Apart from the agitation of such questions as the regulation of primary elections, equal suffrage, the initiative and referendum, and the debates on the establishment of the board of control of state institutions in 1898 and the creation of the state board of education in 1909, there has been little or no discussion of the problem of the reorganization of state government in Iowa until very recently. Indeed, a lively interest in the problems of reorganization seems first to have found expression in 1913 in the thirty-fifth general assembly which, besides endorsing the short ballot principle by providing for the appointment of the state superintendent of public instruction, the clerk of the supreme court, and the supreme court reporter, authorized the joint committee on retrenchment and reform to employ “expert accountants and efficiency engineers” and to “institute such changes in the administration of public affairs as will promote the efficiency and economical administration of the affairs of the State in its various departments.”

It was in accordance with the legislation of March 17, 1913, that the firm of Quail, Parker & Co. was engaged to assist the joint committee on retrenchment and reform and under the direction and supervision of that committee “to examine and report upon the existing procedures incident to the transaction of the business of the State in the various offices and departments located at the seat of government in the city of Des Moines; and to make recommendations with a view to the betterment thereof.” The sum of $10,000 was appropriated to meet the expenses of the proposed investigations.