The commission was required to report from time to time to the Secretary of the Interior concerning the progress of its negotiations." The office of Superintendent of Documents in the Interior Department was abolished by act of January 12, 1895, which provided for the appointment of the Superintendent of Documents under the Government Printing Office. The Interior Department continued to distribute its own documents, however, and a clerk in the department had charge of that work until July 1, 1907, when it was transferred to the Supply Division by order of the Secretary of the Interior. The following year the work was reassigned to the newly created Division of Publications."

Proposal to Abolish Commissioner of Indian Affairs Defeated; Division of Pension Affairs. A bill was introduced in the Senate on January 7, 1896, with the approval of the Secretary of the Interior, which sought to abolish the office of Commissioner of Indian Affairs, and to create an Indian Commission consisting of two civilian members and one army officer, which should have entire charge of matters pertaining to the Indians. This bill was never reported out of the Committee on Indian Affairs to which it was referred." By order of the Secretary of the Interior, a Division of Pension Affairs was organized in his office on February 1, 1896. The Board of Pension Appeals was merged with this division, which was placed under the immediate supervision of the Assistant Secretary."

Departmental Organization Prior to 1900. As indicated by the foregoing survey, the development of administrative organization in the Department of the Interior during the period from 1860 to the beginning of the twentieth century was marked by the establishment of a number of important bureaus and offices, some of which were later transferred to other departments or given an independent status. The organization of the department was not marked, however, by any such sweeping changes as have been noted in connection with the other executive departments.

22

27 Stat. L., 612, 645; Department of the Interior, Annual reports, 1900, II, 9.

23 28 Stat. L., 601, 610-11; Department of the Interior, Annual reports, 1907, 6. Infra, 368n.

2454 Cong. I sess. (1895-96), Congressional Record, Vol. 28, Pt. 1, 486; Secretary of the Interior, Annual report, 1896, 37.

23

Secretary of the Interior, Annual report, 1896, 31.

Superintendent of Capitol Building and Grounds; Census Office Transferred to Department of Commerce and Labor. Beginning in 1902, a considerable number of changes in the administrative organization of the Interior Department have been effected. The title of the office of Architect of the Capitol was changed to the Superintendent of Capitol Building and Grounds by act of February 14, 1902." The establishment of a permanent Census Office as a bureau in the Department of the Interior by act of March 6, 1902, was the culmination of a decade of active agitation in favor of the establishment of such an office, which had its beginning in a Senate resolution passed on February 16, 1891, directing the Secretary of the Interior, "to consider the expediency of the establishment of a permanent Census Bureau and to embody the results of his consideration with a draft of a bill, should he consider it expedient, for the establishment of such a Census Bureau in a special report to be made to the Senate at the opening of the 52d Congress." In accordance with this resolution, a report was submitted to the Senate by the Secretary of the Interior on December 8, 1891, which contained a draft of a bill for a permanent Census Office in the Department of the Interior. A bill was introduced on December 14 to comply with this recommendation, which was referred to the Senate Committee on the Census, but it was never reported out of that committee."

Three months after the introduction of this bill in the Senate, a resolution was adopted in the House of Representatives directing its Committee on the Census to inquire into the expediency of establishing a permanent Census Bureau and report thereon to the House. After an extended investigation, the committee made its report on February 1, 1893, submitting therewith a bill for a permanent Census Office in the Department of the Interior and recommending its passage. A minority report submitted a few days. later opposed the project, declaring the establishment of a permanent bureau to be unwise, unnecessary, and extravagant. The bill received no further consideration in the House." This subject

23 32 Stat. L., 5, 20.

27

32 Stat. L., 51; 51 Cong. 2 sess. (1890-91), Congressional Record, Vol. 22, Pt. 3, 2722; 52 Cong. I sess. (1891-92), Ibid., Vol. 23, Pt. 1, 6, 420; 52 Cong. I sess. (1891-92), S. ex. doc. 1.

252 Cong. I sess. (1891-92), Congressional Record, Vol. 23, Pt. 2, 1658 (March 2, 1892); 52 Cong. 2 sess. (1892-93), H. rep. 2393.

did not receive attention in Congress again until March 19, 1896, when a joint resolution was passed directing the Commissioner of Labor to report to Congress for its consideration, as soon as practicable, a plan for a permanent census service. In his report to the Senate on December 8, 1896, the Commissioner of Labor, Mr. Carroll D. Wright, not only recommended a permanent bureau, but proposed that it be given a separate status, independent of any of the executive departments, and responsible directly to the President. Again no positive action was taken by Congress."

A bill was introduced in the Senate on December 7, 1897, to provide for the taking of the twelfth census and to create an independent office to perform that duty. After an unsuccessful attempt was made to unite this office with the Department of Labor, the Senate amended the bill by placing the proposed office in the Department of the Interior. A bill was introduced in the House six months later which made the Census Office completely independent of any department and subordinate only to the President. The two bills were submitted to a conference committee, which reported a compromise bill, placing the Census Office "in the Department of the Interior," but not an integral part of it. The words in the Senate bill providing that the duties of the Director should be performed "under the direction of the head of the department" were omitted. The Attorney General interpreted the measure, which became law on March 3, 1899, as making the Director substantially independent of the Secretary of the Interior."

The act of 1899 specifically stated that it was not to "be construed to establish a census bureau permanent beyond the twelfth census." The act of March 6, 1902, did not repeal this act, but

229 Stat. L., 468; 54 Cong. 2 sess. (1896-97), S. ex. doc. 5. Mr. Wright, as Commissioner of Labor, had been directed by the President, under authority of an act of October 3, 1893, to perform the duties of Superintendent of the Census under the direction of the Secretary of the Interior.— 28 Stat. L., 3; Secretary of the Interior, Annual report, 1896, 80-81. A memorial of the American Economic Association and the American Statistical Association, urging the need for a permanent and independent Census Office, was presented to Congress on December 12, 1896.—54 Cong. 2 sess., S. ex. doc. 68, 37-39.

30

55 Cong. 2 sess. (1897-98), Congressional Record, Vol. 31, Pt. 1, 24, 45; Pt. 5, 4692; Pt. 6, 5642; Pt. 7, 6677; 55 Cong. 3 sess. (1898-99), Ibid., Vol. 32, Pt. 2, 1147, 1507, 1529, 1788, 1993; Pt. 3, 2663, 2713; 30 Stat. L., 1014; 22 Op. Atty. Gen., 413 (March 28, 1899).

31

reënacted all of its provisions consistent with the permanent census law. The only material change which it made was the provision that all appointments to the permanent staff, while continuing to be made by the Director, should have the approval of the Secretary of the Interior. The Census Office was transferred from the Department of the Interior to the Department of Commerce and Labor by the act of February 14, 1903, creating the latter department." Reclamation Service; Commissioner of Railroads Discontinued; Commission to the Five Civilized Tribes Abolished. A Reclamation Service was established by act of June 17, 1902, under the direction of the Secretary of the Interior. The work was delegated by the Secretary to the Director of the Geological Survey, who supervised the work until the service was given the status of a bureau, in charge of a Director, by order of the Secretary, dated March 9, 1907." The office of Commissioner of Railroads was discontinued by act of March 3, 1903." The Indian appropriation act of April 21, 1904, directed that the Commission to the Five Civilized Tribes should conclude its work and terminate on or before July 1, 1905. By act of March 3, 1905, the powers and duties of the Commission were conferred upon the Secretary of the Interior, who appointed a Commissioner to the Five Civilized Tribes to exercise those powers, under his direction. This latter office was accorded statutory recognition in a deficiency appropriation act of December 19, 1906."

Administrative Divisions in Secretary's Office Abolished. Secretary of the Interior Garfield endeavored to bring about a closer relationship between the head of the department and its several bureaus by the discontinuance of the Divisions of Indian Territory, Indian Affairs, Patents and Miscellaneous, and Lands and Rail

31

32 Stat. L., 825, 826. For an account of the efforts looking toward the creation of a permanent and independent Census Office, see Willcox, The development of the American census office since 1890, Political Science Quarterly, XXIX, 438-59 (September, 1914); Parmelee, The statistical work of the federal government, Yale Review, XIX, 297-98 (November, 1910).

32 Stat. L., 388; Department of the Interior, Annual reports, 1907, 2, 41; Institute for Government Research, The Reclamation Service (1919). 32 Stat. L., 419, 456; 1083, 1119.

23

34

33 Stat. L., 189, 204; 1048, 1060; 34 Stat. L., 841, 842; Department of the Interior, Annual reports, 1904, II, 3; 1906, II, 589; Checklist, 437.

roads, created by his predecessors in the immediate office of the Secretary, and the transfer of their work to the various bureaus and offices dealing with those matters. In commenting on this change, Secretary Garfield said: "These divisions had outlived their usefulness, and had become stumbling blocks in the way of good administration, as they brought between the Secretary and the bureau chiefs an unnecessary examination of and action upon the work of the bureau or office. They furthermore had a tendency to lessen the responsibility and authority of the head of the bureau or office and interfere with the cordial and confidential relation that must exist between the Secretary and the head of an office if the best results are to be obtained." Secretary Garfield recommended to Congress the appointment of two undersecretaries in the department, in place of the Chief Clerk, who should constitute, together with the private secretary to the Secretary of the Interior, an administrative commission to have charge of all purely administrative matters, thus relieving the Secretary and the assistant secretaries of much detail work. This recommendation, however, was not acted upon by Congress."

Bureau of Mines; Superintendent of Indian Schools and Board of Pension Appeals Abolished. An act of May 16, 1910, established in the Department of the Interior a Bureau of Mines, in charge of a Director appointed by the President, with the consent of the Senate. This bureau was charged, under the direction of the Secretary of the Interior, with the investigation of the methods of mining, especially in relation to the safety of miners, and the Secretary of the Interior was directed to transfer to it from the Geological Survey the supervision of the investigation of structural materials and the analyzing and testing of coals, lignites, and other mineral fuel substances and the investigation as to the causes of mine explosions. The latter provision was modified by

35

Department of the Interior, Annual reports, 1907, 3, 7. Various divisions had been created from time to time, by administrative regulation, in the immediate office of the Secretary of the Interior. The first statutory provision for such divisions was voted in an act of June 15, 1880, which made appropriation for five clerks, as chiefs of divisions. No definite recognition by title of the divisions thus created was granted until the act of May 22, 1908, which made provision for a chief disbursing clerk and clerks in charge of supplies, publications, and mails, files, and archives.21 Stat. L., 210, 230; 35 Stat. L., 184, 223.