in legitimate need of fairly paid wage earners, and to the whole body of the wage earners of the United States.

OPERATIONS FOR FISCAL YEAR 1913.

During the fiscal year ending June 30, 1913, 19,891 applications by as many persons have been made to this division for information. Of those persons, 2,552 were native-born citizens of the United States, 2,411 Germans, 2,268 Polish, 1,306 Swedish, and 1,125 Spanish. The applications for information pertaining to farm work were 4,465 and to common laboring work 5,344. As in former years, many of the applicants represented groups of persons who could not apply individually.

The above figures do not include those applying by mail for information concerning purchase, rental, or character of lands. Such inquiries have been turned over to the State or groups of States concerning which information is sought. The inquirers are so informed, and are supplied with a copy of the division's bulletin of Agricultural Opportunities relating to the localities indicated by them.

Tables II and III of the division's report show that 5,025 persons were directed to employment in 32 different States. Of this number, 1,920 were directed to farm labor and 2,482 to common labor of other kinds. Of those who went direct to places of employment, Poles and Germans were in the lead among foreigners. Americans, however, furnish the largest number of any nationality thus benefited.

The division is of opinion that the sending of money and prepaid tickets abroad to defray the expense of aliens emigrating from Europe is a cause for much of the crowding of already overpopulated industrial centers. The charge has been made that labor agents enlist the aid of aliens in this country to induce relatives or alleged relatives to come here in violation of the immigration laws. It is a difficult fact to prove, but a belief prevails that padrones and parasitical labor-brokerage agencies do in such ways evade the laws against labor importation. Those agencies are also often charged with fraudulent labor transactions across State lines. They are accused of making false representations to both employers and wage earners in order to secure brokerage fees. To the wage earners they are said to misrepresent labor conditions, and to employers to sell (through collusion with foremen) the same workmen over and over again. The division recommends in this connection that every private employment agency and every person engaged in directing wage earners to places of employment across State lines be subjected to its supervision in order that parasitical labor agents may be distinguished from those engaged in legitimate industrial service. The Department concurs in that recommendation.

BUREAU OF NATURALIZATION.

When the title of the original Bureau of Immigration was altered to Bureau of Immigration and Naturalization, authority to administer the laws for the naturalization of aliens through the courts was vested in it, these laws being placed under the special charge of a division of the bureau to which that function was particularly assigned. Upon the creation of the Department of Labor, however, the organic act, restoring the Bureau of Immigration and Naturalization to its original name and purpose, raised the Division of Naturalization to the rank of a bureau, placing it in charge of a Commissioner of Naturalization and under the jurisdiction of this Department.

OPERATIONS FOR THE FISCAL YEAR 1913.

Reporting for the fiscal year upon the administration of the naturalization law, the Commissioner of Naturalization observes that the record is one of increasing harmony and unity of work between the courts and the Federal naturalization officers, and that with the passage of time the courts and the public are realizing more clearly the value of Federal supervision in developing uniformity of operation. Each year has shown an increase in the number of aliens declaring their citizenship intentions, in the number petitioning for naturalization and also in the number admitted to citizenship. During the fiscal year closing June 30, 1913, 181,632 declarations of intention were issued, and 82,017 certificates of citizenship granted-an increase in certificates over 1910 of more than 100 per cent. The average number of alien declarants for the first six years, excluding the first nine months of the operation of the law, has annually been 164,500 in round numbers, or, approximately, 17,000 less than shown for the fiscal year under review. During the year, 92,908 petitions for naturalization were heard by the various courts exercising naturalization jurisdiction; and of these, 10,891, or 11.72 per cent, were denied for various causes. The principal grounds for the dismissal of these petitions were: Ignorance 1,586, immoral character 522, failure to comply with requirements of law necessary for the court to acquire jurisdiction 4,641, want of prosecution 3,166, on motion of petitioner 303. The remaining dismissals were upon various grounds.

The naturalization fees received and deposited in the Treasury during the past year amounted to $350,716.60. As the cost of the administration of the naturalization law was $290,026.20, the excess of receipts over expenditures was $60,690.40.

An average of approximately 164,500 declarations of intention filed during the past six fiscal years indicates not far from 150,000 petitions for naturalization, it being estimated that approximately 14,000 declarants will not perfect citizenship within the seven-year period.

Estimates have been submitted for an increase in the clerical force of this bureau. The volume of work, already beyond the capacity of the employees heretofore provided, in spite of their frequently working overtime, is steadily increasing.

Legislation is desired also which will unify the requirements for naturalization of certain special classes of aliens, those who have been honorably discharged from service in the Navy, the Army, the Marine Corps, the Army transport service, and other vessels of the United States, and those who are or have been seamen in the American merchant marine.

CHILDREN'S BUREAU.

ORIGIN AND FUNCTIONS.

Established by act of Congress approved April 9, 1912, this bureau is the most recent in legislative origin of the four that were transferred from the Department of Commerce and Labor to the Department of Labor. Its functions are prescribed by the second section of that act as follows:

That the said bureau shall be under the direction of a chief, to be appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, and who shall receive an annual compensation of five thousand dollars. The said bureau shall investigate and report to said Department upon all matters pertaining to the welfare of children and child life among all classes of our people, and shall especially investigate the questions of infant mortality, the birth rate, orphanage, juvenile courts, desertion, dangerous occupations, accidents and diseases of children, employment, legislation affecting children in the several States and Territories. But no official, or agent, or representative of said bureau shall, over the objection of the head of the family, enter any house used exclusively as a family residence. The chief of said bureau may from time to time publish the results of these investigations in such manner and to such extent as may be prescribed by the Secretary of Labor.

OPERATIONS.

Appointed as the first chief of this bureau by the previous administration, Miss Julia C. Lathrop has been retained as such by the present administration. Her official report for the last fiscal year, which (like the reports of the other bureaus that have come under the jurisdiction of this Department) has to do with the supervisory administration of the Department of Commerce and Labor for the first eight months of that year, represents the administration of the Department of Labor only from March 4 to June 30, 1913. The purposes and activities of this bureau are summarized from its report as follows:

Established as a result of the belief that the Federal Government should assist in the protection and betterment of children, by investigations and by popularization of useful information, just as the various bureaus of the Department of Agriculture have for years assisted in the betterment of farm plants and animals, the Children's Bureau was directed to investigate and report "upon all matters pertaining to the welfare of

children and child life." As children under 16 years of age constitute about onethird of the total population, and as the welfare of that one-third is intimately bound up with the welfare of the other two-thirds, it is obvious that during the first year of life, the bureau, with the limited appropriation of a new enterprise, could do little more than organize its small staff of fifteen persons, map out its field, and meet as far as possible the numerous requests which immediately began to flow in from organizations and private individuals for information upon every conceivable subject connected with children.

The bureau has, however, prepared and published during the year four bulletins (in addition to a brief circular relating to its establishment)—the first upon the need for more complete birth registration as a foundation for all statistics of childhood; the second upon the baby-saving campaigns which are being conducted by cities all over the United States; the third upon prenatal care; and the fourth upon the number of children in the United States, with their sex, age, race, nativity, parentage, and geographic distribution. Several other bulletins, including one containing the results of the first field investigation of infant mortality and one on child-labor legislation, are nearing completion or ready for the press, and still others are begun or definitely planned. Infant mortality recommended itself as the subject of the first field investigation, not only because it is a subject which is challenging the attention of the entire civilized world, but because it was practicable to approach it by studying one community of manageable size at a time, with the staff and appropriation at command. For various reasons Johnstown, Pa., was chosen as the first community to be studied. Records of all the babies born there within a year were copied, a schedule was prepared with a view to securing, not merely a history of the baby's life, but a picture of the social, civic, and industrial conditions of its family, and women field investigators were sent out to the homes where they obtained histories of the first year of life for 1,551 babies born in Johnstown during that year.

A review of child-labor legislation, containing a summary and the text of all the laws regulating the employment of children in the 52 political divisions of the United States, is practically completed, and a study of the methods of issuing work certificates to children in use in the different States is well under way. The employment certificate is a method both of opening the doors of industry to the child and of protecting his life, health, and morals during his earliest years at work; and the degree to which various systems actually give such protection is therefore one of the most significant questions connected with the child-labor problem. Another study which has been begun is of records relating to positions held and work done by children during the period, usually from 14 to 16, when they are obliged to have work certificates.

The bulletin on the number of children in the United States already published is but the first part of a statistical handbook, the second part of which, on the growth of the child population, is begun. Other parts of this handbook will deal with child · labor, school attendance, and defective, dependent, and delinquent children. The bulletin on prenatal care is also the first of a series on the health of children, and a second bulletin of this series, covering the care of infants, is in progress. Still another piece of work undertaken by the bureau is a test of the completeness of birth registration, which has been urged by the Census Bureau as calculated to stimulate public interest and make more complete the fundamental vital statistics of the country. This work is being carried on in cooperation with women's clubs in the different States. A library on child welfare, composed largely of current literature, pamphlets, clippings, and data not yet in print, derived through correspondence, was obviously one of the first needs of the new bureau, not only for use in the preparation of its publications, but more particularly for use in furnishing information concerning the latest developments in work for children all over the world. Such a library, of a distinctive type, for the bureau's own use and for that of the public, has been begun and is progressing as rapidly as possible with available funds.

It is obvious that the Children's Bureau has as yet made but a small beginning toward meeting the pressing needs felt by those who urged its establishment and reflected continuously and insistently in its own widely scattered correspondence. Much of its work during this first year was necessarily exploratory in character and much time was necessarily devoted to securing a staff and equipment and to organizing and laying plans for future work. With a force of only 15 persons, some of whom were not secured until February, 1913, and with only about $4,000 for contingent expenses of all sorts, including traveling expenses of field agents, etc., it was obviously impossible for the Children's Bureau to make elaborate investigations and to issue numerous valuable publications. It is believed, however, that the first year's work, as well as the vital importance and wide scope of the field assigned to the Children's Bureau, justifies a request for a considerable enlargement of its staff and for a considerable increase in its appropriation, in order that it may be able to push to completion as rapidly as possible work already begun, to undertake other constructive studies, and adequately to perform the duties assigned it by law.