3

By that transfer the Bureau of Labor, its title altered to Bureau of Labor Statistics, came under the jurisdiction and supervision of the Department of Labor. So did the Children's Bureau. The Bureau of Immigration and Naturalization was also placed under the jurisdiction and supervision of the Department of Labor, its title being altered to Bureau of Immigration. To those three bureaus a fourth was added by raising the Division of Naturalization in the former Bureau of Immigration and Naturalization to the rank of a bureauthe present Bureau of Naturalization. Thus the bureaus placed under the jurisdiction and supervision of the Department of Labor by its organic act, and which still remain under its jurisdiction and supervision, are the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Bureau of Immigration, the Children's Bureau, and the Bureau of Naturalization.

The act of Congress which effected that culminating labor-department legislation was approved by the outgoing President, Mr. Taft, on the 4th day of March, 1913. Under this act and on the same day you honored me with a seat at your Cabinet table as the first Secretary of Labor.

In consequence of your appointment the duty fell upon me of organizing that executive department for which the wage-earning interests of the United States had petitioned Congress again and again over the period of half a century; also the duty, which has rested upon me throughout the two terms of your historic administration, of directing the activities of this the youngest of the ten executive departments of the Federal Government.

ORGANIZATION OF THE DEPARTMENT OF LABOR.

Formal organization began with the date of the Department's creation-March 4, 1913.

Financial embarrassments.-Considerable financial embarrassment attended the initial work. Although the equipment and appropriations of the four bureaus transferred by Congress to the jurisdiction of the Department of Labor came over with the bureaus, their use was limited to the bureaus, respectively. Consequently they were not available for general departmental functions. For those functions the Congress that created the Department had neither supplied equipment nor made any financial provision. Until two months after its creation this new Department was consequently dependent upon

The Bureau of Labor Statistics had originally been the "Bureau of Labor in the Department of the Interior," then the independent "Department of Labor," and later the "Bureau of Labor" in the Department of Commerce and Labor.

The Bureau of Immigration was originally organized in the Treasury Department, having been transferred thence to the Department of Commerce and Labor, where it bore the title of "Bureau of Immigration and Naturalization."

See appendix.

the generosity of the Department of Commerce for departmental quarters and furniture and for clerical, messenger, and elevator service. Even the salaries of departmental officers were unprovided for.

As to salaries, the embarrassing situation was remedied by an act of May 1, 1913. But this act made no provision for subordinate clerks nor for meeting other working expenses in the Office of the Secretary. In those respects, therefore-in some others also the Department of Labor continued in a state of dependence upon the Department of Commerce until the close of the fiscal year, June 30, 1913.

The expenditures for the Office of the Secretary (consisting of the Secretary and his working force, the Assistant Secretary, the Chief Clerk and the Disbursing Clerk with their several assistants, the Division of Publications and Supplies, the Appointment Division, and the Solicitor and his assistants) were, for the four months of that fiscal year, $15,585.56-an average of less than $4,000 for each month of the Department's existence and at the rate of less than $50,000 a year.

Departmental quarters.—Another embarrassing phase of the internal organization related to departmental quarters. The bureaus which had been transferred to the Department of Labor were occupying rented premises, as follows: The Bureau of Labor Statistics was located at 462 Louisiana Avenue, the Children's Bureau at Ninth Street and Grant Place, and the Bureau of Naturalization at 1333 F Street. The Bureau of Immigration was the only one of the transferred bureaus which had occupied space in the Willard Building, the headquarters of the Department of Commerce and Labor. Those bureaus were permitted by the organic act to continue such occupancy until suitable quarters could be provided, but there was no space at all for the Office of the Secretary and its divisions.

Partly to meet that difficulty, two rooms of the Bureau of Immigration in the Willard Building were set aside. The Commissioner General of Immigration therefore moved into extremely narrow' quarters in order to make room for the Secretary of Labor. But this building, then occupied by both the Department of Commerce and the Department of Labor, as it had been by the former Department of Commerce and Labor, was already overcrowded.

It was in such congested conditions and with such limited finances that the Department of Labor began its work.

The congestion continued until about the middle of October, 1913, when the Department of Commerce moved from the Willard Building to its new building at Nineteenth Street and Pennsylvania Avenue NW. Even then the embarrassment did not end. Congress having assumed that the four bureaus of the Department of Labor

could be afforded space in the new building of the Department of Commerce, which had been erected for the accommodation of the former Department of Commerce and Labor and all its constituent parts, only $5,000 for rent for the Office of the Secretary during the remainder of the fiscal year ending June 30, 1914, was appropriated by the act of October 22, 1913. This was not enough for the emergency. Occupancy of the new building by both Departments would have interfered with plans of the Department of Commerce, which contemplated occupying the entire premises to the exclusion of the Department of Labor and all its bureaus.

Further embarrassments also arose. The leases which the Department of Commerce, as sole successor to the Department of Commerce and Labor, had acquired for the Willard Building, in which its executive offices and their branches and those of this department were quartered, ran only until October 15, 1913. There was danger, therefore, that, with but $5,000—the amount appropriated by the act of Congress last cited-available for rent for the remainder of the fiscal year from October 15, 1913, to June 30, 1914, the Department of Labor would be wholly without office accommodations.

The difficulty was finally overcome through a contract with the owners of the Willard Building, supplemented by a concession from the Department of Commerce. The former Department of Commerce and Labor, having paid an annual rental of $11,830 for the Willard Building, the owners of that building agreed to accept from this Department for the remainder of the fiscal year (from the end of the lease to June 30, 1914) the total amount at the disposal of the Department for rent, i. e., $5,000. Acceptance of this offer, however, would have accomplished little but for a further concession by the Department of Commerce, which provided temporary quarters in its new building for one of the bureaus of the Department of Labor-the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Excepting its Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Children's Bureau, the Department of Labor, with its constituent bureaus, was located in the Willard Building and maintained there until the close of the fiscal year 1914. But its difficulties continued. The owners of the Willard Building served notice that they would demand $11,830 for the term beginning July 1, 1914. Even if an appropriation of that amount for rent could have been confidently hoped for, the Department would still have been embarrassed for office accommodations unless the Bureau of Labor Statistics could be permitted to remain in the building of the Department of Commerce, a concession which the Department of Commerce hesitated to offer, because it needed the whole building for its own uses.

The logical and businesslike way of disposing of this matter, pending the erection of proper buildings, would have been to confer upon

the Department of Labor authority similar to that already granted the Department of Commerce. It should have been empowered to enter into a five-year lease of premises adequate to its uses and those of all its bureaus, the premises to be selected by the Secretary of Labor, at an annual rental in conformity with the legal rate per square foot, which, for the amount of space required, would aggregate $24,000. Under such authority this Department would have been able to secure quarters adapted to the transaction of its business and reasonably appropriate to the dignity of an executive department of the Federal Government. But that course was not adopted.

Extraordinary circumstances enabled the Department to lease the Mills Building at the low rental of $16,500. The arrangement being, however, for only one year, the lucky lease ended with June, 1915; and for a five-year term thereafter the rent demanded was $26,000. Though large, this amount was not considered excessive; but Congress prevented acceptance by limiting the rent appropriation to $20,000 a year for five years. A thorough canvass of the city was made, but no accommodations could be found at the rent appropriated. Finally a compromise was effected with the owner of the Mills Building at the appropriated sum of $20,000 on condition that the Department make certain repairs. But this arrangement was for one year only-the fiscal year ending with June, 1916.

With July, 1916, the difficulties with reference to departmental quarters ended, Congress having meanwhile authorized the leasing of a modern office building for five years at a rental of $24,000, and also for the renewal of the lease on the Mills Building for the fiscal year 1917 at a rental of $24,000. The building at 1712 G Street NW., in which the Department is now quartered, was erected under the general direction of the Department of Labor as its prospective tenant. The Department's occupancy of this building—which, until the United States entered the World War, was shared by all its bureaus, as well as the Office of the Secretary-began July 1, 1917. The present lease will terminate June 30, 1922, but is renewable for a further term of five years.

Office of the Secretary.

The Office of the Secretary comprises the Secretary of Labor, the Assistant Secretary of Labor, the Solicitor, the Chief Clerk, the Disbursing Clerk, the Division of Publications and Supplies, the Appointment Clerk, the News-Release Office, the Division of Negro Economics, and the Division of Conciliation. To these has recently been added an Advisory Committee on appeals and warrants in immigration proceedings.

The Secretary of Labor directs the collection and dissemination of statistics relating to the condition of labor and the products of labor. He has authority to call upon other departments of the Government for statistical data obtained by them on the same subject. He directs the correlation, arrangement, and publication of all such matter. It is further his duty to collect and publish information regarding labor interests and labor controversies in this and other countries. An act of Congress for compensating certain employees of the United States injured in the service was administered by the Secretary of Labor until those functions were transferred by a later act to the United States Employees' Compensation Commission. It has also been and still is his function to enforce the immigration laws, the Chinese-exclusion laws, and the naturalization laws. In connection with these he is invested with exclusive jurisdiction to decide appeals from decisions made by immigration officials at ports of arrival and over warrants for the deportation of resident aliens. Matters pertinent to child life are likewise under his supervision. In addition to these functions, formerly belonging to the Secretary of Commerce and Labor, the Secretary of Labor is charged with the relatively new Federal function of acting as mediator and appointing commissioners of conciliation in labor disputes whenever in his judament the interests of industrial peace may require it.

The Assistant Secretary of Labor performs such duties as are prescribed by the Secretary of Labor or may be required by law. No other duties are required of him by law than those prescribed by the Secretary, except that in case of the death, resignation, absence, or sickness of the Secretary, the Assistant Secretary must, unless otherwise directed by the President, perform the duties of the Secretary until a successor to the Secretary shall have been appointed or his absence or sickness shall have ceased."

The Solicitor is an officer of the Department of Justice assigned to the Department of Labor as its chief law officer. He examines and advises regarding contracts, leases, and bonds affecting the administration of the affairs of the Department, prepares legal opinions at the request of the Secretary, and performs such other legal services in connection with the administrative work of the Department as may be required of him by or on behalf of the Department or its bureaus. The solicitor is also authorized, pursuant to Executive order and by direction of the Secretary, to serve as Acting Secretary of Labor in certain circumstances."

The Chief Clerk has general management, under the immediate direction of the Secretary of Labor, of the clerks and employees of the Department and the enforcement of the regulations. He super