United States Reports

“ This Department has also made another series of contributions to social science through the publications of the Bureau of American Republics. This bureau was organized as the result of the effort to increase the trade between the United States and other American nations. Its publications consist of annual reports, monthly and special bulletins, and handbooks descriptive of foreign American countries, their resources, trade, wages, etc. ”

“ Very well: in the course of these three years a large number of mentally alert people all over the country will have developed the habit of reading these monthly reports; they will look forward to them, they will attach significance to them, they will herald them as events, almost as decisions. In any question of national policy its statements will influence thousands and thousands of the more independent minds. Let us calculate the number of people who, in these United States, would be reached by such reports ”

“ Our government wisely provides for the gathering of statistics at intervals of ten years, and some of the States also take an account of stock and production at intermediate periods, some of them, like Ohio, have a permanent statistician who reports annually to the Governor of the State. ”

“ Excepting the annual reports of the state of our commerce, made by the secretary of the treasury, under law, and excepting the census which is taken every ten years under the authority of congress, and those taken by the states, we have no official statistics. ”

“ Whoever considers, in a combined and comprehensive view, the general texture of the Constitution, will be satisfied, that the people of the United States intended to form themselves into a nation for national purposes. They instituted, for such purposes, a national Government, complete in all its parts, with powers Legislative, Executive and Judiciary; and, in all those powers, extending over the whole nation. ”

“ The Administration will, through future messages either directly from me or from heads of the departments and agencies, transmit to the Congress specific recommendations. These will involve our financial and fiscal affairs, our military and civil defenses; the administration of justice; our agricultural economy; our domestic and foreign commerce; the urgently needed increase in our postal rates; the development of our natural resources; our labor laws, including our labor-management relations legislation, and vital aspects of the health, education and welfare of our people. ”

“ The United States presents in its history a phenomenum which has no parallel. It is that of a people who instituted the statistics of their country on the very day when they founded their government, and who regulated in the same instrument the census of the citizens, their civil and political rights and the destinies of the country. ”

“ Indeed, the Department of Insurance, Statistics, and History carried no great heft of the burden of state. Its main work was the regulating of the business done in the state by foreign insurance companies, and the letter of the law was its guide. As for statistics—well, you wrote letters to county officers, and scissored other people's reports, and each year you got out a report of your own about the corn crop and the cotton crop and pecans and pigs and black and white population, and a great many columns of figures headed "bushels" and "acres" and "square miles," etc.—and there you were. ”

“ The activities of our Government are so great, when combined with the emergency activities which have arisen out of the world crisis, that even the briefest review of them would render the annual message unduly long. I shall therefore avail myself of the fact that every detail of the Government is covered in the reports to the Congress by each of the departments and agencies of the Government. ”

“ Amid an immense mass of material, of which part has long ceased to have any interest, and part never had any but an official interest for those engaged in the practical business of administration, there are a great many reports, or passages in reports, which possess real value in the history of institutions. ”

“ In view of these deliverances and as bearing upon their relevancy, as well as indicating their purpose, let me again suggest that the issue involved in the discussion as selected by the majority of the Committee on the Judiciary, and distinctly declared in their report, was whether, as a matter of right, or, as the report expresses it, as within “constitutional competence,” either House of Congress should “have access to the official papers and documents in the various public offices of the United States, created by laws enacted by themselves.” ”

“ Reporting Administrative Activity: In delegating powers in the areas of defense, foreign affairs or in time of emergency, Congress is [99] inclined to insist upon frequent reporting, and to specify carefully the kind of information and supporting documentation it expects to receive. It may stipulate, as in the Japanese Evacuation Claims Act of 1948 and the Mutual Defense Assistance Act of 1949, the subjects on which it wishes reports, and refrain from imposing an obligation to report at specified calendar intervals. ”

“ All the valuable results of the last census are classified and incorporated. Then we have the entire organization of the military, naval, and civil service,—the tariff and tax laws conveniently arranged,—the financial, industrial, commercial, agricultural, literary, educational, and ecclesiastical elements of our condition,—the legislation of the last three sessions of Congress, and full and detailed statistics of the individual States,—to which is added a minute sketch of the foreign Governments. ”

“ Nevertheless, compliance must be supplemented and encouraged by constant and widespread investigations, during which questions are asked and data are required by employees of the Government whose goal is only to settle fairly the civil accounts between the United States and its citizens. ”

“ Congress is made the guardian of this treasure; and to make their responsibility complete and perfect, a regular account of the receipts and expenditures is required to be published, that the people may know, what money is expended, for what purposes, and by what authority. ”

“ REPORT TO CONGRESS UPON EXERCISE OF PRESIDENTIAL AUTHORITIES.—Whenever the President exercises any of the authorities granted by this chapter, he shall immediately transmit to the Congress a report specifying—
(1) the circumstances which necessitate such exercise of authority; (2) why the President believes those circumstances constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat, which has its source in whole or substantial part outside the United States, to the national security, foreign policy, or economy of the United States ”

“ I have one suggestion to make: that our national Government, when it takes the next general census, include in its statistics information about all the people in the United States above ninety, the kind of information to be determined beforehand by the most eminent physicians and scientific men generally in this country or in the world. I believe that such information would be of more value to the world, after having been properly digested, than all the facts about the manufacture of cotton cloth, the raising of tobacco, the production of whisky, etc., that could be collected in a century. ”

“ Whereas there is reason to suspect, that as well the national character of the United States, and the honor of Congress, as the finances of the said states; may be injured, and the public service greatly retarded, by some publications that have been made concerning the foreign affairs of said states,—Resolved, That a committee be appointed to inquire into this subject, and report what steps they conceive are necessary to be taken thereon. ”

“ I have sometimes almost come to the conclusion that so many of the figures of the United States census are mere statistical rubbish as to throw a doubt on nearly all the schedules. Yet without accurate statistics on many points, many of them yet to be secured, the conduct of our national affairs must become as uncertain as would be the conduct of any great business corporation without a true ledger account and a trial balance. ”

“ And in regard to those local facts, which are chiefly of use to a member of congress, they are precisely those, which are most easily attainable from the documentary evidence in the departments of the national government, or which lie open to an intelligent man in any part of the state, which he may represent. ”

“ He remained there for seven years, and in 1832 published ‘Remarks on the Statistics and Political Institutions of the United States, with some Observations on the Ecclesiastical System of America, her Sources of Revenue, &c.’ The book, an edition of which was issued at Philadelphia during the same year under the auspices of Washington Irving, gave a highly favourable picture of American institutions. ”

“ The treatise of Achenwall, the German philosopher who originated the word, laid the foundation of many of the greatest reforms in modern legislation. Statistics are state facts, facts for the consideration of statesmen, such as they may not neglect with safety. It has been truly said that ‘statistics are history in repose; history is statistics in motion.’ If we neglect the one, we shall deserve to be neglected by the other. ”

“ A knowledge of commerce, and taxation, and manufactures, can be obtained with more certainty by inquiries conducted through many, than through a single channel of communication. The representatives of each state will generally bring with them a considerable knowledge of its laws, and of the local interests of their districts. ”

“ We have a responsibility -- the President and Congress, Democrats and Republicans -- to do something for the American people. You know, probably each day that I've been here this week, we've had some statistic, at least in this town, to remind us of where we are. ”

“ Number one, the President believes the most important thing for policymakers, either in the Congress or in the White House, is to be accurate, and not to withhold information from the American people, but to accurately and fully describe to the American people the state of the economy. ”

“ By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and laws of the United States of America, including the Strategic and Critical Materials Stock Piling Act, as amended (50 U.S.C. 98 et seq.) , and in order to provide for the performance of certain reporting functions, it is hereby ordered that Executive Order No. ”

“ It is understood that a thorough survey of the course of the communication is in preparation, and there is every reason to expect that it will be prosecuted with characteristic energy, especially when that Government shall have consented to such stipulations with the Government of the United States as may be necessary to impart a feeling of security to those who may embark their property in the enterprise. ”

“ That so much of the resolution of Congress of the twenty-ninth of August, one thousand seven hundred and eighty-eight, as requires the French and Canadian inhabitants, and other settlers at Post Saint Vincents, to pay for the survey of the several tracts, which they rightfully claimed, and which had been allotted to them, according to the laws and usages of the government, under which they had settled, be, and hereby is repealed: And that such surveys thereof, as may have been made, be paid for by the United States, not exceeding the rates hitherto established by Congress for making surveys. ”

“ Nevertheless, it has become the fashion for all the more advanced Governments to rival each other in the breadth, fullness, arrangement, and clearness of the numerical information they obtain on all the groups of national facts which are susceptible of being tabulated in a systematic shape. These tables of statistics are periodically furnished by the Government, not only for purposes of contemplated legislation, but independently of all thought of immediate use. ”

“ Twenty-five years ago the Hoover Commission discovered that Washington files a million reports a year just reporting there is nothing to report. Independent business people, shopkeepers and farmers file billions of reports every year required of them by Washington. ”

“ Facts and figures, statistics compiled with much toil and difficulty, are the foundation stones of all legislative social reforms. They are indispensable in all cases where we wish the government of a country to interpose. ”

“ These statistics might be equally accessible, as they would be equally useful, to both the nation and the States. In this way, and by these means, let the nation take hold of the larger works, and the States the smaller ones; and thus, working in a meeting direction, discreetly, but steadily and firmly, what is made unequal in one place may be equalized in another, extravagance avoided, and the whole country put on that career of prosperity which shall correspond with its extent of territory, its natural resources, and the intelligence and enterprise of its people. ”

“ A careful plan is being devised and will be presented to Congress with the recommendation that the force of auditors and employees under them be greatly reduced, thereby effecting substantial economy. But this economy will be small compared with the larger economy that can be effected by consolidation and change of methods. ”

“ As intimately connected with and promotive of this material growth of the nation, I ask the attention of Congress to the valuable information and important recommendations relating to the public lands, Indian affairs, the Pacific Railroad, and mineral discoveries contained in the report of the Secretary of the Interior which is herewith transmitted, and which report also embraces the subjects of patents, pensions, and other topics of public interest pertaining to his Department. ”

“ The greatest difficulty in teaching these people that their best way to the sea lies through Virginia, not through Canada, is to get our people to raise funds for the gratuitous circulation of the Reports [2] in sufficient numbers between this and the next meeting of Congress in December. ”