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There shall be at the seat of government an executive Feb. 14, 1903. department to be known as the Department of Commerce and Labor, and a Secretary of Commerce and Labor, who shall be the head thereof, who shall be appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, who shall receive a salary of eight thousand dollars per annum, and whose term and tenure of office shall be like that of the heads of the other Executive Departments; and section one hundred and fifty-eight of the Revised Statutes is hereby amended to include such Department, and the provisions of title four of the Revised Statutes, including all amendments thereto, are hereby made applicable to said Department. The said Secretary shall cause a seal of office to be made for the said Department of such device as the President shall approve, and judicial notice shall be taken of the said seal.

There shall be in said Department an Assistant Secre- Sec.2. tary of Commerce and Labor, to be appointed by the President, who shall receive a salary of five thousand dollars a year. He shall perform such duties as shall be prescribed by the Secretary or required by law. There shall also be one chief clerk and a disbursing clerk and such other clerical assistants as may from time to time be authorized by Congress; and the Auditor for the State and other Departments shall receive and examine all accounts of salaries and incidental expenses of the office of the Secretary of Commerce and Labor, and of all bureaus and offices under his direction, all accounts relating to the LightHouse Board, Steamboat-Inspection Service, Immigration, Navigation, Alaskan fur-seal fisheries, the National Bureau of Standards, Coast and Geodetic Survey, Census, Department of Labor, Fish Commission and to all other business

Sec. 3.

Sec. 4.

within the jurisdiction of the Department of Commerce and Labor, and certify the balances arising thereon to the Division of Bookkeeping and Warrants and send forthwith a copy of each certificate to the Secretary of Commerce and Labor.

It shall be the province and duty of said Department to foster, promote, and develop the foreign and domestic commerce, the mining, manufacturing, shipping, and fishery industries, the labor interests, and the transportation facilities of the United States; and to this end it shall be vested with jurisdiction and control of the departments, bureaus, offices, and branches of the public service hereinafter specified, and with such other powers and duties as may be prescribed by law. All unexpended appropriations, which shall be available at the time when this Act takes effect, in relation to the various offices, bureaus, divisions, and other branches of the public service, which shall, by this Act, be transferred to or included in the Department of Commerce and Labor, or which may hereafter, in accordance with the provisions of this Act, be so transferred, shall become available, from the time of such transfer, for expenditure in and by the Department of Commerce and Labor and shall be treated the same as though said branches of the public service had been directly named in the laws making said appropriations as parts of the Department of Commerce and Labor, under the direction of the Secretary of said Department.

The following-named offices, bureaus, divisions, and branches of the public service, now and heretofore under the jurisdiction of the Department of the Treasury, and all that pertains to the same, known as the Light-House Board, the Light-House Establishment, the SteamboatInspection Service, the Bureau of Navigation, the United States Shipping Commissioners, the National Bureau of Standards, the Coast and Geodetic Survey, the Commissioner-General of Immigration, the commissioners of immigration, the Bureau of Immigration, the immigration service at large, and the Bureau of Statistics, be, and the same hereby are, transferred from the Department of the Treasury to the Department of Commerce and Labor, and the same shall hereafter remain under the jurisdiction and supervision of the last-named Department; and that the Census Office, and all that pertains to the same, be, and the same hereby is, transferred from the Department of the Interior to the Department of Commerce and Labor, to remain henceforth under the jurisdiction of the latter; that the Department of Labor, the Fish Commission, and the Office of Commissioner of Fish and Fisheries, and all that pertains to the same, be, and the same hereby are, placed under the jurisdiction and made a part of the Department of Commerce and Labor; that the Bureau of Foreign Commerce, now in the Department of State, be, and the same hereby is, transferred to the Department of Commerce and Labor and consolidated with and made a part of the

Bureau of Statistics, herein before transferred from the Department of the Treasury to the Department of Commerce and Labor, and the two shall constitute one bureau, to be called the Bureau of Statistics, with a chief of the bureau; and that the Secretary of Commerce and Labor shall have control of the work of gathering and distributing statistical information naturally relating to the subjects confided to his Department; and the Secretary of Commerce and Labor is hereby given the power and authority to rearrange the statistical work of the bureaus and offices confided to said Department, and to consolidate any of the statistical bureaus and offices transferred to said Department; and said Secretary shall also have authority to call upon other Departments of the Government for statistical data and results obtained by them; and said Secretary of Commerce and Labor may collate, arrange, and publish such statistical information so obtained in such manner as to him may seem wise.

The official records and papers now on file in and pertaining exclusively to the business of any bureau, office, department, or branch of the public service in this Act transferred to the Department of Commerce and Labor, together with the furniture now in use in such bureau, office, department, or branch of the public service, shall be, and hereby are, transferred to the Department of Commerce and Labor.

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And all consular officers of the United States, including consuls-general, consuls, and commercial agents, are hereby required, and it is made a part of their duty, under the direction of the Secretary of State, to gather and compile, from time to time, useful and material information and statistics in respect to the subjects enumerated in section three of this Act in the countries and places to which such consular officers are accredited, and to send, under the direction of the Secretary of State, reports as often as required by the Secretary of Commerce and Labor of the information and statistics thus gathered and compiled, such reports to be transmitted through the State Department to the Secretary of the Department of Commerce and Labor.

Sec. 5

The jurisdiction, supervision and control now possessed Sec.7. and exercised by the Department of the Treasury over the fur-seal, salmon and other fisheries of Alaska and over the immigration of aliens into the United States, its waters, territories and any place subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are hereby transferred and vested in the Department of Commerce and Labor: Provided, That nothing contained in this Act shall be construed to alter the method of collecting and accounting for the head-tax prescribed by section one of the Act entitled "An Act to regulate immigration," approved August third, eighteen hundred and 14317-03-28

Sec. 8.

Sec. 9.

Sec. 10.

eighty-two. That the authority, power and jurisdiction
now possessed and exercised by the Secretary of the Treas-
ury by virtue of any law in relation to the exclusion from
and the residence within the United States, its territories
and the District of Columbia, of Chinese and persons of
Chinese descent, are hereby transferred to and conferred
upon the Secretary of Commerce and Labor, and the
authority, power and jurisdiction in relation thereto now
vested by law or treaty in the collectors of customs and
the collectors of internal revenue, are hereby conferred
upon
and vested in such officers under the control of the
Commissioner-General of Immigration, as the Secretary
of Commerce and Labor may designate therefor.

The Secretary of Commerce and Labor shall annually, at the close of each fiscal year, make a report in writing to Congress, giving an account of all moneys received and disbursed by him and his Department, and describing the work done by the Department in fostering, promoting, and developing the foreign and domestic commerce, the mining, manufacturing, shipping, and fishery industries, and the transportation facilities, of the United States, and making such recommendations as he shall deem necessary for the effective performance of the duties and purposes of the Department. He shall also from time to time make such special investigations and reports as he may be required to do by the President, or by either House of Congress, or which he himself may deem necessary and urgent.

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All officers, clerks, and employees now employed in or by any of the bureaus, offices, departments, or branches of the public service in this Act transferred to the Department of Commerce and Labor are each and all hereby transferred to said Department at their present grades and salaries, except where otherwise provided in this Act: And provided further, That all laws prescribing the work and defining the duties of the several bureaus, offices, departments, or branches of the public service by this Act transferred to and made a part of the Department of Commerce and Labor shall, so far as the same are not in conflict with the provisions of this Act, remain in full force and effect until otherwise provided by law.

All duties performed and all power and authority now possessed or exercised by the head of any executive department in and over any bureau, office, officer, board, branch, or division of the public service by this Act transferred to the Department of Commerce and Labor, or any business arising therefrom or pertaining thereto, or in relation to the duties performed by and authority conferred by law upon such bureau, officer, office, board, branch or division of the public service, whether of an appellate or revisory character or otherwise, shall hereafter be vested in and exercised by the head of the said Department of Commerce and Labor.

All duties, power, authority and jurisdiction, whether supervisory, appellate or otherwise, now imposed or conferred upon the Secretary of the Treasury by Acts of Congress relating to merchant vessels or yachts, their measurement, numbers, names, registers, enrollments, licenses, commissions, records, mortgages, bills of sale, transfers, entry, clearance, movements and transportation of their cargoes and passengers, owners, officers, seamen, passengers, fees, inspection, equipment for the better security of life, and by Acts of Congress relating to tonnage tax, boilers on steam vessels, the carrying of inflammable, explosive or dangerous cargo on vessels, the use of petroleum or other similar substances to produce motive power and relating to the remission or refund of fines, penalties, forfeitures, exactions or charges incurred for violating any provision of law relating to vessels or seamen or to informer's shares of such fines, and by Acts of Congress relating to the Commissioner and Bureau of Navigation, Shipping Commissioners, their officers and employees, SteamboatInspection Service and any of the officials thereof, shall be and hereby are transferred to and imposed and conferred upon the Secretary of Commerce and Labor from and after the time of the transfer of the Bureau of Navigation, the Shipping Commissioners and the Steamboat Inspection Service to the Department of Commerce and Labor, and shall not thereafter be imposed upon or exercised by the Secretary of the Treasury. And all Acts or parts of Acts inconsistent with this Act are, so far as inconsistent, hereby repealed.

444. Bureau of Navigation.

There shall be in the Department of Commerce and Labor of the United States a Bureau of Navigation, under the immediate charge of a Commissioner of Navigation.

The Commissioner of Navigation, under the direction of the Secretary of Commerce and Labor, shall have general superintendence of the commercial marine and merchant seamen of the United States, so far as vessels and seamen are not, under existing laws, subject to the supervision of any other officer of the Government.

He shall be specially charged with the decision of all questions relating to the issue of registers, enrollments, and licenses of vessels, and to the filing and preserving of those documents; and wherever in title forty-eight [R. S., 4131-4305] or fifty [R. S., 4311-4390] of the Revised Statutes any of the above-named documents are required to be surrendered or returned to the Register of the Treasury, such requirement is hereby repealed, and such documents shall be surrendered and returned to the Commissioner of Navigation. Said Commissioner shall have charge of all similar documents now in the keeping of the Register of the Treasury, and shall perform all the duties hitherto devolved upon said Register relating to navigation.

July 5, 1884.

Feb. 14, 1903.

Secs. 4, 10.

July 5, 1884.
Sec. 2.

Feb. 14, 1903.

Secs. 4, 10.

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