CHAPTER II. 1865-1912. THE NATIONAL EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENTS. The organization and work of the Department of Agriculture Bureaus of the State Department - Additions to the Treasury Department- - Receipts and expenditures of the Government - Prominent incumbents of the office of Attorney-General Changes in the Postal service-Work of the Post-Office Department Scope of the Department of the Interior Establishment of the Department of Commerce and Labor The Presidential succession. At the close of the Civil War, the State, Treasury, Army, Navy, PostOffice and Interior Departments of the National Government-six in all— were in existence. There was a Department of Agriculture, but it was not on a footing with the other departments. Originally connected with the Patent Office, it became independent in 1862, with a commissioner at its head. In 1889 the department was raised in rank, its head becoming Secretary of Agriculture and a member of the President's Cabinet. The first Secretary was Norman J. Coleman, and his successors have been Jeremiah M. Black, J. Sterling Morton, and James Wilson. Regarded with slight favor at the time of its creation, the department has become one of the most useful branches of the Government and one of the greatest scientific establishments of its kind anywhere in the world. In 1884 a Bureau of Animal Industry was created in the department, and in 1888 the Office of Experiment Stations. Since then there has been added the Weather Bureau in 1891, transferred from the War Department, and bureaus of Plant Industry, Soils, Forestry and Chemistry in 1901. There are now also divisions of biology and entomology. The department issues a year book, farmers' bulletins, periodicals, pamphlets and books, to the annual number of over 600. After an assistant Secretary was provided for the Department of State, no additions were made to the official personnel of that department until 1866, when the office of second assistant was created, and 1874, when a third assistant secretary was added. The business of the department is handled by seven bureaus - the diplomatic, consular, indexes and archives, accounts, rolls and library, foreign commerce, and appointments. Since the incumbency of William H. Seward as Secretary (1861-1869) there have been 15 Secretaries, including such statesmen as Hamilton Fish, William M. Evarts, F. T. Frelinghuysen, T. F. Bayard, James G. Blaine, John Sherman, John Hay, Elihu Root, and P. C. Knox. There have been 39 Secretaries during our National existence. Since the close of the Civil War, the activities of the Treasury Department have been expanded in some directions and curtailed in others. It still has general supervision of the revenues and disbursements of the Government, but several of its bureaus have been removed to other departments, particularly to that of the Interior. The office of the Director of the Mint, created in 1792, became a bureau of the Treasury Department in 1873, the reorganized Marine Hospital Service in 1870, and the Life Saving Service in 1878. In 1862 the Government began to print its own notes and securities, and in 1874 the Bureau of Printing and Engraving was organized. With the institution of the National bank system in 1863, the office of Comptroller of the Currency was created to have supervision thereof. The following table gives the gross annual receipts and expenditures of the Government from all sources including postal revenues for 19001910.* Receipts. Expenditures. $686,953,491 $663,915,277 712,203,099 690,987,355 717,064,085 683,391,489 720,378,141 694,111,489 710,167,679 776,802,225 719,994,021 746,568,098 cept as national expansion has added to its duties. After the Civil War a Provost Marshal Generals Bureau and the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands were established to handle certain phases of the reconstruction work in the Southern States. After the war with Spain and the acquisition of the Philippines, the Bureau of Insular Affairs was established to have oversight of the work of establishing civil government in those islands. There was an Attorney-General as early as 1789, Edmund Randolph being the first. Among his most distinguished successors were Charles. Lee, John Breckinridge, William Pinkney, Richard Rush, Roger B. Taney, Benjamin F. Butler, J. J. Crittenden, John Y. Mason, Reverdy Johnson, Caleb Cushing, Edwin M. Stanton, William M. Evarts and Ebenezer R. Hoar. The office was not created into a department until 1870 and Amos T. Ackerman was the first Attorney-General to sit in the Cabinet of the President. From that time the AttorneyGenerals have been 16 in number, including Alphonso Taft, Wayne McVeagh, Richard Olney, Judson Har mon, Joseph McKenna, William H. 789,318,771 763,103,908 Moody, C. J. Bonaparte, and George W. Wickersham. To assist the Attorney-General, are a solicitor-general, assistant attorney-generals, and other law officers. 909,913,238 818,541,147 In the War Department there has been little administrative change, ex * See the annual Statistical Abstract of the United States. During the administration of President Johnson (1865-1869) important advances were made in the Post |