Government in the United States, National, State and Local Part 27

[Ill.u.s.tration: LOCK IN THE PANAMA Ca.n.a.l]

=The Department of the Navy= was created in 1798. At its head is a secretary, who, like the head of the war department, is usually taken from civil life. Like the war department, the navy department is organized into the _Office of Naval Operations_ and a number of bureaus.

_The Bureau of Navigation_ has charge of the recruiting service, the training of officers and men, the naval academy; schools for the technical education of enlisted men, apprentice schools, the naval home at Philadelphia, transportation of enlisted men, records of squadrons, ships, officers and men; the preparation of the naval register, preparation of drill regulations, signal codes, and cipher codes. Under this bureau falls the publication of the Nautical Almanac, charts and sailing directions, the naval observatory, and the hydrographic office.

_The Bureau of Yards and Docks_ has general control of the navy yards and docks belonging to the government, including their construction and repair, and also of the construction of battleships whenever such construction is authorized by Congress. The navy yards are located at Washington, Brooklyn, Mare Island (California), Philadelphia (League Island), Norfolk, Pensacola, Cavite (in the Philippines), and various other places.

_The Bureau of Ordnance_ has charge of the supply of armament and ammunition for the ships. It supervises the manufacture of guns and torpedoes, installs armament on the vessels, and has charge of the naval proving ground and magazines, the naval gun factory, and the torpedo station.

_The Bureau of Construction and Repair_ has charge of the planning, building, and repairing of vessels, and of their equipment, excepting their armament and engines.

_Other Bureaus_ of the Navy Department, whose general duties are indicated sufficiently by their t.i.tles, are: the bureau of engineering, the bureau of medicine and surgery, and the bureau of supplies and accounts.

_The Judge-Advocate General_ is the law officer of the navy department and performs duties similar to those of the judge-advocate general of the war department.

_The Major General Commandant of the Marine Corps_ issues orders for the movement of troops under the direction of the secretary of the navy.

The department of the navy also has general charge of the _United States Naval Academy_ at Annapolis. The academy was founded in 1846, by George Bancroft, then secretary of the navy. A specified number of midshipmen are allowed for each member of Congress and each territorial delegate, and certain numbers from the District of Columbia, from Porto Rico, and from the United States at large.[90] Appointments are made by the President after a physical and intellectual examination by a board, and an allowance is made for maintaining each midshipman while in residence at the academy. The course lasts four years and includes instruction in gunnery, naval construction, steam engineering, navigation, mathematics, international law, modern languages, etc. After the completion of the course, midshipmen spend two years at sea, after which they receive subordinate appointments in the navy or marine corps.

[90] In addition, the secretary of the navy may appoint each year 100 midshipmen from the enlisted men of the navy less than twenty years old, the selection being based on compet.i.tive examinations.

=The Department of Justice.=--The office of attorney-general was created in 1789, and from the first the attorney-general was a member of the cabinet; but for a long time the duties of the office were not extensive, and it was not until 1870 that the office was made an executive department with its present t.i.tle and organization.

_The Attorney-General_ is the chief law officer of the national government and is the legal adviser of the President and the heads of departments. He represents the United States before the Supreme Court in cases in which it is a party, exercises a sort of administrative supervision over the United States district attorneys and marshals and over the federal penitentiaries, examines applications for pardons, and advises the President in the exercise of his pardoning power. The opinions which he renders on const.i.tutional and legal questions referred to him are published by the government in a series of volumes, and altogether they const.i.tute an important body of const.i.tutional and administrative law. Under the direction of the President he inst.i.tutes proceedings and prosecutes cases against corporations and persons for violations of the laws of the United States, or directs the district attorneys to do so.

=The Post Office Department.=--At the head of the post office department is the postmaster-general. He establishes and discontinues post offices, appoints all postmasters whose compensation does not exceed $1,000 a year, issues postal regulations, makes postal treaties with foreign governments, with the approval of the President, awards mail contracts, and has general supervision of the domestic and foreign postal service.

There is an a.s.sistant attorney-general for the post office department, who advises the postmaster-general on questions of law, has charge of prosecutions arising under the postal laws, hears cases relating to the misuse of the mails, and drafts postal contracts. There are also four a.s.sistant postmasters-general, each of whom has supervision over a group of services within the department. The postal service has already been described in chapter xiv.

=The Department of the Interior.=--The interior department, established in 1849, is one of the largest and most important of the ten executive departments. Next to the post office department, the services which it performs reach more people than those performed by any other department.

Its staff of employees at Washington ranks second in numbers only to that of the treasury department. It has charge of the public lands, Indian affairs, pensions, patents, the geological survey, and, to some extent, the government of the territories.

=The Public Lands.=--Perhaps the most important bureau in the interior department is the _General Land Office_, which has charge of the public lands, and the care and control of the forest reserves. Before the public lands are sold or otherwise disposed of they must be surveyed.

For this purpose there are seventeen surveying districts, in each of which there is a surveyor general.

_Disposal of the Public Lands._--The public lands have been disposed of with a somewhat lavish hand. In the early days liberal grants were made to the soldiers of the Revolutionary War. Immense quant.i.ties have also been sold at low rates--much of it at $1.25 per acre--in order to encourage settlers to establish homes thereon. Considerable quant.i.ties have also been granted to the states for educational purposes and the construction of internal improvements. Beginning with Ohio in 1802, each new state admitted to the Union was given one section in each township for the support of elementary schools, and those admitted after 1850 were given two sections in each township. Under the Morrill act of 1862, 10,000,000 acres were given to the states for the establishment of colleges of agriculture and the mechanic arts. Some of the more recently admitted states were given from one to four townships each for the establishment of universities.[91]

[91] The six states admitted between 1889 and 1890 were given 23,000,000 acres.

Before the Civil War, large quant.i.ties were given to the states for the construction of ca.n.a.ls and railroads. Large tracts of the public lands have also been granted to private corporations as subsidies for the building of transcontinental railways. Finally, by an act of 1902, the proceeds from the sale of all public lands in seventeen Western states are set aside for constructing irrigation works in those states.

By the _preemption act_ of 1841, it was provided that 160 acres of land should be given to any family living thereon for a period of six months and paying $200 therefor. This act was repealed in 1891, but millions of acres were disposed of during the fifty years it was in force.

By the _homestead act_ of 1863, still in force, any head of a family may acquire 160 acres by living on it for three years (it was five years before 1912), cultivating a certain part of it, and paying a small fee.

_The Public Lands now Remaining_ aggregate about 665,000,000 acres, including those in Alaska. Of these lands a large part have been set aside for Indian reservations, national parks, military reservations, and national forests,[92] and is therefore not open to purchase or entry under the homestead act. Arid lands are sold in tracts not exceeding 640 acres at $1.25 per acre; mineral lands are sold at from $2.50 to $5 per acre; timber and stone lands at a minimum of $2.50 per acre; town site lands at a minimum of $10 per acre; and agricultural lands at $1.25 per acre.

[92] There are now 153 national forests, embracing 175,940,000 acres.

_Land Offices_ are established in all the states where there is any considerable amount of public land left. At each office there is a register and a receiver who examines applications for entries and issues certificates upon which patents or deeds are finally granted.

=Indian Affairs.=--Another important branch of the government service falling within the department of the interior is the management of Indian affairs. For a long time each tribe was treated to some extent as though it were an independent community, and was dealt with somewhat as foreign nations are dealt with. In 1871, however, it was enacted that henceforth no Indian tribe should be acknowledged or treated as an independent nation or power with which the United States may contract by treaty--an act which marks the beginning of the end of Indian tribal authority.

The policy of extending the jurisdiction of the government over the Indians was begun by an act of 1885 which gave the United States courts jurisdiction over seven leading crimes when committed by Indians on their reservations. Previous to that time, crimes committed by Indians against Indians within a reservation were left to be dealt with by the tribal authorities themselves.

_The Allotment Act._--By the Dawes act of 1887 the new Indian policy begun in 1871 was still further extended. This act provided for the allotment of Indian lands to individual members of the tribe, and declared that Indians who accepted such allotments or who should leave their tribe and adopt the habits of civilized life, should be considered as citizens of the United States and ent.i.tled to all the rights and privileges of citizens. Previous to this time the lands occupied by the Indians were owned by the tribe as a whole and not by the individuals who occupied them. Under this act, individual allotments aggregating more than 30,000,000 acres have been made to 180,000 Indians. There remain about 120,000 Indians, to whom allotments are still to be made.

The result of this policy will ultimately be to extinguish the Indian tribes and incorporate them into the American body politic.

_Indian Agents._--The control of the national government over the Indian reservations is exercised largely through Indian agents appointed by the President. They are charged with the regulation of trade with the Indians, and have control of the distribution of rations. At each agency one or more schools are maintained, and in addition to the reservation schools there are schools for the higher education of Indians in various parts of the country, the most important being at Lawrence, Kansas, and Carlisle, Pennsylvania. The aggregate annual expenditures on account of the service are now about $15,000,000, more than half of which consists of payments due the Indians under treaty stipulations or of interest on trust funds held by the government for them. The total amount of these trust funds is about $50,000,000.[93]

[93] The Secretary of the Interior says the Osage Indians are probably the wealthiest people in the world, their average per capita wealth being over $9,500. Some families have an income of $12,000 a year.

=The Pension Bureau= has charge of the administration of the pension laws. The payments on account of pensions now const.i.tute the largest item of expenditure by the national government. Before the outbreak of the Civil War, pension expenditures rarely exceeded two million dollars a year, and the total outlay for this purpose during the entire period of our national history aggregated less than half the amount now appropriated for a single year. According to the report of the commissioner of pensions for 1919 there were 624,427 names on the pension rolls, and the amount expended for pensions that year was over $220,000,000. More than $5,000,000,000 has been expended for pensions since the Civil War, a larger amount than the national debt incurred on account of the war itself.

=The Patent Office= includes a large number of officers, examiners, and employees, who are under the direction of the commissioner of patents.

Their work is described on p. 260.

=Minor Divisions of the Interior Department.=--_The Bureau of Education_ was established in 1867. At its head is a commissioner whose duty it is to collect and publish statistics and other information concerning the methods, conditions, and progress of education in the United States.

Each year he publishes an elaborate report summarizing the educational progress of the country, together with monographs by experts on special topics of educational interest. The commissioner is also charged with the administration of the funds appropriated for the support of the colleges of agriculture and mechanic arts and with the supervision of education in Alaska and the reindeer industry in that country.

_The Geological Survey_ was established as a bureau in the department of the interior in 1879. It is under the control of a director who is charged with the cla.s.sification of the public lands and the examination of the geological structure, mineral resources, and mineral products of the public lands and the survey of the forest reserves. The bureau has undertaken the preparation of topographical and geological maps of the United States, a considerable portion of which has been completed, the collection of statistics of the mineral products, the investigation of mine accidents, the testing of mineral fuels and structural materials, and the investigation of surface and underground waters.

_The Bureau of Mines_, created in 1911, is charged with conducting investigations looking toward the prevention of mine accidents, the introduction of improvements in the general health and safety conditions, the conservation of mineral resources, etc. The bureau reported in 1913 that it had brought about a reduction in the number of fatalities due to explosions, from 30 to 13 per cent.

=The Department of Agriculture.=--A so-called "department" of agriculture was established in 1862, though its rank was only that of a bureau and its head bore the t.i.tle of commissioner. From time to time, the scope and functions of the "department" were extended until 1889, when it was raised to the rank of a cabinet department with a secretary at its head. Like the other departments, it is organized into bureaus, offices, and divisions.

_The Weather Bureau_ has charge of the preparation of weather forecasts and the display of storm, cold wave, frost, and flood warnings for the benefit of agriculture, commerce, and navigation.

_The Bureau of Animal Industry_ conducts the inspection of animals, meats, and meat food products under the act of Congress of June 30, 1906, and has charge of the inspection of import and export animals, the inspection of vessels for the transportation of export animals, and the quarantine stations for imported live stock; supervises the interstate transportation of animals, and reports on the condition and means of improving the animal industries of the country.

_The Bureau of Plant Industry_ studies plant life in its relations to agriculture. It investigates the diseases of plants and carries on field tests in the prevention of diseases. It studies the improvement of crops by breeding and selection, maintains demonstration farms, and carries on investigations with a view to introducing better methods of farm practice. It conducts agricultural explorations in foreign countries for the purpose of securing new plants and seeds for introduction into the United States. It studies fruits, their adaptability to various climates, and the methods of harvesting, handling, storing, and marketing them.

_The Forest Service_ is charged with the administration of the National Forests. It also gives practical advice in the conservation and handling of national, state, and private forest lands, and in methods of utilizing forest products; investigates methods of forest planting, and gives practical advice to tree planters; studies commercially valuable trees to determine their best management and use; gathers statistics on forest products, in cooperation with the bureau of the census, and investigates the control and prevention of forest fires, and other forest problems.

_The Bureau of Chemistry_ conducts investigations into the chemical composition of fertilizers, agricultural products, and food stuffs. In pursuance of the pure food law of 1906, it examines foods and drugs intended to be sent from one state to another, with a view to determining whether they are adulterated or misbranded. It also conducts investigations of food stuffs imported from abroad and denies entry to such as are found unwholesome, adulterated, or falsely labeled. It also inspects food products intended to be exported to foreign countries where standards of purity are required.

_Other Bureaus_, whose duties are indicated by their t.i.tles, are: the bureau of soils, the bureau of crop estimates, the bureau of entomology, the bureau of biological survey, the bureau of markets, and the bureau of public roads.

=The Department of Commerce= embraces what remains of the department of commerce and labor created in 1903, and divided in 1913 by the creation of the department of labor. It is charged with the promotion of the commerce of the United States and its mining, manufacturing, shipping, fishing, and transportation interests.

_The Bureau of the Census_ is charged with the duty of taking the decennial census of the United States, including the collection of such special statistics as Congress may authorize. The first census, that of 1790, was taken under the direction of the United States marshals in their respective districts; the statistics collected related only to population, and the schedule embraced only six questions. In 1880 the use of the marshals was done away with and a corps of census supervisors provided. Until 1902 the machinery for taking the census was organized anew for each census, but in the latter year provision was made for a permanent census bureau. The schedule of inquiries has increased from decade to decade until it now embraces a wide range of questions relating not only to population, but also to vital statistics, agriculture, manufactures, defective and criminal cla.s.ses, cotton production, statistics of cities, state and local finances, transportation, mining, and various other matters, the results of which are published in a series of large volumes and in special bulletins. At the head of the bureau is a director, who is aided by an a.s.sistant director, a number of statisticians and experts, and a corps of local supervisors and enumerators. The census work was in the charge of the department of state until 1850, when it was transferred to the department of the interior.

_The Bureau of Navigation_[94] is charged with the general superintendence of the merchant marine of the United States and of the enforcement of the navigation laws. It has charge of the registration of American vessels engaged in the foreign trade, and of the enrollment and licensing of vessels in the coasting trade. It supervises the execution of the tonnage laws and the collection of tonnage duties; prepares an annual list of vessels registered under the American flag; and supervises the work of the United States shipping commissioners, who administer the laws for the protection of seamen.

[94] This bureau in the department of commerce must not be confused with the bureau of navigation in the navy department, already described.

_The Steamboat Inspection Service_ is charged with the administration of the laws providing for the inspection of steam and sailing vessels registered under the American flag; with the examination and licensing of officers of such vessels, and with the protection of life and property on water. At the head of the service is an inspector general, who is aided by ten supervising inspectors, each of the latter having under his supervision a number of local inspectors stationed at the important commercial ports. All vessels must be inspected once a year as to their safety, construction, and facilities for protection against fire.

_The Bureau of Fisheries_ has control of fish hatcheries in many parts of the country, for the propagation of useful food fishes; studies fish culture and the causes of the decrease of food fishes; collects statistics in regard to the fishery industry; and in general promotes the fishery interests. It supervises the salmon fisheries of Alaska and the fur seal industry on the Pribilof Islands of the Bering Sea.