-six signal lights. These lights are in operation sixteen hours daily and were formerly manually operated from three booths, which method required six traffic officers (two officers per booth) daily. Recently we installed an automatic control unit in two of these booths, thereby relieving four officers for patrol duty, and this change meets with the approval of all, particularly with motorists, as the automatic unit plays no favorites. In case of emergency, such as unusual congestion, approach |