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CHAPTER III

ORGANIZATION

Legal Provision as to Organization. The act which created Tariff Commission contained several restrictions upon its organization. It provided for six Commissioners, two of whom were to be designated annually by the President as Chairman and Vice-Chairman, respectively. To insure the establishment of a nonpartisan body, the act directed the President in making his appointments to the Commission to "alternate as nearly as may be practicable," members of different political parties and not more than three Commissioners could be of the same political party. The commission was authorized to appoint a secretary whose salary was fixed at $5,000 per annum, and a nucleus for the working staff was provided by Section 705 of the act that upon the organization of the commission, the Cost of Production Division in the Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce and the clerks and employees of that division should be transferred to the commission.

All employees were to be appointed from lists of eligibles supplied by the Civil Service Commission with the exception of the Secretary, a clerk to each Commissioner, and “such special experts as the Commission may from time to time find necessary for the conduct of its work." In practice this last exception has resulted in giving the commission a free hand in the selection of its investigating staff, since special experts comprise practically half the total number of employees.1

Out of 94 employees on June 30, 1920, 45 were listed as special experts.

By the appropriation acts of July 1, 1918 (40 Stat. L., 652) and July 19, 1919 (41 Stat. L., 182), it was provided that the disbursing clerk of the Treasury Department should act in a similar capacity for the Tariff Commission. Since July 1, 1920, the Secretary of the commission has been its disbursing officer.

In general, the organization of the Tariff Commission, as might be inferred from the nature of its work and its relatively small staff, represents a functional adaptation - rather than a rigidly logical arrangement.

Administration. The power of general administration is vested in the six Commissioners, two of whom are designated annually by the President as Chairman and Vice-Chairman, respectively. While the law does not provide for a subdivision of labor among the Commissioners as in the case of the Interstate Commerce Commission, there is for supervisory purposes an informal division of responsibility in accordance with the interests of the various Commissioners, one of whom is concerned primarily with the work of the metals divisions, another with the studies in international commercial relations, another with the textiles, and so forth. Nevertheless the studies of the commission as published, do not represent the specializations of individual members but the joint labor of the commission as a whole.

The Secretary of the Commission deals with all matters involved in the operation of the establishment as an institution and the administrative routine. He functions also as the disbursing officer.

Institutional Services. The institution services which are under the direction of the Secretary consist of the library division, the stenographic division, and a small group of employees connected with handling of supplies, operation of telephone, multigraph and mimeograph, and so forth. The employees in the stenographic division are allotted to the

various commodity sections and to other divisions as conditions require.

Functional Services. The functional services of the commission consist of four divisions as follows:

Legal Division

Accounting and Statistical Division

Commodities Division

Division of Foreign Tariffs and International Commercial Relations

The legal and accounting and statistical divisions work independently on special problems and also, as general service divisions, coöperate with the commodity experts on problems arising in their respective fields. The commission has organized in the commodities division, a staff of experts with an appropriate force of clerks, grouped in sections dealing with series of commodities enumerated in the schedules of the Tariff Act. These sections are as follows:

Section 1. Dealing with commodities of Schedule 2 AChemicals, oils, and paints.

Section 2. Dealing with commodities of Schedule BEarths, earthenware, and glassware.

Section 3. Dealing with commodities of Schedule CMetals and manufactures of.

Section 4. Dealing with commodities of Schedules D, E & M-Wood, sugar, molasses, and manufactures of; papers and books.

Section 5. Dealing with commodities of Schedule GAgricultural products.

Section 6. Dealing with commodities of Schedules I, J. K and L-Cotton manufactures; flax, hemp,

and manufactures of; wool and manufactures of; silk and silk goods.

Section 7. Dealing with commodities of Schedule NSundries.

2 Referring to the schedules of the tariff act.

Changes in emphasis on the problems studied at different times results in the transfer of special experts and clerks from section to section and the creation of new sections.

The division of foreign tariffs and international commercial relations is concerned with the study of the problems enumerated in Section 704 of the act creating the commission, which has already been quoted above. This division performs a service in many respects similar to the foreign tariffs division of the Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce. The latter, however, gathers information as to foreign tariffs primarily to serve American business men engaged in foreign trade by prompt notification of changes in foreign customs regulations while the former aims to supply Congress with proper information as an aid to its establishment of a policy in international commercial relations.

Personnel. The following statement shows the personnel of the Commission as of June 30, 1920:

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APPENDIX I

OUTLINE OF ORGANIZATION

EXPLANATORY NOTE

The Outlines of Organization have for their purpose to make known in detail the organization and personnel possessed by the several services of the National Government to which they relate. They have been prepared in accordance with the plan followed by the President's Commission on Economy and Efficiency in the preparation of its outlines of the organization of the United States Government.1 They differ from those outlines, however, in that whereas the commission's report showed only organization units, the presentation herein has been carried far enough to show the personnel embraced in each organization unit.

These outlines are of value not merely as an effective means of making known the organization of the several services. If kept revised to date by the services, they constitute exceedingly important tools of administration. They permit the directing personnel to see at a glance the organization and personnel at their disposition. They establish definitely the line of administrative authority and enable each employee to know his place in the system. They furnish the essential basis for making plans for determining costs by organization division and subdivision. They afford the data for a consideration of the problem of classifying and standardizing personnel and compensation. Collectively, they make it possible to determine the number and location of organization divisions of any particular kind, as, for example, labora1 House Doc. 458, 62d Congress, 2nd Session, 1912, 2 vols.

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