I have the honor to submit herewith for transmission to Congress, in accordance with the provisions of the organic act, the sixth annual report of this Department. Organized during your first administration, under the act approved February 14, 1903, the Department, as was naturally to be expected, has continually grown, both in extent and importance. Its functions are administered through twelve different bureaus, and it comes perhaps in closer touch with the human, as well as the economic, interests of the country than any other Department of the Government. Our age has been very properly called an era of commercial development and expansion, and the United States, by reason of its many exceptional advantages, its boundless natural resources, and possessing a growing, intelligent, energetic, enterprising, and selfreliant population, is reaping a greater share of industrial and commercial prosperity than any of the other nations of the world. As the head of the Department, it has been my constant aim to so administer its various branches as to afford the greatest amount of assistance, information, and guidance to the various industrial and commercial activities that come under its administrative scope. For the purpose of coordinating the work of the various bureaus which is more or less closely allied, I have continued the plan, adopted when I took charge of the Department two years ago, of periodically calling together in conference the chiefs of the bureaus, so that each might be informed as to the work that the other bureaus are doing, and render such cooperation as might be found desirable and advantageous. This I regard especially necessary for the Department, not only because of its varied activities, but also by reason of the fact that it has no building of its own, its several bureaus being housed in different parts of the city, most of them in rented quarters. The question has frequently been mooted, and doubtless will continue to be, that there should be a separate department for labor as distinguished from commerce. While this is a subject which is purely legislative, I deem it not out of place to briefly state why I would regard, at any rate for some years to come, such a separation unwise and not advantageous for labor. Labor and the industries and commerce are closely allied and interdependent. The head of a department charged with the administration of the commercial and industrial activities from which labor derives its chief employment and wages is in a better position to guard and promote the best interests of labor, especially in connection with the direction to be given for the development and expansion of commerce, domestic and foreign, than if his administration were confined to the interests of only one of these two great industrial forces, which are generally classified under the designation of capital and labor. That commerce which is developed and expanded to the detriment, either of the health or of the wage standard, of the laborers engaged therein, however profitable it might be in the material sense, is harmful to a nation's welfare, and should be discouraged. The head of a department who is charged with the administration of both of these interests would, in my judgment, be better qualified to direct commerce out of channels which lead to such serious consequences than if these interests were intrusted to separate administrations. I refer, for instance, to that class of industries which are deleterious to health or in which the labor of women and children, because it is much cheaper, largely enters; a subject which is now under investigation by the Department, and which will be more specifically referred to under the subdivision of this report entitled "Bureau of Labor." |