I have the honor to submit my third annual report. The total appropriations for the fiscal year ended June 30, 1911, were $15,775,940.58, which, compared with the fiscal year ended June 30, 1910, shows a decrease of $6,641,551.56. This decrease is more apparent than real, because the chief expense of the Thirteenth Decennial Census was borne by the appropriations for 1910. Eliminating the census, with respect to which it is difficult to make comparisons, there is an increase over the preceding year of $498,448.44 in the appropriations for the fiscal year ended June 30, 1911. This increase was made necessary chiefly by the demands of the Bureau of Immigration and Naturalization for improved accommodations and service, but in some measure by the growth of other bureaus. In fact, the activities of the Department have been extended in many ways-sometimes by the provision of new legislation, at other times by natural development. As will appear in my reference to the office of the Disbursing Clerk, this Department collected in the course of its work during the fiscal year ended June 30, 1911, the total sum of $5,691,256.06, a sum which might be substantially increased if the right to collect fees for services and to sell publications were extended by law. The net appropriations out of the usual revenues amounted, therefore, to a balance of only $10,084,684.52. Furthermore, the books of the Department show that on December 1, 1911, there were unexpended balances of appropriations for the fiscal year 1911 aggregating $518,697.62. Against this amount payments are still being made, but it is estimated that the net balances of 1911 appropriations to be turned into the surplus fund of the Treasury Department will be somewhat in excess of $400,000. The entire force of the Department on July 1, 1911 (not counting 2,014 employees appointed for all or part of the Thirteenth Decennial Census and some temporary appointments in other branches of the service), amounted to 10,413, a net increase over the preceding year of 155 employees. Of these, 8,464 are employed outside of the District of Columbia, chiefly in the Bureau of Lighthouses, Steamboat-Inspection Service, Bureau of Fisheries, and Bureau of Immigration and Naturalization. Some of the bureaus may be expected to continue their work at about the stage which they have now reached, incurring little increased expense, and answering all legitimate demands upon them. Of others this is hardly true. It will appear from the discussion of the activities of the several bureaus that there is a constant normal expansion in all of them, while in case of a few it is hardly an exaggeration to say that the possibilities of their development have not been more than suggested. Generally speaking, the Department was designed to answer the needs of the general public. Its organization was a response to the modern demand for greater governmental assistance in the solution of problems and regulation of interests which concern all the people, and with which the individual is unable to cope. Especially such modern bureaus as Corporations, Labor, Standards, Manufactures, Fisheries, and even Immigration and Naturalization, represent this idea. The older bureaus, too, such as the Coast and Geodetic Survey, Lighthouses, Steamboat-Inspection, Navigation, Statistics, and the Census (more especially in its later development), belong to the constructive branch of the Government, which encourages active cooperation between public and private energy and between Federal and State authority in the promotion of a common policy. The general condition of the work of the Department is good. This must be attributed to close organization and the observance of economy, for which credit should be given to the Assistant Secretary, the personnel of the Secretary's Office, and the chiefs of the bureaus and divisions; as also to the devotion and vigilance of the general force, to which I am glad to testify. While all branches of the Department are discussed in my report, there are some things to which especial attention may be called. The Chief Clerk has, in addition to his regular duties and the extraordinary work which a hearing before an investigating committee entailed, rendered valuable service to the President's Commission on Economy and Efficiency. In this he has had the cooperation of other members of the force, who have from time to time been assigned for that purpose. The Chief of the Appointment Division renews his recommendation for the enactment of a law providing for the retirement with partial pay of superannuated employees, in which I earnestly join, as I did in my last report. This subject was fully discussed in a |