Mr. FABER STEVENSON, TREASURY DEPARTMENT, COMMITTEE ON AUDITING, Washington, D. C., February 21, 1910. Law Clerk's Office, Auditor Post Office Department. SIR: You are requested to prepare, for the committee appointed to investigate the Auditors' Offices, a report showing the jurisdiction of the Auditors and Comptrollers of the Treasury Department. In the report trace the duties of the Auditors and Comptrollers from 1789 to date. In connection with the report prepare a compilation of the laws pertaining to the duties of the officers named. Respectfully, M. O. CHANCE, Chairman. 5 TREASURY DEPARTMENT, OFFICE OF AUDITOR FOR POST OFFICE DEPARTMENT, Mr. M. O. CHANCE, Chairman Committee on Auditing, Treasury Department. SIR: In compliance with your direction of February 21 last, I submit the following report: Two of the principal duties assigned by law to the Treasury Department are, first, to secure safe custody and legal disbursement of the money of the United States, and, second, to secure accurate accountability and full public statement of the receipts and expenses of the Government. There is a field for an authoritative work on the Government's accounting system in its entirety. The subject may not be interesting to the lay reader, but its importance to the service will be conceded. The finances of the United States have been written up repeatedly; but the investigator finds too often that the data pertaining to the auditing of the Government's accounts is an incidental feature in a great number of reports and miscellaneous treatises. The accounting system of the Treasury Department, designed to concentrate all accounting agencies in that department, was created by Alexander Hamilton, the first Secretary of the Treasury. Comptroller Bowler said it was originally planned that no demand for the payment of money by the United States should be paid until a claim or an account had been certified by the accounting officers. But a practice grew up in the early history of the Government, without express authority of law, of employing agents to disburse appropriations. Subsequently disbursing officers were authorized by statute and in 1853 were provided for the several departments. In the original organization of that department, by the act of September 2, 1789, provision was made by the First Congress for a Secretary of the Treasury, an assistant to the Secretary, a Comptroller, an Auditor, a Treasurer, and a Register. The last four were accounting officers. In the common acceptation of the term, however, the Comptrollers and Auditors are essentially the accounting officers and are so taken in this report. It was the duty of the Auditor created by the act of 1789 to receive all public accounts and, after examination, to certify the balances and transmit the accounts, with vouchers and certificates, to the Comptroller for his decision thereon. The claimant was given the 7 |