Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922, 1910-10-13

The Department Of Commerce and Labor
! is a sort OF carryall for bureaus and gov
ornmental activities which do not fit IN
elsewhere. Corporation control. labor af-
fairs, immigration and naturalization,
census taking, statistics Of commerce. the
! interests Of manufacturers the welfare Of
navigation the safety Of steamboat traffic.
the warning OF mariners fish propagation
coast and geodetic survey and the regu-
lation OF standards Of measurement are
| some Of the things with which the depart
ment deals.
To the bureau Of corporations is as
signed the duty Of examining the opera
| tons Of interstate corporations, other than
common carriers. This bureau uses as its
big stick a weapon which Herbert Knox
Smith, the commissioner OF corporations.
terms efficient publicity" The bureau
examines the records of all corporations
doing an interstate business, and in i'm
! pCrtant cases voluminous reports showing
| all the details of a great business Notable
examples Of this are its Investigations Of
/ the Beef trust the Standard OIL company
and the Tobacco trust. 1t also has in.
vestigated the steel and iron business Of the
country and many other important in
dustries. Most of the big prosecutions OF
| gathered
/ by this bureau.
| Upon the bureau Of labor has devolved
the task Of gathering statistical and other
| informa ton relative to labor problems.
1t does not aim to remedy the ills Of the
! laboring man, but to gather data which
| will enable other agencies to act intelI-
gently in trying to cure them. The
bureaus reports deal with labors relations
| to capital, its hours, its earnings and
| means for promoting the material social
| and moral prosperity of working men and
! women. Its data relative to the relation
| of wages and prices constitutes one of
the basis upon which the tariff legislation
Of the country is formulated. 1t has
! studied such questions as working men
insurance, benefit funds the employment
Of women and girls in telegraph and tele-
phone work, retail prices, child labor, in
dL strial accidents and charity relief. II
also has investigated the relation of dusty
! occupations and tuberculosis.
The bureau Of immigration and natural
| ization has charge Of the coming Of aliens
into the United States and Of their efforts
to become full-fledged American citizens
! one person in every three in the United
States is an immigrant or the child of an
immigrant. Frequently 5000 immigrants
sions the average is 5000 a day for full
month. This gives the inspectors only two
minutes to each immigrant and a question
must be asked and answered every second
Only one immigrant out Of thousand il
| excluded. However, the lines of restric-
ton are being drawn tighter every year
! The head taxes collected from immigrants
more than support both the immigration
and naturalization services of the coun-
try. AS the law now stands an immigrant
may come into the United States IL he is
not afflicted with a loathsome disease or
is not likely to become a public charge
! The statistics OF prisons and eleemosynary
! institutions show a large proportion of
alien inmates, and the immigration service
| hopes to have the law changed so that all
who are economically undesirable" may
be excluded. The total money brought
into the United States by immigrants
amounts to about 100000 year. or
nearly 1923 a head.
The heavy immigration from southern
Europe is attributed mainly to the promo
/ ton Of the steamship agencies of Europe
and the professional money lenders They
make large profits out of the immigrant
business, and even II they have to carry
some Of the immigrants back, it still
leaves enough profit to make the business
worth while. The immigration service
wants a law requiring all steamship COM
panies to make oath that they will not
encourage immigration, with a refusal OF
clearance papers as a penalty for its vio-
| lation. One of the most troublesome things
with which the immigration service has to
deal is the smuggling OF Chinese into the
! United States Sometimes they slip in
from Canada AND Mexico in sealed refrig-
orator cars or in the refrigerators of din
ing cars. At other times they come hidden
in coal bunkers, chain lockers, forepeaks
and other unexpected parts of ocean going
vessels. The immigration bureau esti-
mates that one-half of the Chinese now in
the United States have no right to be here
under the law There is also a division
devoted to the naturalization of immi-
grants. Another division seeks to furnish
immigrants with information which will in