ARTICLE III.—GOVERNMENT WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION CLAIMS.

After the approval of the act of May 30, 1908, granting to certain employees of the United States compensation for injuries received in the course of their employment, the then Bureau of Labor (now Bureau of Labor Statistics) was charged with certain administrative duties under that act. When the Department was created the administrative functions referred to were continued in the Burcau of Labor Statistics under the supervision and jurisdiction of the Department.

The text of the act of May 30, 1908, together with the amendments of March 11, 1912, and July 27, 1912, extending the provisions of the original act to any artisan, laborer, or other employee engaged in hazardous work under the Bureau of Mines or the Forestry Service of the United States and to persons employed by the United States in any hazardous employment in the Lighthouse Service, will be found in Appendix B.1

ARTICLE IV.—LIBRARY.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics contains a carefully selected library, specialized along the lines of the object of the bureau and embracing the reports of all State and foreign labor offices as well as the more important treatises and studies in English and foreign languages on germane subjects. This library is available for the use of students and special investigators who visit it in the prosecution of research work. Books will be loaned, under restrictions, to employees of the bureau or of the Department and in special cases to investigators not connected with the Department on application to the Commissioner of Labor Statistics.

1 For Department rules, see Part II, Article VII.

BUREAU OF IMMIGRATION.

ARTICLE I.-ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT.

By section 7 of the immigration act of March 3, 1891,1 there was created in the Treasury Department the "Office of Superintendent of Immigration," which was the first attempt at a centralized national control of immigration. That act provided that, in addition to the Superintendent of Immigration, there should be a chief clerk and two clerks assigned to the said office. From this small beginning has gradually grown the branch of the Government service known as the Bureau of Immigration.

The scope and character of the duties imposed upon the bureau and its chief have been greatly increased with each addition to the immigration laws. By the act of June 6, 1900, the enforcement of the Chinese-exclusion laws was also vested in the head of the office and service, whose title had been changed to Commissioner General of Immigration by the act of March 2, 1895. The act of June 29, 1906, provided for a change of the title of the bureau to Bureau of Immigration and Naturalization and authorized the establishment therein of a Division of Naturalization for the enforcement of the naturalization laws. By the organic act the Division of Naturalization was separated and raised to the rank of a bureau. In the act of February 20, 1907, provision was made for the establishment in the Bureau of Immigration of a Division of Information, with the object of promoting a beneficial distribution of aliens admitted to the country. This, briefly, is an account of the origin and development of the bureau.

ARTICLE II.-FUNCTIONS AND DUTIES.

The bureau was originally established with the object of effecting a national control of the immigration of aliens to the United States, jurisdiction of the subject, prior to March 3, 1891, having been left largely to the various States. Succeeding that date Congress from time to time modified the character and extended the scope of the immigration laws until the act of February 20, 1907, which was practically a reenactment, with numerous changes, of all legislation on the subject. That act, relating to the admission or exclusion and deportation, and the distribution of aliens in general, as well as the various statutes concerning the admission and exclusion of Chinese persons, and the several provisions contained within the said

1 For statutes and rules, see Appendix C.

act of 1907 applying particularly to alien contract laborers, constitutes the body of the law with the enforcement of which the bureau is charged.

To enforce these laws more than 1,500 officers, scattered throughout the United States, are employed. The affairs of this vast organization must be carefully supervised, and the efforts of the employees must be directed and the results of their labors used so as to further the common cause of an efficient and economical enforcement of the laws. Moreover, the policies of the service must be fixed and made uniform and decisions must be rendered for the guidance of the entire service in its enforcement of the law. These items, briefly speaking, constitute the work in which the headquarters of the service at Washington-the bureau proper-is constantly engaged. The effective performance of this task requires an extensive and comprehensive system of organization.

ARTICLE III.-ORGANIZATION AND METHODS.

The Bureau of Immigration and the service of which it is the directing administrative head are systematically and practically organized, constituting a business institution conducted under modern methods, and it is manned by a corps of intelligent, efficient, zealous employees in the selection of the members of which great care has been exercised. At the head of this organization is the Commissioner General of Immigration and ranking second to him is the Assistant Commissioner General, who also fills the position of chief clerk.

Scope of the divisions. The work assigned the bureau falling into two natural and well-defined branches, its organization is arranged within two distinct divisions: (1) The Immigration and Chinese Division, which has charge of the enforcement of the general immigration laws and those relating to Chinese aliens and is the main part of the bureau, which has gradually been built up as the body of law on those subjects has grown, beginning with the creation in 1891 of the office of the Superintendent of Immigration in the Treasury Department; and (2) the Division of Information established under the act of February 20, 1907, with the object of assisting in a proper distribution of aliens admitted to the United States. The two divisions are manned and organized as follows:

ARTICLE IV. IMMIGRATION AND CHINESE DIVISION.

This, the oldest and principal division of the bureau-until recently the entire bureau-quite naturally is directly presided over by the Commissioner General. In his absence the official designated as

Assistant Commissioner General and Chief Clerk acts as Commissioner General. This division is the headquarters of the Immigration Service at Large, and it must systematize and harmonize, by a detailed supervision, the efforts of all the field officers in such manner as to insure the attainment of maximum results with a minimum amount of labor and expense. The division is, with respect to its employees and the work upon which they are engaged, subdivided into sections, the particular duties of which may be described as follows:

Law section. The law section is in charge of the legal adviser of the bureau, who has assigned to him an assistant law officer and a number of law clerks and stenographers. To this section are referred all questions of law arising in the course of the administration of the immigration and Chinese-exclusion acts and any complicated questions of fact involving the application of the statutes to peculiar or unusual circumstances and the preparation of decisions in appeal and warrant cases; and it is also charged with the preparation of such rules and regulations as are promulgated in enforcing the acts mentioned.

Correspondence and accounting section. The work of this section is directed by a chief and his assistant. There are assigned to it a corps of clerks and stenographers engaged in preparing communications and orders of almost unlimited extent and scope; for not only must the bureau's supervision of the field force be exercised largely by means of written communications, but other branches of the Government and private persons are constantly in correspondence with the bureau on innumerable subjects connected with the enforcement of the laws. In this section also is conducted the work of recording and preparing for approval all accounts and vouchers covering the expenses of conducting the Immigration Service and the preliminary examination of all contracts for service and supplies and similar

matters.

Files and records section. The files and records section, under the supervision of a chief and assistant chief to whom are assigned several clerks, has charge of the recording of all letters and other written communications received and the systematic filing of such documents with copies of the replies thereto, after they have been handled by the various other sections of the division. The correspondence to be filed is arranged under a complete system of numbers and subnumbers and is indexed by the card method; thus every communication is so placed that with the least hint as to its purport it can promptly be withdrawn from the files.

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