The Newtown bee., 1896-05-22
THE DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR.

The name "Department of the Inter- for" coGvoys very little idea to most minds of the variety and importance of the duties performed by the nine thOus- aud employees of that branch Of the Executive Department of the Govern mput.
 The headquarters fos this vast army If clerks js the Patent Office building, which covers two city blocks with the Intervening street. The building is of whitc marble, of the D0ric order Of architecture, and cost nearly $4,000 900, most of the money being taken from the profits from the issue Of patents. Here rhe Secretary of the Interior has estab- lished his personal force of 150 clerks, taking up the best rooms of course, al- though the Patent Onice force sorely needs and rightfully claims the entire building.
 Here also the Land Office, with it's 475 clerks, performs it's multifarious duties connected with the survey and sale of the millions of acres of public lands. Congress has directed the Secretary and the Land Office to move out, but has failed to provide other qaarters, and so they stay. The Patent Office force num- bering some 600 people, is crowded down to about One-haIf of the space it really needs, and tons upon tons of copies ot puDllC LtCOIUes anu I4lOuSdullS OA UT IS Iud1 patent drawings and models are stored in the corridors. The ends of all the railways have been turned into office rooms, and nearly all the models have been stored in a rented building to make room for clerks desks. Still the build ing is overcroWded, and the condition of affairs is constantly growing worse. Some 9, 900 patents are issued a year, and one hundred extra copies of each r,o make room for this constantly increasing stock, the number of separate patents, now exceeding $50, ,000, is a very serious thing, and the once broad railways are narrowing to lanes scarcely wide enough for two people to pass ledge ways"
 In another building, called the Pen- sion Office, are quartered the ? GOO clerks of this branch of the Interior Depart ment. The building is of brick, and is of enormous proportions, as one could imagine from the fact that 17, ,000,0 of bricks entered into it's construction. The building gives the idea of 8 great barn. The offices are arranged four or five stories high on four sides of a cen- tral covered court, the scene of all recent inaugural balls. The roof is supported by eight colums, s feet in diameter, and 100 feet high, and each containing 100,- 900 bricks. These columns were at first covered with white plaster, but have so recently been so colored as to resemble Mexican onyx.
 The Indian Bureau has found a home in an office building of F@street, where 100 clerks are employed. By far the greater part of the force of this bureau is stationed at the Indian agencies, reser- vation schools, or training schools.
 The fifth great branch of the Interior Department, i. e., the Geological Sur vey, which has about 200 employees, has it's force divided between a rented building on F street near the Treasury Department, and the Smithsonian Insti- tute building.
 The Bureau of Education occupies a rental building across the street from the Patent Office, and the Bureau of | Labor occupies 8 building on street l near the Geological Survey headquarters. l These last two bureaus have some forty | and sixty clerks, respectively.
 The Bureaus enumerated are the most | important branches of the Interior De- paTGment, but besides these are the fol- lowing minor branches ;-Ofice of Rail- roads, Interstate Commerce Commission, Pacific Railway Commission, Govern ment Hospital for the Insane, Freed mans Hospital, and the Architect of the Capitol.
 To furnish proper quarters for the another building as large as the Patent Office should be built. The Secretary could then collect togeth- CT the clerks now scattered through 8 dozen or so rented buildings.
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