intends all building accommodations in the District of Columbia, supervises all expenditures of contingent appropriations and rentals, and receives and distributes the mail of the Department and its various bureaus. He also supervises all the miscellaneous business of the Office of the Secretary not otherwise assigned.

The Disbursing Clerk is charged with the custody and expenditures of Department appropriations, with the custody of receipts from naturalization fees, with supervision of transportation requests and vouchers, and with the auditing of all the accounts of the Department and its bureaus.

The Division of Publications and Supplies supervises the printing and distribution of departmental publications and blank forms, and is in direct charge of the business of the Department with the Government Printing Office. It has the custody and general supervision of the purchase and distribution of supplies, directs the Department's advertising, and compiles semiannual returns of all public property under the control of the Department.

The Appointment Clerk prepares all papers connected with appointments, transfers, promotions, reductions, details, furloughs, and removals of employees of the Department, and is custodian of the oaths of office and the personnel files of employees and of their efficiency reports.

The News-Release Office was established by an order of the Secretary dated June 12, 1914. This order directed the designation of an official in each bureau to submit reports at regular hours daily to the Assistant Secretary for his action with reference to their release for general publication. At a meeting of the bureau officials so designated, held for consultation on August 21, 1914, regulations in the matter were established, under which news material originating in any branch of the Department is required to pass through the News-Release Office prior to release for publication, except such local news as may be released in field or station service. Any information about any of the work of the Department, so far as it may have news value, is available for such use, provided it may be published without prejudice to the public interest.

Other subdivisions. The origin and activities of the Division of Conciliation, the Employment Service, the Division of Negro Economics, the war-work divisions, and the Advisory Committee on appeals and warrants in immigration procedure, all of which are or have been in the Office of the Secretary, are described elsewhere in this report.s

The four bureaus.-The perplexities attending the formal organization of the Office of the Secretary in this new executive department

See Part I and Part II, pp. 24-25, 38-39, 41-43, 52, 68-71, 78-155.

were only slightly accentuated-in some respects they were lessenedby the necessity for adjusting the four bureaus to their new departmental environment.

As already noted, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Bureau of Immigration, the Children's Bureau, and the Bureau of Naturalization, all of which had theretofore functioned in the Department of Commerce and Labor, were transferred to this Department upon its statutory creation. Since each had already been internally organized-the last, however, as a division in a bureau instead of a bureau-the process of adaptation to their new departmental relationship was simple in comparison with the difficulties of organizing the Office of the Secretary. Such difficulties as this readaptation did involve were greatly minimized by the fact that the bureaus had been financed with more or less adequate appropriations, and the further fact that the officials and employees of each bureau cooperated with the Secretary cordially.

By the organic act each of these bureaus is placed under the jurisdiction and supervision of the Department of Labor, its work and duties to be executed under the direction of the Secretary of Labor. Full reports upon their respective activities since their transfer to this Department and until the close of the fiscal year 1919 will be found in the seven preceding annual reports of the Department and its bureaus. 10 Abstract reports of their activities for the year 1920 appear in Part II of this report.

Interdepartmental coordination.-By section 10 of the organic act of the Department of Labor 11 the Secretary of Labor was required to investigate and report to Congress a plan for coordination of the activities, duties, and powers of the present bureaus, commissions, and departments so far as they relate to labor and its conditions, in order to harmonize and unify such activities, duties, and powers with a view to further legislation to further define the duties and

See appendix.

10 See Department Report for 1913, pp. 24-48; also 347-351 for the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 93-344 for the Bureau of Immigration, 73-90 for the Children's Bureau, 355-388 for the Bureau of Naturalization. Department Report for 1914, pp. 58-88; also 521-528 for the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 125-520 for the Bureau of Immigration, 107-123 for the Children's Bureau, 529-565 for the Bureau of Naturalization. Department Report for 1915, pp. 56-86; also 89-98 for the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 99-356 for the Bureau of Immigration, 357-380 for the Children's Bureau, 381-415 for the Bureau of Naturaliza tion. Department Report for 1916, pp. 89-121; also 137-150 for the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 151-401 for the Bureau of Immigration, 403-427 for the Children's Bureau, 429-506 for Bureau of Naturalization. Department Report for 1917, pp. 120-152; also 163-172 for the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 173-423 for the Bureau of Immigration, 425-472 for the Children's Bureau, 473-551 for the Bureau of Naturalization. Department Report for 1918, pp. 160-200; also 235-243 for the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 245-554 for the Bureau of Immigration, 555-579 for the Children's Bureau, 581-651 for the Bureau of Naturalization. Department Report for 1919, pp. 225-275; also 315-324 for the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 327-720 for the Bureau of Immigration, 721-750 for the Children's Bureau, 751-862 for the Bureau of Naturalization.

11 See appendix.

power of such Department of Labor." The organic act in this respect manifestly contemplated a special report. Therefore, on the 9th day of January, 1917, after careful preparation over a considerable period and with the aid of experienced employees of the classified service, a special report was made and transmitted by the Secretary of Labor to Congress.12 As yet Congress has taken no action on this special report.

Mediation and Conciliation.-One of the most important requirements of the Department of Labor is that under which the Division of Conciliation has been organized in the Office of the Secretary as noted above. It is embodied in section 8 of the organic act 13 as follows:

The Secretary of Labor shall have power to act as mediator and to appoint commissioners of conciliation in labor disputes whenever, in his judgment, the interest of industrial peace may require it to be done.

No other provision having been made by Congress for organizing a bureau or statutory division for the purpose of administering the power thus created, it has been administered from the beginning by the Secretary of Labor under his own immediate direction.

At first, from total lack of appropriations for the purpose, the Secretary was obliged to draw such assistance as could be spared from bureaus organized for collateral purposes. Notwithstanding that handicap, however, and others of a kind that usually obstruct the development in practice of novel administrative functions, appreciable progress was made at once in conserving the interests of industrial peace. In the following years and supported by direct though altogether inadequate appropriations, the Division of Conciliation in the Office of the Secretary has been established. Its work, which has been of extraordinary value to all parties affected by industrial disputes, has been described in considerable detail from year to year in the reports of the Department down to and including 1919.14 For the year 1920 the work of this departmental agency is accounted for in Part II of the present report.

Employment Service. In his first report the Secretary of Labor suggested that the Division of Information in the Bureau of Immigration might be developed into an effective national employment agency for promoting the fundamental purpose of the Department of Labor as defined by the organic act.

The Division of Information had been established in 1907 as part of the then Bureau of Immigration and Naturalization (later the Bureau of Immigration), for the purpose of promoting a beneficial

12 For full copy of this special report see Department Report for 1917, pp. 94-103; also appendix to this report, post, pp. 226–233.

13 See appendix.

14 Department Reports as follows: 1913, pp. 14-23; 1914, pp. 21-50; 1915, pp. 9-34; 1916, pp. 10-53; 1917, pp. 50-56; 1918, pp. 12–95; 1919, pp. 27-120.

distribution of aliens admitted to the country. Why not utilize it for promoting a beneficial distribution of citizens also?

In connection with this suggestion, the Secretary insisted that workers should not be directed to labor markets already supplied in excess of opportunities for their profitable employment. Such a policy, which was frequently urged upon the Department, would have stultified the fundamental purpose prescribed by its organic act, namely, to "foster, promote, and develop the welfare of the wage earners of the United States." 15

Following the Secretary's suggestion, the functions of the Division of Information were experimentally utilized for employment purposes in behalf of citizens and aliens alike. As the division had been placed by Congress in a Department charged with promoting the welfare of the wage earners of the United States, its function of promoting a beneficial distribution of aliens was regarded as having been inferentially enlarged so as to include citizens. This experiment was first made with reference to harvest help just at the close of the fiscal year 1914, and with reference to factory employment at about the same period. The particulars of the experiment and its development from 1914 to 1920 into the United States Employment Service are set out in the annual reports from 1914 to 1919, both inclusive.16

DEPARTMENTAL LABOR POLICY.

The Department of Labor was created in the interest of the wage earners of the United States. This is expressly declared in that clause of the first section of the organic act, which reads:

The purpose of the Department of Labor shall be to foster, promote, and develop the welfare of the wage earners of the United States, to improve their working conditions, and to advance their opportunities for profiable employment. Accordingly the Department has been administered in all its activities with reference to the just interests of wage earners and to the promotion of their industrial and social welfare. In that declaration of the organic act, there is, of course, no authority to foster, promote, or develop for wage earners any special privileges. Nor has the Department attempted or desired to create or foster special privileges for anyone. Wage earners are already heavily burdened with special privileges in favor of other interests. It should be their aim to abolish or modify these, rather than to secure special privileges for themselves.

Organizations. Neither has the Department regarded wage earners who are associated together in unions as the only wage earners for

18 Department Report of 1913, p. 43.

16 Department Reports of 1914, pp. 50-57; 1915, pp. 34-45; 1916, pp. 53–73; 1917, pp. 67-94; 1918, pp. 199-219 and 673–729; 1919, pp. 276-302 and 885-1056.

whom the law requires it to be solicitous. Created in the interest of the welfare of all wage earners in the United States, whether organized or unorganized, the Department has been administered in the interest of all from its beginning.

Inasmuch, however, as ordinarily it is only through organization that the many of any industrial group or interest can become articulate with reference to their common needs and aspirations, the Department has usually been under the necessity of turning to labor organizations for definite and trustworthy advice with reference to wage-earning interests. Official intercourse with individuals as such has practical limits which organization and representation alone can expand.

Manifestly, the Department of Labor must invite the confidence and encourage the coopertaion of responsible labor organizations and their accredited officers and committees if it is to serve its prescribed purpose through an intelligent and effective administration of its authorized functions. It has, therefore, sustained friendly relations with labor organizations. This it had to do and ought to continue to do in the interest not only of all wage earners but also of efficient administration and the general welfare.

Nevertheless, the Department has not in that respect been exclusive. Similar relations with unorganized wage earners, to the extent that this is practicable, also with employers and their organizations, to the extent to which they themselves permit, are likewise a duty of the Department which it has scrupulously performed.

The great guiding purpose-the purpose that has governed the department at every turn, the purpose that should continue to govern it, the purpose that should be understood and acquiesced in by everybody, is the purpose prescribed by the organic act, namely, promotion of the welfare of the wage earners of the United States. In the execution of this purpose the element of fairness to every interest is of paramount importance. The Department has therefore made fairness between wage earner and employer, between wage earner and wage earner, between employer and employer, and between each and the public as a whole the supreme motive and purpose of all its activities. The act of its creation is construed by it not only as a law for promoting the welfare of the wage earners of the United States by improving their working conditions and advancing their opportunities for profitable employment but also as a command for doing so in harmony with the welfare of all industrial groups and all legitimate interests, and by methods tending to foster industrial peace through progressively nearer realizations of the highest ideals of industrial justice. 17

17 Department Reports of 1913, pp. 7-9.