body is that which is prescribed in terms by the organic act-promotion of the welfare of the wage earners of the United States. In the execution of this purpose the element of fairness between wage carner and wage earner, between wage earner and employer, between employer and employer, and between each and the public as a whole must be the supreme motive of all who represent the Department. The organic act is to be construed 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 as a command for doing so in harmony with the welfare of all industrial classes and of all legitimate interests and by methods tending to foster industrial peace through progressively nearer realizations of the highest ideals of industrial justice. ARTICLE II. SUBSIDIARY AND COLLATERAL PURPOSES. MEDIATION IN LABOR DISPUTES. SECTION 1. Through the Secretary the Department is empowered to mediate in labor disputes whenever in his judgment the interests of industrial peace require it to be done.1 LABOR DISTRIBUTION. SEC. 2. The authority of the Department for assisting in labor distribution is derived from the statutory duties of one of its branches as expanded inferentially by its own statutory powers. Its organic act (sec. 3) transferred to the Department of Labor an administrative unit of the Bureau of Immigration called the Division of Information, the statutory duties of which then were and still are "to promote a beneficial distribution of aliens admitted into the United States among the several States and Territories desiring immigration," to "gather from all available sources useful information regarding the resources, products, and physical characteristics of each State and Territory," to "publish such information in different languages," and to "distribute the publications among all admitted aliens who may ask for such information at the immigrant stations of the United States and to such other persons as may desire the same." By its transfer the Division of Information and its work of promoting a beneficial distribution of aliens were subordinated to the jurisdiction of this Department, the purpose of which, as prescribed by the act of transfer, is "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 profitable employment." Coming thus under the influence of that clause, the original powers 1 Organic act of the Department, sec. 8. of the Division of Information were so far expanded as to impose upon it the duty, when so directed by the Secretary and under his control,' of promoting a beneficial distribution not only of aliens but also of wage-earning citizens. FACTS ABOUT LABOR. SEC. 3. The Bureau of Labor and the Commissioner of Labor at the time of the passage of the organic act of the Department, and all that then pertained to them, including all the powers and duties theretofore possessed by the commissioner, were transferred to the jurisdiction and supervision of this Department by the titles, respectively, of "Bureau of Labor Statistics" and "Commissioner of Labor Statistics." Thereby the Department of Labor acquired administrative supervision of the function of gathering and diffusing among the people of the United States useful information upon subjects connected with labor in the general and most comprehensive sense of that word, and especially upon the relation of labor to capital, the ̧ hours of labor, the earnings of laboring men and women, and the means of promoting their material, social, intellectual, and moral prosperity. By the act of transfer the Bureau of Labor Statistics was required, under the direction of the Secretary of Labor, to collect, collate, and report at least once each year, or oftener if necessary, full and complete statistics of the conditions of labor and its products and the distribution of its products. Considered with reference to the foregoing statutory requirements and to the statutory declaration of the fundamental purpose of this Department, the fact-collecting, factcollating, and fact-reporting powers and duties of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, statistical and otherwise (subject to the Secretary), are coextensive with all the administrative powers and duties of the Department regarding the welfare of wage earners. IMMIGRATION. SEC. 4. By the organic act of the Department the Commissioner General of Immigration, the commissioners of immigration, the Bureau of Immigration and Naturalization, and the Immigration Service at Large, and all that then pertained to them, were transferred to the jurisdiction and supervision of the Department of Labor-the Bureau of Immigration and Naturalization being by that act divided into two bureaus. As one of these two is the Bureau of Immigration, the Department thereby acquired administrative supervision of the immigration laws, including the laws regulating the admission of Chinese. 1 Compare immigration act of 1907 as amended, sec. 40, with organic act of Department of Labor, sec. 3. ' Act of Congress approved June 27, 1884, and sec. 1 of act approved June 13, 1888. CHILD WELFARE. SEC. 5. By the organic act the Children's Bureau and all that pertained to it were transferred to the jurisdiction and supervision of the Department of Labor. Thereby this Department acquired supervisory jurisdiction over the investigation of all matters pertaining to the welfare of children and child life, more specifically of infant mortality, the birth rate, orphanage, juvenile courts, desertion, dangerous occupations of children, their employment, and their accidents and diseases, as well as State and Territorial legislation affecting them.1 NATURALIZATION. SEC. 6. In making two bureaus of the former Bureau of Immigration and Naturalization, the organic act (sec. 3) of the Department raised the then Division of Naturalization to the grade of a bureau by a new title, "Bureau of Naturalization," and altered the titles of "Chief Division of Naturalization" and "Assistant Chief" respectively to "Commissioner of Naturalization" and "Deputy Commissioner of Naturalization." It provided also that the administration of the naturalization laws should be in charge of the former (of the latter in the former's absence) under the immediate direction of the Secretary. Thereby this Department acquired administrative supervision of the naturalization laws. 1 Act of Congress of Apr. 9, 1912, entitled “An act to establish in the Department of Commerce and Labor a bureau to be known as the Children's Bureau.” |