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been a Bureau of Commerce in the Interior Department and a Bureau of Labor. The mercantile and industrial interests of this country had been clamoring for a Department of Commerce to encourage commerce. I've forgotten who this was done under, but it was sometime in the '90s. I think it was either under Harrison or Mckinley. So commerce and Labor were made into one Department. The new Department of Commerce and Labor was set up. The Bureau of Labor was just taken out of Interior and moved into the Commerce Department, where it was greatly over-shadowed, of course, by the greater size and vigor of the Department of Commerce.

However, at that level it did some pretty good work. They made some studies and published a few things that are intelligent and useful descriptive studies of what was going on in working conditions. They made some studies of wages. They made quite a few hours studies, and actually began the gathering of employment figures, which we still rely. on as our index of employment.

In 1913 the Department of Labor was then established by law. The labor unions had always been suggesting, recommending and petitioning the establishment of a Department of Labor, Then after they got the Department of Labor established, nobody could think of anything for it to do. Nothing was being dine anywhere in the government