opportunities for profitable employment, but as a command for doing so in harmony with the welfare of all industrial classes and all legitimate interests, and by methods tending to foster industrial peace through progressively nearer realizations of the highest ideals of industrial justice.

ORIGIN OF THE DEPARTMENT.

Although the Department of Labor is the youngest of the executive departments, suggestions and proposals for such a department appear to have been urged continuously since the Civil War. So numerous and persistent were they over the long period intervening between the earliest of them and the creation of this Department, an interval of nearly half a century, as to indicate a steadily strengthening popular demand for some such act of Congress as that under which this Department operates.

EARLY PROPOSALS.

A department of the Federal Government with reference to the welfare of wage earners, and with a secretary in the President's Cabinet to speak for them, was advocated in 1865 by prominent labor leaders. Their suggestions appear to have been officially adopted in 1866 by the labor organizations of that period. Probably the only earlier proposal in anywise of similar character was that of a bill introduced in Congress in 1864 by the Hon. Gottlieb Orth, then a Representative from Indiana, for the creation of a “Department of Industry." Numerous formal measures bearing on the subject were proposed in Congress from that time forward during the following 40 years or more. More than a hundred bills and resolutions anticipating the present Department of Labor and introduced between 1864 and 1902 are summarized at pages 13 to 21 of the public document entitled "Organization and Law of the Department of Commerce and Labor," published from the Government Printing Office in 1904 and now out of print. In 1867 congressional action was secured, but only on a resolution instructing the Committee on Rules to inquire into the expediency of the creation of a standing labor committee.

Some of the measures introduced in Congress, both before and afterward, were more intimately related to the commercial and business side of industrial affairs than to the wage-earning side. Others, however, distinctly anticipated the present Department of Labor and its principal functions. Among the latter was a bill, passed by the House of Representatives in 1871, for the appointment of a commission on the subject of wages and hours of labor and the division of profits between labor and capital in the United States. There were

also bills for establishing a "Bureau of Labor," a "Labor Bureau in connection with the Department of Agriculture," a "Bureau of Labor with a Commissioner of Labor," a "Bureau of Labor Statistics," a "Bureau of Labor Statistics in the Interior Department," and a "Department of Industry." None of these bills was enacted. But several others of similar tenor and purpose, introduced at the first session of the Forty-eighth Congress (1883-84) were followed in 1884 by preliminary legislation in the direction of the present Department of Labor.

BUREAU OF LABOR.

Among those bills was one in the Senate for a "Bureau of Labor Statistics," introduced by Senator Blair. In the House there was one for a "Bureau of Statistics of Labor and Industries," by Representative Willis; one for a "Bureau of Labor Statistics," by Representative O'Neill; one for a "Department of Labor Statistics," by Representative Hopkins; one for a "Bureau of Labor Statistics,' by Representative McKinley (afterwards President); one for a 'Department of Industry," by Representative Foran; and one for a "Bureau of Labor Statistics," by Representative Lamb. Out of these an act was framed. As a result, therefore, of 20 years of agitation over the country and of effort in Congress for a department of the Federal Government especially representative of the interests of wage earners, this act, approved June 27, 1884, created a bureau in the Department of the Interior by the name of the "Bureau of Labor." That original "Bureau of Labor," transformed in 1888 into an independent department by the name of the "Department of Labor," with a Commissioner of Labor as chief and therefore not of sufficient rank to be called into the Cabinet by the President, was placed in 1903 under the jurisdiction of the Department of Commerce and Labor as the "Bureau of Labor." It has now come under the jurisdiction of this Department as the "Bureau of Labor Statistics."

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE AND LABOR.

Meanwhile the original agitation for a Department of Labor with a Secretary of Labor in the President's Cabinet continued. In 1885 Representative Weaver introduced a bill for an executive Department of Labor with a Secretary of Labor. General Weaver's bill was referred to the Committee on Labor and got no farther; but during the next 18 years several bills having the same or a similar purpose were introduced, and at the end of that time substantial legislative progress was made. In form these bills were of considerable variety, although their purpose appears to have been much the same, and some were quite alike in title to some of those introduced during the period preceding the creation of the original

Bureau of Labor. Among them were bills to establish, respectively, a "Department of Agriculture and Labor," a "Department of Industry and Bureau of Labor," a "Department of Labor," a "Department of Agriculture and Industry," and a "Department of Industries." None was enacted. During this second period, however, several bills of a somewhat different character and purpose were introduced which ultimately played an important part in the creation of the present Department of Labor. Whatever the title any of them may have borne, the object of all was a "Department of Commerce." These proposals for an executive department in the interest of commercial business being finally blended with those for an executive department in the interest of the welfare of wage earners, the Department of Commerce and Labor was created by act of Congress approved February 14, 1903.

DEPARTMENT OF LABOR.

For 10 years thereafter the welfare of wage earners of the United States was consequently intrusted to an executive department designed to represent the interests also of employers. This amalgamated representation of interests that are at times in serious conflict proved unsatisfactory. An executive department the same in principle as that which had for nearly half a century been urged in the interest of wage earners was demanded with greater popular emphasis than before, and after 10 years, the Department of Commerce and Labor being transformed into the Department of Commerce, the present Department of Labor was created by the act of Congress of March 4, 1913, entitled "An act to create a Department of Labor." All functions relating more especially to the business side of industrial problems were by that act assigned to the Department of Commerce; the Department of Labor was more especially charged with those that relate to the welfare of wage earners.

Formal organization of the Department of Labor began with the date of its creation, March 4, 1913.

ORGANIZATION OF THE DEPARTMENT.

The Department of Labor consists of the Office of the Secretary of Labor and four subordinate bureaus.

The Office of the Secretary comprises (1) the Secretary of Labor, (2) one Assistant Secretary of Labor, (3) a Solicitor, (4) a Chief Clerk, (5) a Disbursing Clerk, (6) a Division of Publications and Supplies, and (7) a Division of Appointments.

The bureaus of the Department are (1) the Bureau of Labor Statistics, (2) the Bureau of Immigration, which includes the Division of Information, (3) the Bureau of Naturalization, and (4) the Children's Bureau.

SECRETARY.

The Secretary of Labor directs the collection and dissemination of statistics relating to the condition of labor and to 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, in his discretion, 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. The act of Congress for compensating certain employees of the United States injured in the service is administered by him. He enforces the immigration laws, the Chinese-exclusion law, and the naturalization laws. Matters pertinent to child life are also under his supervision. In addition to those functions, formerly belonging to the Secretary of Commerce and Labor, the Secretary of Labor is invested with the new departmental function of acting as mediator and appointing commissioners of conciliation in labor disputes whenever in his judgment the interests of industrial peace may require it to be done.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY.

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 now 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 Secretary until a successor to the Secretary shall have been appointed or his absence or sickness shall have ceased.

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SOLICITOR.

The Solicitor of the Department of Labor is an officer of the Department of Justice. He is assigned to the Department of Labor as its chief law officer. Accordingly, he examines and advises regarding all contracts, leases, and bonds affecting the administration of the affairs of the Department and all claims under the act of Congress for compensating Government employees injured in the service. He also prepares legal opinions and performs such other services in connection with the administrative work of the Secretary of Labor as may be required of him by or on behalf of the Department or its bureaus.

CHIEF CLERK.

Under the immediate direction of the Secretary of Labor, the Chief Clerk has general management of the clerks and employees of the Department and the enforcement of its regulations. He superintends all building accommodations of the Department in the District of Columbia. He supervises all expenditures of contingent appropriations and rents. The mail of the Department and its various bureaus is received and distributed by him. He also discharges all the miscellaneous business of the Office of the Secretary which is not otherwise assigned.

DISBURSING CLERK.

The Disbursing Clerk is charged with the custody and expenditure 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.

DIVISION OF PUBLICATIONS AND SUPPLIES.

The Chief of 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. He has the custody and general supervision of the purchase and distribution of supplies, and has under his direction the Department's advertising. He also compiles semiannual returns of all public property under the control of the Department.

DIVISION OF APPOINTMENTS.

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 of the personal files of employees and of their efficiency reports.