BRANCHES UNDER THE DIRECTION OF THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION

UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM

The United States National Museum is the depository of the national collections. It is especially rich in the natural science of America, including zoology, entomology, botany, geology, paleontology, archaeology, ethnology, and physical anthropology, and has extensive series relating to the arts and industries, the fine arts, and history. The great study series in the various fields of natural science form the basis for fundamental researches in pure science upon which the structure of applied science is built. The collections in the field of history comprise art, antiquarian, military, naval, numismatic, and philatelic materials, and include many historic objects relating to the period of World War I. The arts and industries collections consist of objects relating to inventions and the progress and developments in engineering, technology, crafts, industries, graphic arts, and medicine.

NATIONAL AIR MUSEUM

The National Air Museum is the depository of those portions of the national collections which relate to aviation. Its purpose is to memorialize the national development of aviation through the collection, preservation, and display of aeronautical equipment of historical interest and significance; to serve as a repository for scientific equipment and data pertaining to the development of aviation; and to provide educational material for the historical study of aviation.

NATIONAL COLLECTION OF FINE ARTS

The National Collection of Fine Arts is the depository for those portions of the national collections relating to the fine arts, including principally paintings and sculpture such as the George P. Marsh collection of etchings, engravings, and books on art; the Harriet Lane Johnston collection, including a number of portraits by British masters; the Ralph Cross Johnson collection of paintings by Italian, French, English, Flemish, and Dutch masters; the William T. Evans collection of paintings by contemporary American artists; and the gift of Mr. John Gellatly, of New York, made in June 1929, of his notable art collection, containing more than 150 pictures by eminent American and foreign artists, large collections of glass, jewels, oriental specimens, antique furniture, and other valuable and interesting material. By the terms of the gift, the collection was brought to Washington on April 30, 1933. A considerable addition was made by Mr. Gellatly in August 1930 to his original gift.

The Freer Gallery of Art is devoted principally to oriental fine arts. The building, the collections which it houses, and an endowment fund, were the gift of the late Charles L. Freer of Detroit. Since their installation in 1920, the collections of Chinese bronzes, jades, paintings and pottery, and East Indian and Islamic arts have been importantly augmented, and field work and other research work pursued. A large collection of the works of James McNeill Whistler and a limited group by other American painters is also present in the Freer Gallery.

BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY

The Bureau of American Ethnology is engaged in the collection and publication of information relating to the American Indians and the natives of Hawaii.

INTERNATIONAL EXCHANGE SERVICE

The International Exchange Service is the agency of the United States Government for the exchange of scientific, literary, and governmental publications with foreign governments, institutions, and investigators. Under normal conditions it

receives and dispatches about 700,000 pounds of printed matter annually.

NATIONAL ZOOLOGICAL PARK

The National Zoological Park has an area of 175 acres, and is located in the Rock Creek Valley, 2 miles north of the center of Washington. Its collection comprises about 2,600 animals.

ASTROPHYSICAL OBSERVATORY

The Division of Astrophysical Research investigates solar radiation and other solar phenomena. The work of this observatory is carried on partly in Washington, D. C., and partly at stations on Table Mountain, in California; Mount Montezuma, near Calama, Chile; and in Miami, Fla.

The Division of Radiation and Organisms was established during the year 1929 for the purpose of making scientific investigations relating to the effect of radiation on the growth and life of plants and animals.

CANAL ZONE BIOLOGICAL AREA

The act of July 2, 1940, authorized and directed that there be set aside within the Canal Zone an area in Gatun Lake known as Barro Colorado Island whereon the natural features are, except in the advent of some necessity for use under a declared national emergency, to be left in their original state for observation and investigation by scientists, particularly those from North, Central, and South America. Under Reorganization Plan No. 3 of 1946, this Island, designated in the original enabling act as the Canal Zone Biological Area, was transferred to the Smithsonian Institution. The Canal Zone Biological Area is the only tropical scientific research station of its kind available in the new world to scientists and students of the Americas. Its location in the Canal Zone is strategic, since it occupies a position on the land bridge between North and South America.

NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART

[Under the direction of the Board of Trustees of the National Gallery of Art]

The National Gallery of Art, a bureau of the Smithsonian Institution, was established by joint resolution of Congress approved March 24, 1937, as a result of the late Andrew W. Mellon's gift to the Nation of his art collection and a monumental gallery building. The above act accepting Mr. Mellon's gift provided that the art collections then in possession of the Smithsonian Institution and theretofore designated the National Gallery of Art should thereafter be known as the National Collection of Fine Arts.

The National Gallery of Art is administered for the Smithsonian Institution, in which title is vested, by a board of nine trustees.

The National Gallery building, costing about $15,000,000, was the gift of the late Andrew W. Mellon, and was erected under the direction and guidance of Paul Mellon, Donald D. Shepard, and David K. E. Bruce, surviving trustees of The A. W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust. It was designed by John Russell Pope (1874-1937), architect, Otto R. Eggers, Daniel Paul Higgins, associates, and was dedicated by the President of the United States on March 17, 1941. It is visited by about 2,000,000 persons annually.

The building contains, in addition to the Mellon collection, the notable collection of Italian and French paintings and sculpture given to the Nation by Samuel H. Kress; also, the famous collection of paintings, sculpture, and decorative arts given by Joseph E. Widener in memory of his father, the late Peter A. B. Widener, and a number of paintings given by Chester Dale, who has also placed on indefinite loan his outstanding collection of paintings by French Nineteenth Century artists. Lessing J. Rosenwald has given to the Gallery his important collection of more than 10,000 prints and drawings, and additional prints and drawings have been given by Ellen T. Bullard, Elisabeth Achelis, Myron A. Hofer, Mr. and Mrs. J. Watson Webb, Mrs. George Nichols, David Keppel, Mrs. Walter B. James, Mrs. Addie Burr Clark, George Matthew Adams, and others. Other gifts of paintings have been received from Duncan Phillips, Mr. and Mrs. Peter H. B. Frelinghuysen, Mrs. Felix Warburg, Mrs. John W. Simpson, Mrs. Gordon Dexter, Mr. and Mrs. George W. Davison, Frederic A. Delano, Mrs. Robert Noyes, Ethelyn McKinney, Harris Whittemore, the children of the late Rt. Rev. William Lawrence, Dr. Horace Binney, the W. L. and May T. Mellon Foundation, Herbert L. Pratt, Mrs. Huttleston Rogers, Mrs. Robert W. Schuette, Mrs. Earle E. Bessey, Mrs. Barbara Hutton, Mr. and Mrs. John Ridgely of Hampton, Mrs. Georg Vetlesen, Stephen C. Clark, Samuel Fuller, and Clarence Van Dyke Tiers. Gifts of sculpture have been received from Mrs. Ralph Harman Booth, Mrs. Jesse Isidor Straus, Stanley Mortimer, and Mrs. John W. Simpson. The Gallery has also received, as a gift from the Works Progress Administration, the Index of American Design, consisting of more than 20,000 drawings and water colors made under the auspices of the United States Government as a pictorial record of American source material in design and craftsmanship from early colonial days to the close of the nineteenth century. Another gift to the Gallery is the Richter Archive of Illustrations on Art containing more than 60,000 reproductions of paintings of all schools. This gift was made by Solomon R. Guggenheim of New York. In addition, important loans of paintings from the Harris Whittemore collection are on exhibition. On the ground floor frequent exhibitions are held in the central gallery.

TARIFF COMMISSION, UNITED STATES

The United States Tariff Commission is an independent establishment of the Government created by the provisions of title VII of the Revenue Act of September 8, 1916.

As originally created, the Tariff Commission was designed to fill the long-felt need for an independent organization to supply factual information to the President, the Congress, and the Committees of Congress which handle tariff legislation. From time to time particular tariff and related problems are assigned by Congress to the Commission for investigation, and special functions and duties of a continuing nature were added to the Commission's other functions and duties by the Tariff Acts of 1922 and 1930, and other acts. Because of the experience and store of technical and economic information acquired by the Tariff Commission through the exercise of its various functions and duties, it was called upon to assist in the late war effort by supplying essential information and analysis. The principal activities of the Tariff Commission at present are preparation of special reports on postwar foreign-trade problems requested by the Ways and Means Committee of the House of Representatives, and the Finance Committee of the Senate; assistto Congressional committees dealing with commodity problems (wool, rubber, copper, building materials, newsprint, furs, cotton, and agricultural products); work on trade agreements, including conferences on the International Trade Organization and trade agreements at Geneva, Switzerland; and work on special interdepartmental committees concerned with problems of international economic collaboration.

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MEMBERSHIP AND ORGANIZATION

The membership consists of six commissioners appointed by the President with the consent of the Senate. These appointments are for 6 years, one term expiring each year. No more than three members may be of one political party. The principal office is in Washington, and an office is also maintained in the customhouse at the port of New York. The Commission has a seal which is judicially noticed. The staff consists of the secretary, who is appointed by the Commission, a planning and reviewing committee, economists, commodity and technical experts, accountants, and a clerical force.

GENERAL FUNCTIONS

General powers and duties (sec. 332).—The powers conferred on the Commission under section 332 of the Tariff Act of 1930, and the duties imposed thereunder are as follows:

(1) To investigate the administration and the fiscal and industrial effects of the customs laws of the United States and in general the operation of such laws, including their relation to the Federal revenues and the industries and labor of the country; the relations between rates of duty on raw materials and on finished or partly finished products; the effects of specific and ad valorem duties and of compound specific and ad valorem duties; and questions relating to the arrangement of the schedules of the tariff act and the classifications of the articles under the schedules.

(2) To investigate the tariff relations between the United States and foreign countries; commercial treaties; preferential provisions; economic alliances; the effect of export bounties and preferential transportation rates; and organizations and arrangements in Europe similar to the Paris Economy Pact.

(3) To investigate the volume of importations compared with domestic production and consumption and conditions, causes, and effects of competition between foreign industries and those of the United States, including dumping and costs of production.

(4) To ascertain, whenever practicable, conversion costs and costs of production in the United States and in the principal producing centers of the United States; to ascertain similar costs in foreign countries for comparison with costs obtained in the United States whenever in the opinion of the Commission foreign costs are necessary and can be reasonably obtained; and to ascertain other data affecting competition between domestic and imported articles in the principal markets of the United States.

(5) To select and describe articles representative of the classes and the kinds of articles imported into the United States and similar or comparable articles of domestic production; to obtain samples of such articles when deemed advisable; to ascertain the import costs of such foreign articles and to ascertain the selling prices of such domestic articles in the principal growing, producing, or manufacturing centers of the United States.

SPECIAL FUNCTIONS

Sections 336, 337, and 338 of the tariff act approved June 17, 1930, contain special provisions for the modification of existing duties and for the imposition of special duties or orders of exclusion from entry by Presidential proclamation under specified conditions, within stated limitations; and, in accordance with the legislative principles defined in those sections, all such Executive actions require previous investigation by the Tariff Commission.

Tariff adjustments (sec. 336).—Section 336 provides that the Commission, under such reasonable procedure, rules, and regulations as it may deem necessary, shall investigate the differences in the cost of production of any domestic article and of any like or similar foreign article in the principal competing country and shall report to the President the results of such investigation and its findings with respect to such differences. If the Commission finds that the duties fixed by the statute do not equalize the differences in costs as ascertained by its investigation, it shall specify in its report such increase or decrease, not exceeding 50 percent, of the statutory rate (including any necessary change in classification) as the investigation may show to be necessary to equalize such differences. If the Commission shall find, however, that a 50-percent increase in an ad valorem rate of duty will not equalize the ascertained differences, it shall so state in its report to the President and shall specify therein such ad valorem rate based on the American selling price, as elsewhere defined in the act, of the domestic article as the investigation may show to be necessary to equalize such difference; no such rate, however, may exceed the statutory rate nor may any such rate be decreased by more than 50 percent. Any specified increase or decrease of a rate or change in valuation so reported by the Commission, if approved and proclaimed by the President, shall take effect commencing 30 days after such proclamation. The section prescribes the elements to be taken into consideration in ascertaining such differences in costs of production; prohibits the transfer of an article from the dutiable list to the free list or from the free list to the dutiable list; and provides for the modification or termination of any increase or decrease so proclaimed.

The Commission is required to hold hearings in the course of its investigations under section 336, to give reasonable public notice thereof and to afford reasonable opportunity for parties interested to be present, to produce evidence, and to be heard at such hearings.

Under the Trade Agreements Act of 1934, commodities which become the subject of concessions changing the rates of duty are exempted from the operation of tariff adjustments under section 336.

Investigation of unfair practices in import trade (sec. 337).—The Commission is authorized under section 337 to investigate unfair methods of competition and unfair acts in the importation of articles into the United States, or in their sale after importation. When the findings and recommendations of the Commission, based on its investigation, justify the President in doing so, he is authorized to exclude such articles from entry into the United States, the exclusion to remain in effect until otherwise ordered by the President. The testimony in every investigation under the provisions of this section is required to be reduced to writing, and with the findings of the Commission constitutes the official record in each case. A copy of the findings is required to be sent to the importer or consignee of the articles affected thereby and shall be conclusive, subject only to rehearing by consent of the Commission or to appeal on questions of law only to the United States Court of Customs and Patent Appeals, whose judgment shall be final.

Ascertainment of discrimination against United States trade (sec. 338).—Under the provisions of section 338 the Commission is required to ascertain and at all times to be informed whether any foreign country discriminates against the commerce of the United States, in any one of several ways specified in the section. The Commission is required to report to the President with its recommendations any such discriminations which it may find to exist, and the President is authorized to specify and declare upon articles wholly or in part the growth or product of any such discriminating country such new and additional duties as will offset such burdens, or he may exclude from importation articles from such country. Such new or additional duties, however, may not exceed 50 percent ad valorem. Work under the Trade Agreements Act.-Section 350 of the Tariff Act of 1930, as amended June 12, 1934, assigned new work to the Tariff Commission by naming it a source of information and advice for the President in conducting reciprocal trade negotiations. The special function of the Commission with respect to such negotiations is to supply facts regarding possible concessions by the United States. In cooperation with the Department of State and other agencies of the

Government, it also analyzes data on all commodities under consideration, and appraises the effect of import quotas, exchange controls, preferential tariffs, and other trade restrictions of foreign countries as they relate to these negotiations. In practice, the Commission has found that its regular organization for the collection of tariff information can be utilized for the numerous phases of tradeagreement work.

The Commission is represented on various interdepartmental committees concerned with the reciprocal trade agreements program.

Work under Executive order, on results of trade agreements program.-Executive Order 9832 (Feb. 25, 1947), safeguarding American producers in the administration of the trade agreements program, directs the Tariff Commission to (1) report annually to Congress and the President on the operation of the trade agreements program; (2) investigate threatening or injurious imports resulting from concessions, hold public hearings, and recommend action; (3) publish commodity digests in advance of each new trade-agreement negotiation undertaken; (4) keep informed on the effects of trade-agreement concessions; and (5) keep current on competitive strength of American industries against import competition. The Executive order also provides that a Commissioner of the Tariff Commission serve on the Interdepartmental Committee on Trade Agreements which, under the President, manages the program and watches for discrimination.

Work under import control section of Agricultural Adjustment Act.-Section 22 of the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933, as amended (49 Stat. 773, sec. 31; 49 Stat. 1152, sec. 5; 50 Stat. 246, sec. 1; 54 Stat. 17), authorizes the President to direct the Tariff Commission to make an investigation when he has reason to believe that articles are being imported into the United States under such conditions and in sufficient quantities to render ineffective, or to interfere materially with, a program of benefits to agriculture under several laws; and he has authority, on the basis of the Tariff Commission's report, to limit, if necessary, the imports of the article by imposing either quantitative limitations or import fees.

Import quotas on Philippine articles.-The Philippine Trade Act of 1946 (Public Law 371, 79th Cong.) grants preferential tariff treatment to Philippine articles imported into the United States for a certain period after the Philippines become independent. To safeguard the interests of domestic industries, however, the Congress has provided absolute quotas (effective immediately) on important Philippine articles (sugar, cordage, rice, cigars, scrap and filler tobacco, coconut oil, and pearl buttons) and has reserved to the United States the right to impose absolute quotas on other articles after a finding by the President that such articles are coming or are likely to come into substantial competition with like articles produced in the United States. Section 504 of the Philippine Trade Act directs the Tariff Commission to make investigations, including public hearings, to assist the President in carrying out this function. No quota under this executive authority may be made effective before January 1, 1948.

Cooperation with other agencies (sec. 334).-Section 334 provides that the Commission shall act in appropriate matters in conjunction and cooperation with the Treasury Department, the Department of Commerce, the Federal Trade Commission, or any other departments, or independent establishments of the Government.

Current work of the Commission. Most of the current work of the Tariff Commission is in response to requests from committees of Congress, particularly the Senate Finance Committee, the House Committee on Ways and Means, and the House Select Committee on Foreign Aid. Among these projects are (1) revision of the Summaries of Tariff Information on thousands of commodities; (2) revision of the Dictionary of Tariff Information; (3) compilation of data on the key commodities in plans for aid in the economic recovery of Europe on a self-help basis; (4) reports on the effects of the war on important domestic industries; (5) reports on the international trade policies of foreign countries and their effect on the industry and trade of the United States; (6) analysis of the provisions of the charter proposed for the International Trade Organization under the United Nations, and how those provisions affect present United States legislation, practices, and policies.

Technical assistance on the trade agreements negotiated in Geneva with 18 countries continues.

The first annual report required by Executive Order 9832 (Feb. 25, 1947) on the operation of the trade agreements program is in preparation.