OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY. CHIEF CLERK. Considerable financial embarrassment attended the initial work of organizing the Department of Labor. APPROPRIATIONS. The equipment and appropriations of the four bureaus transferred by Congress to the jurisdiction of the Department of Labor came over with them; but as their use was limited to the bureaus, respectively, they were not available for general departmental functions. For those functions the Congress that created the Department provided no equipment at all, nor did it make any financial provision. Until two months after its creation the Department was wholly dependent upon the generosity of the Department of Commerce for departmental quarters and furniture and for clerical, messenger, and elevator service. Even the salaries of departmental officers were unprovided for. That embarrassing situation was remedied as to salaries by act of May 1, 1913. But this act made no provision for subordinate clerks nor for meeting other working expenses in the Office of the Secretary. In those respects, therefore, and in some others, the Department continued in a state of dependence upon the Department of Commerce until the close of the fiscal year. The Department of Commerce transferred to the Department of Labor May 8, 1913, the sum of $3,013.38 to cover salaries for 12 clerks, 2 assistant messengers, 1 laborer, and 1 messenger boy. It added from the same appropriations $12,228.10 for contingent expenses (of which $2,293.32 was expended for the Office of the Secretary) and $35,047.40 for printing and binding ($3,212.20 of which was expended for the Office of the Secretary) for the remainder of the fiscal year. EXPENDITURES. Adding to the sums thus transferred the sum of $7,066.66 (being that portion of the amount directly appropriated to the Department of Labor by the act of May 1, 1913, for the salaries of administrative officers), it appears that the expenditures for the Office of the Secretary (consisting of the Secretary and his working force, the Assistant Secretary, the Chief Clerk, and the Disbursing Clerk, with their several assistants, the Division of Publications and Supplies, the Appointment Division, and the Solicitor and his assistants) were for the fiscal year closing June 30, 1913, only $15,585.56. 35862°-14- 4 49 The portions of appropriations turned over for disbursement on behalf of the four bureaus as of March 4, 1913, a considerable share of which was to meet obligations previously incurred, were as follows: Bureau of Labor Statistics.. Bureau of Immigration.... Total.. $184, 002. 36 1, 988, 745.71 88,295.90 12, 058.57 2,273, 102.54 From all sources, therefore, the aggregate appropriations for the Department and its constituent parts to the close of the fiscal year 1913 were $2,330,458.08. RECEIPTS. The receipts of the bureaus of the Department amounted for the entire fiscal year closing June 30, 1913, to $5,167,185.73, and for so much of the period in that year as those bureaus were under the jurisdiction of this Department, to $2,123,486.41. They are tabulated as follows: Bureau of Immigration: Head tax.. Fines. Court costs.. Exclusive privileges.. Telephone rentals and sale of ice.. Bureau of Naturalization: Receipts of naturalization fees under the provisions of the act of June 29, Proceeds of sale of condemned Government property, forfeited bonds in Total. NET APPROPRIATIONS. As those receipts of the Department's bureaus were by law covered into the Treasury without deduction, it may be readily seen by the following tabulation that the total appropriations available for the use of the Department exceeded the total receipts by only $206,971.67 during the first four months of its existence: Total appropriations available for operation of the Department and its bureaus from Mar. 4 to June 30, 1913.. Receipts of the bureaus of the Department for the same period covered into the Treasury.. Excess of appropriations over receipts... DEPARTMENT QUARTERS. $2,330, 458. 08 2, 123, 486. 41 206, 971. 67 One of the first difficulties confronting the Department was the problem of departmental quarters. The organic act permitted "any office, bureau, or branch of the public service transferred to the Department of Labor" and at that time "occupying rented buildings or premises," to "still continue to" occupy them "until other suitable quarters" were "provided for its use"; but no space at all was allowed for the Office of the Secretary and its divisions. Partly to meet this difficulty, two rooms of the Bureau of Immigration in the Willard Building were set aside. But this building, then occupied by both the Department of Commerce and the Department of Labor as it had been before by the Department of Commerce and Labor, was already overcrowded. The Commissioner General of Immigration, therefore, moved into extremely narrow quarters in order to make room for the Secretary. It was in such crowded conditions that the Department began its work. This congestion continued until the removal, about the middle of October, of the Department of Commerce from the Willard Building to its new building at Nineteenth Street and Pennsylvania Avenue NW. Even then the embarrassment did not end. Congress having assumed that the four bureaus of the Department of Labor could be afforded space in that building, which had been erected for the accommodation of the former Department of Commerce and Labor and all its constituent parts, only $5,000 for rent of offices for the Office of Secretary during the remainder of the fiscal year ending June 30, 1914, was appropriated by the act of October 22, 1913. This was not enough for the emergency. Occupancy of the new building by both Departments would have interfered with plans of the Department of Commerce, which contemplated occupying the entire premises to the exclusion of the Department of Labor and all its bureaus. Further embarrassments also arose. The leases which the Department of Commerce, as sole successor to the Department of Commerce and Labor, had acquired for the building in which its executive offices and their branches and those of this Department were quartered, ran only until October 15, 1913. There was danger, therefore, that the Department of Labor, with but $5,000 available for rent for the remainder of the fiscal year from October 15, 1913, to June 30, 1914-the amount appropriated by the act of Congress last cited-would be wholly without office accommodations. This difficulty was finally overcome through a contract with the owners of the Willard Building supplemented by a concession from the Department of Commerce. The former Department of Commerce and Labor having paid an annual rental of $11,830 for the Willard Building, the owners of that building agreed to accept from this Department for the remainder of the fiscal year (from the end of the lease to June 30, 1914) the total amount at the disposal of the Department for rent, namely, $5,000. Acceptance of that offer, however, would have accomplished little but for a concession by the Department of Commerce, which provided temporary quarters for one of the bureaus of the Department of Labor-the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Excepting its Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Department of Labor and all its constituent bureaus are now housed in the Willard Building. But its stay there beyond the close of the present fiscal year will necessitate an appropriation for rent alone of $11,830, the owners of the Willard Building having served notice that they will demand this rental for the term beginning July 1, 1914. Even with that amount appropriated for rent the Department will again be embarrassed for office accommodations unless the Bureau of Labor Statistics is permitted to remain in the building of the Department of Commerce; and the Department of Commerce, needing the whole building for its own uses, hesitates at offering that permission. The logical and businesslike way of disposing of this matter, pending the erection of a proper public building for the Department of Labor, would be to confer upon the Department authority similar to that already granted the Department of Commerce. It should be empowered to enter into a five-year lease of premises adequate to its uses and those of all its bureaus, the premises to be selected by the Secretary of Labor at an annual rental of $24,000. Under such authority the Department of Labor would be able to secure quarters adapted to the transaction of its business and reasonably appropriate to the dignity of an executive department of the Federal Government. DISBURSING OFFICE. The following table shows total amounts of all annual appropriations for the various bureaus transferred from the Department of Commerce and Labor to the Department of Labor under the act approved March 4, 1913; appropriations for public works in the Immigration Service of the Department; special appropriations; appropriations for the Office of Secretary of Labor and for printing and binding transferred from the Department of Commerce and Labor; and appropriation made for salaries (Office of Secretary of Labor) by act approved May 1, 1913. 1 Includes $15,241.48 transferred from Department of Commerce and $7,066.66 appropriated for salaries, Office of Secretary of Labor, by act of Congress approved May 1, 1913. Transferred from Department of Commerce. |