Evening star., 1936-03-07
LAIN PEOPLE BARE HEARTS IN LETTERS TO PRESIDENT
NEWS, OFFICIALLY
That Is What Uncle Sans New Federal Register
Will Present in Daily Issues for
! Paper Long Felt Here.

ullGUCc ucCldlC Il1dO odSI1 SAAoOo p1AA
disorder concerning statutory rules and
regulations demands an immediate
solution"
MAJ. BERNARD r. KENNEDY,
A'A director of the Division of the
Federal Register, referring to survey
made by a committee composed OF
experts from almost every department
and agency in the Government, stated
that the report of this committee
showed, among other startling facts,
that the material published by he
various departments and agencies dur
ing an average month consisted OF
almost 100000 words, which, together
with the indexes, would constitute ap-
proximately $50 pages of printed
matter.
Some of the foreign countries, in
cluding Great Britain, Canada, France
and Germany, all issue official ga
zettes, the purpose of which is similar
to that of the forthcoming Federal
Register.
Briefly. the act passed during the
last session of Congress covering the
Division of the Federal Register pro-
vides for the publication of all presi-
Dental proclamations and executive
orders. except such as have no gen.
eral applicability and legal effect or
are effective only against Federal
agencies or persons in their capacity
as officers, agents or employees thereof;
such documents as the President shall
determine have general applicability
and legal effect; such documents as
may be required to be published by
act of Congress, and such documents
as shall be authorized to be published
by regulations prescribed by the Ad-
ministrative Committee and approved
by the President.
The Administrative Committee is
composed of the archivist, repre-
sentative of the Department of JUS
tice and the public printer. The
director of the Federal Register acts
as secretary of this Administrative
Committee.
For the purposes of the act every
document or order which prescribes
penalty is deemed to have general
applicability and legal effect. An
order affecting single individual
and, therefore, having no general ap-
plicability and legal effect, would not
be carried in the Federal Register.
The act defines document" to mean
any presidential proclamation or ex-
ecutive order and any order, regu-
lation. rule, certificate, code of fair
competition, license, notice. or similar
instrument. issued prescribed or pro-
mulgated by Federal agency. Under
the act all such documents are re-
quired to be filed and published and
are not valid until they are so filed
and published. If such central Office
as the Division of the Federal Register
had been in existence, for example,
during the first year of the life of
the National Recovery Administration,
the 1893 administrative orders issued
by the N. r. A. during that period,
properly, should have been filed and
made readily available in the Division
of the Federal Register and, presuma-
bly,. it would not have been necessary
to make search through some 5,99l
press releases, as reported by the
House Committee on judiciary.
IN AN effort to avoid undue expense,
it is proposed to utilize the equip
ment of the Government Printing Of
flee in the printing of the new pub
lication. The Federal Register will
be published in the same general form
as the Congressional Record, and, like
the Congressional Record, it will be
printed by the Government Printing
Office and issued every day, except
Sunday, Monday and days following
legal holidays. Government Printing
Office employees, like other Govern
ment clerks, do not generally work on
Saturday afternoon, Sunday or legal
holidays.
According to Maj. Kennedy, all ma
terial to appear in given issue of
the publication must be in the hands
of the public printer by o'clock in
the afternoon of the preceding day.
In order to allow sufficient time for
checking. the material must be actu-
ally filed in the Division of the Fed
eral Register at least two hours earlier.
In other words, o'clock in the after
noon is the deadline on all notices to
appear in the next mornings issue Of
the Federal Register.