TENTH ANNUAL REPORT

OF THE

SECRETARY OF COMMERCE AND LABOR.

To the PRESIDENT:

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE AND LABOR,

OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY, Washington, December 16, 1912.

I have the honor to submit my fourth annual report.

COST OF OPERATION AND MAINTENANCE OF DEPARTMENT.

The total appropriations for the Department for the fiscal year ended June 30, 1912, were $15,914,805.23, which, compared with the appropriations for the previous fiscal year of $16,150,940.58, is a decrease of $236,135.35. The total appropriations for the current fiscal year (to end June 30, 1913) amount to $15,277,999.35.

During the fiscal years 1911 and 1912, and a portion of the fiscal year 1913, a considerable part of the work for the Thirteenth Decennial Census has been or is being done, and appropriations of $3,000,000, $2,000,000, and $392,000 made for these fiscal years are included in the total appropriation figures given above.

To arrive at a better basis for comparison of the cost of operation and maintenance, the amounts appropriated for the Thirteenth Decennial Census, for construction, and for such special purposes as the payments under the fur-seal convention should be deducted from the total appropriations. There should be added, however, sums sufficient to cover the expenses of the Bureau of the Census for regular work, which was not provided for by direct appropriation during the period of the Thirteenth Decennial Census. By this method it is found that the net appropriations for operation and maintenance for the Department were $13,952,927.37 in 1911, $13,520,800.02 in 1912, and $13,604,499.35 in 1913.

It is apparent, therefore, that for the three consecutive years the appropriations for operating this Department have been kept at substantially the same figures. Compared even with earlier years, the increase has been slight. For illustration, for the fiscal years ended June 30, 1908, 1909, and 1910, following the same method to arrive at the operating expenses, the appropriations were $12,649,566.84, $13,144,518.84, and $13,559,586.93, respectively.

RECEIPTS.

The miscellaneous receipts which were remitted to the Treasury by this Department, consisting chiefly of immigrants' head tax, naturalization fees, proceeds of sale of fur-seal skins, and tonnage tax, and in smaller measure sales of documents and condemned Government property, in 1912 amounted to the total sum of $5,343,540.23. Furthermore, it is estimated that of the appropriations for the fiscal year 1912 about $353,000 will be returned to the Treasury as unused. In other words, of the total appropriations for the fiscal year 1912 for the Department, $15,561,805.23 has been or will be expended, and of this sum the Department has contributed by way of collections, chiefly from sources which do not constitute a burden on the public, the sum of $5,343,540.23, or a little more than one-third of the entire sum expended. This is practically the same showing which was made in the earlier years of this Administration.

PERSONNEL.

The force, based on figures of date August 24, 1912, was 9,964, which represents a reduction of 449 as compared with the previous year. This reduction is more apparent than real, because certain positions were shifted from the permanent to the temporary class. Essentially the force is about the same and consists of 9,964 permanent places and 12,596 temporary employments for one or more days, weeks, or months during the year. Temporary employment is had chiefly in the field service of the Coast and Geodetic Survey, the Lighthouse Service, the Bureau of Fisheries, and the Immigration Service, where temporary work, season, and other conditions render continued employment impracticable. Of the entire force, permanent and temporary, only 1,886 are stationed or have their headquarters in Washington.

THE DEPARTMENT'S ACTIVITIES.

It would be unsafe to conclude that this comparative statement of appropriations and force employed marks the measure of work accomplished during the same years. Judged by earlier standards, the results have traveled far beyond the expenditures. This is to be attributed in part no doubt to the fact that it required time and experience to perfect a comparatively new organization; but in part also, I trust, to the earnestness with which the policy of good and economic administration has been impressed upon the service and has been accepted and carried out by the force. A reading of the reports of the bureau chiefs will show this. In some offices, as for illustration in the Bureau of Lighthouses and the Division of Publications, actual tables embodied in the reports amount to a demonstration; in others the correctness of this statement is proved by a mere reference to the additional duties and labor

required by new legislation; in still others this conclusion must depend upon a closer examination of the work done.

The sum of $15,914,805.23 includes every appropriation, whatever the date, character, or purpose, which was placed at the disposal of the Department for the last fiscal year. That sum, therefore, covers not only the cost of administration in twelve different bureaus, but also the inquiries and investigations and the preparation, publication, and distribution of reports in such bureaus as the Census, Corporations, Labor, Manufactures, and Statistics, and of charts in the Coast and Geodetic Survey; the construction and maintenance of more than two hundred ships and boats in the Lighthouse Service, the Coast and Geodetic Survey, and the Fisheries, Navigation, and Immigration Bureaus; the purchase, installation, and maintenance of machinery and instruments, more especially in such bureaus as Standards and the Coast and Geodetic Survey; the maintenance of hatcheries and culture stations under the Bureau of Fisheries; the construction and maintenance of detention stations in the Immigration Service, lighthouses, and aids to navigation; and permanent structures for such bureaus as Standards, Coast and Geodetic Survey, and Fisheries, and the acquisition of the necessary ground for all of them. The work of the Coast and Geodetic Survey and the Bureau of Lighthouses includes the waters of the Philippines, Porto Rico, Hawaii, and Alaska. The Bureau of Fisheries not only has charge of hatcheries and fish-culture stations proper, but exercises general supervision over the salmon interests in Alaska and the seal herds of Bering Sea. And the Immigration Service not only protects the coast and border lines of the United States, but has stations and agents in Alaska, Porto Rico, and Hawaii. The cost of all this work is necessarily increased, because each one of the twelve bureaus must maintain an essentially separate organization, and has to do its work in pursuit of a practically distinct purpose. As is shown in the more detailed discussion following in this report, the pressure for more work in these bureaus has been increasing. So far that demand has been fairly met, but it is apparent that in the future it will not be possible to hold the administration cost of this constantly growing and expanding Department down to the figures of the past four or five years.

RECENT CONSTRUCTIVE LEGISLATION.

It is a matter of particular gratification to report that during this Administration there have been enacted a number of measures of essential importance to the effective organization of several branches of the Department.

BUREAU OF LIGHTHOUSES.

Among these is the law which authorized the organization of the Bureau of Lighthouses. The provisions for an executive head and

for the permanent employment of civilian inspectors has without doubt insured much more satisfactory administration, and has, at the same time, resulted in an estimated annual saving in administration cost alone of several hundred thousand dollars.

BUREAU OF FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC COMMERCE.

Of even greater importance is the consolidation of the Bureaus of Manufactures and Statistics under the appropriate name of "Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce." This action had been recommended by my predecessor upon the strength of a unanimous report submitted to him by a commission appointed to investigate the question. I renewed the recommendation, and this year the necessary legislation was enacted. There is no doubt that this consolidation will result in some economy, and will make possible closer cooperation between the promotion of foreign and domestic commerce, with which one bureau had been charged, and the statistical reports of exports and imports, which were prepared and published by the other. But these benefits are merely incidental. The essential advantage obtained in this reorganization is the acceptance of the principle that the Department of Commerce must be intrusted with all measures that concern the general promotion and regulation of commercial and industrial conditions. In the new bureau is lodged ample authority for this purpose. By proper cooperation with the Consular Service, aided by adequate appropriations, which have so far been lacking, this Bureau will be in a position to provide for our industrial and commercial interests governmental assistance similar to that which the commerce of foreign countries has enjoyed for many years. The organization of the Chamber of Commerce of the United States is a most significant step toward establishing between the governmental agencies and the commercial and industrial world that relation which is absolutely essential to intelligent and effective cooperation.

Finally, it may be noted that the new Bureau has been given authority to "ascertain, at as early a date as possible, and whenever industrial changes shall make it essential, the cost of producing articles at the time dutiable in the United States, in leading countries where such articles are produced, by fully specified units of production, and under a classification showing the different elements of cost, or approximate cost, of such articles of production, including the wages paid in such industries per day, week, month, or year, or by the piece; and hours employed per day; and the profits of manufacturers and producers of such articles; and the comparative cost of living, and the kind of living; what articles are controlled by trusts or other combinations of capital, business operations, or labor, and what effect said trusts, or other combinations of capital, business operations, or labor have on production and prices." With proper appropriations the Bureau is thus in a position to pursue investigations in relation to tariff and similar questions affecting commerce.

REGULATION OF WIRELESS MESSAGES.

Furthermore, important legislation has been enacted for the regulation and control of wireless communications, and in addition Congress has required two wireless operators for every ship carrying 50 persons or more on trips of 200 miles by sea or on the Great Lakes.

THE SEAL TREATY.

Finally, a law has been enacted to carry into effect the seal treaty. This law is in every respect but one framed upon the recommendations of the Department. It is regretted that in one feature the statute departs from these recommendations. During the negotiations this Government insisted upon the position which it had consistently taken for about twenty-five years, that the depletion of the seal herds was to be attributed solely to pelagic sealing, and not in any measure to land killing. The provision in the law for a five-year closed season is, therefore, a substantial repudiation of the earlier position. Between the date of the making of the treaty and its confirmation, and the date of the law, the Government had no experience upon which a reversal of its position could be consistently predicated. Furthermore, observations on the Pribilof Islands during the last season (after pelagic sealing had been suppressed) confirm the position which this Government took in the convention. An actual count shows that the number of breeding seals has been almost doubled. In view of this fact, it is hoped that the statute may be amended in this one respect, so that every cause for the dissatisfaction expressed by two of the countries which participated in the convention may be removed, and that negotiations for further treaties looking to the preservation of sea life may not be discouraged.

GENERAL CONDITION OF THE DEPARTMENT.

Broadly speaking, it is safe to say that the constructive legislation most essential to the proper organization of the Department of Commerce and Labor has been secured. Every bureau is clothed substantially with the necessary authority. Hereafter the work will be measured practically by the appropriations. That these must be largely increased is demonstrated by an examination of the work which is demanded and supplied. The Department is a new one and constitutes the most modern governmental response to the demand for information which the individual citizen can not obtain for himself. That demand will inevitably increase and necessarily the appropriations must keep pace with it.

The statement that each year a considerable sum has been returned to the Treasury unused may create a false impression. These sums