Los Banos Rotary Club History
Dr. Chester Moyle Hits Complacency

Speaking before the Rotary Club Tuesday noon, Dr. Chester Moyle, Merced County Health Officer, charged that waste, inefficiency and non-essential governmental services are costing the taxpayers millions of dollars annually. And the same taxpayers, unfortunately, don't seem to know, care, or show any interest in doing anything about it. Public complacency, he charged, has reached an all-time low.

Emphasizing that he was not criticizing or condemning our own county supervisors, but was trying to point out a friend, Dr. Moyle called attention to the fact that Merced county government, a big-time business capitalized at $60 million and doing a gross business of over $7million a year, employs for its executive management, five part-time men, who, regardless of their sincerity or effort, do not have the time or specialized training to handle the job in the most efficient manner.

And state and county governments are growing by leaps and bounds. California is now witnessing the greatest growth in history, with millions of new people coming into the state in the past decade to establish permanent residence. The emigration is still continuing, he said, at the rate of 40,000 a month, which means that all governmental functions must be further expanded at a considerable rate.

As one result of this emigration, Dr. Moyle pointed out that California is today spending a million dollars a day on welfare alone.

Further pointing to Merced county's growth of government, he said that cost of county government in 1944 was a little over one million dollars. Today, county government costs over $7 million. By contrast, the assessed valuation, since 1944, has increased only 1.44 times.

Condemning a too liberal welfare policy, both state and county, Dr. Moyle said that California has gone much too far in supplying welfare relief for the people . . . that the result has been that the state is subsidizing indolence and its accompanying evil, immorality.

Citing the crippled children's program as an example, Moyle pointed out that the program was originally intended to provide humane help for children whose parents were unable to supply the medical care necessary. In 1940, when the program was first instituted, there were about 1400 such cases in the state. However, the agency has built itself up far beyond original intentions, so much so that last year the agency handled over 40,000 cases.
As another example, he cited a Merced county family which had applied to the agency for aid, amounting to about $300 for an operation on a child. Investigation showed that the father has a prosperous trucking business; that from January to October this year he had already earned $8300; that they owned their own home, and several trucks. The Merced county agency denied the application. However, in many other counties, particularly in the larger cities, such application would probably have been processed as a matter of course – without benefit of such thorough investigation.

Most of the waste in county, state and federal government comes, Dr. Moyle said, in supplying the four "millstone" services –public health, protection to personal property, medical care and welfare—which combined add up to 61 per cent of our total county tax load.

Calling up his listeners to think where all of this is leading, Dr. Moyle emphasized that the time has come for thinking people to start thinking. . . to organize committees, to make personal investigations . . . . and to demand that our governmental agencies invoke a program of rigid economy, of capable administration, and of returning to the one-time American principle that it is the responsibility of every able-bodied man to earn his own living rather than having the government take care of him, hand and foot.

November 28, 1952

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