America in exchange for the wheat and munitions and other things they must have from America because all of their man power must be used in fighting the war and in producing the things needed to help fight the war. Credits only remained. The British Government pursued a course up to the time of our entrance into the war of the utmost bravery in making a settlement in gold where she could. Other Governments had not the gold to begin with. All the Governments, about the time we entered the war, had reached the point where their exchange would not stand the strain of further purchases abroad, and they actually would have had to stop fighting if they could not have obtained the things they needed to import with which to fight.

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The credits you permitted the Treasury to establish solved that problem. They also made it possible for America to sell a stupendous quantity of goods and supplies at profitable prices.

MISCELLANEOUS DIVISIONS.

THE COAST GUARD.

The Coast Guard is normally engaged in humanitarian service, such as assisting vessels in distress, life-saving, giving medical aid to fishing fleets on the Grand Banks and in Alaskan waters, enforcing laws and regulations regarding navigation, quarantine, neutrality, customs, and in patrol duty to keep the seas free from derelicts, wrecks, or other floating dangers to ships, including the ice patrol in the North Atlantic, which was instituted after the loss of the Titanic. The game and seal of Alaska are also protected by the Coast Guard during the breeding season.

In time of war, by operation of law, the Coast Guard is transferred from the direction of the Treasury Department to the Navy and it is mobilized for active war service in addition to its normal peace-time work.

At New London, Conn., the Coast Guard Academy, founded in 1874, trains cadets for the service on a plan similar to that followed at the Naval Academy at Annapolis. Three months' intensive training was given the extra personnel needed for war service, both on shore and on board a cruising cutter detailed as a training ship. The personnel was raised to a war strength of 229 commissioned officers, 438 warrant officers, and 6,106 enlisted men, the various units reporting to the divisional commanders of the Navy, generally those in which the ships were geographically situated. Six cutters were ordered to the war zone on patrol duty. Coast Guard officers were retained for duty at navy yards and stations, naval aviation stations, and in three sections of the regular Coast Naval Division.

The loss of life was proportionately heavier in the Coast Guard than in any branch of the naval service, as they were active not only in the submarine zone, but also supervised the loading of high explosives at the port of New York, over a thousand men being engaged in this work alone.

Since America entered the war the important system of coastal communication by telephone and submarine cables between the coast stations, so that news of shipwrecks or the approach of enemies from the sea can be reported in the briefest possible time, along our entire coast lines has been perfected. One station is also maintained at Nome, Alaska. The coastal communication service is invaluable in time of peace as well as in time of war.

For more than 120 years, since Alexander Hamilton, the first Secretary of the Treasury, founded the Revenue Cutter Service, which,

with the Life-Saving Service, was combined into the Coast Guard, January 28, 1915, through practical experience and traditions of steady drill, discipline, and training, the present splendid service has been built up. The excessive modesty of brave men is probably responsible for the fact that the Coast Guard issues no publications for general distribution. Libraries may write to the Commodore Commandant of the Coast Guard at Washington for a small blue book. The Annual Report of the Coast Guard, in which are packed in close statistical formation more true tales of heroism at sea and matterof-fact devotion to duty than you will find on all the fiction shelves. Appointments to cadetships are made upon strictly competitive. educational examinations, which are open to young men of the prescribed ages (18 to 24) having the necessary moral and physical qualifications. Examinations are held throughout the country from time to time, and the highest averages attained are alone the sureties for cadet appointments. Strict military and comprehensive technical training, covering a course of three years, fit the cadet for his duties as an officer. Original appointment in the Engineer Corps is as cadet engineer, the maximum age limit being 25 years.

A collection of photographs and transparencies for exhibition purposes may be borrowed from the Coast Guard by special arrangement with the Commodore Commandant of the Coast Guard, Washington, D. C.

BUREAU OF ENGRAVING AND PRINTING.

This bureau is the Government factory for producing its paper money, bonds, revenue, postage and customs stamps, checks, drafts, and all Government securities printed from engraved plates.

The Director's report for 1918 shows that 150,983,817 sheets of United States notes, bonds, national currency, Federal reserve notes, Federal reserve currency, and certificates of indebtedness were prepared and delivered during the fiscal year, valued at $31,482,991,950; 6,557,617,106 revenue stamps and 5,767,000 customs stamps were made. The United States Post Office Department required 13,200,109,567 postage stamps, the post service of the Philippines 21,710,000 stamps, and 33,518,971 sheets of checks, drafts, certificates, etc., were furnished to United States disbursing officers.

The bureau employs the most expert designers, engravers, plate printers, and other artisans, besides a large force of female operatives counting and examining the printed securities, and printers' assistants who aid the printers in their respective lines, making the product of this bureau very difficult to counterfeit. The work of the engravers is specialized so that each man becomes exceptionally skilled in his particular branch of the art, such as portrait, script, square letter, and ornamental engraving.

Designs for paper money, bonds, etc., are approved by the Secretary of the Treasury, while those for postage stamps are approved by the Postmaster General. The dies are engraved on steel, and by the transfer presses taken up upon rolls, and afterwards these in turn are taken up upon steel plates from which the securities are printed. The inks used in printing these securities are manufactured by the bureau from colors which are fast to varying degrees of light, and all colors before being made into inks are subjected to fading tests.

The workers in each room are responsible for the securities, stamps, etc., on which they are working. Before closing each day a final count is made, and it is the pride of the bureau that not even a postage stamp is missing at the end of each day's work which can not be finally accounted for, although none of the employees are bonded.

As too much time would be lost in counting the securities before the lunch hour, the employees do not leave the building during the day. Therefore, in erecting and equipping the new building for the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, opened in the early spring of 1914, the Government strove to furnish the employees with surroundings as comfortable and attractive as possible. It is in every way a model factory building, equipped with a cooperative lunch room, emergency hospital with special wards for men and women, every convenience for the health and well-being of the workers.

From the gallery of the high, airy room where the big presses hum, the writer looked down on the men and women, singing in the sunlight as they printed the new victory bonds. The song was "The Long, Long Trail," to the accompaniment of the undertone of great machines, and in the contentment of the workers one caught a symbolic glimpse of the spirit of labor in the future toward which the world must surely advance.

The annual report of the Director of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing can be obtained on application to the Superintendent of Documents, Government Printing Oflice.

THE GENERAL SUPPLY COMMITTEE.

This committee was created by act of Congress of June 17, 1910, and is composed of officers from each of the Executive Departments, designated by the head thereof. The Superintendent of Supplies, appointed by the Secretary of the Treasury, is ex officio secretary of the General Supply Committee, and he conducts all correspondence, supervises the preparation of all contracts, and performs such other duties as the Secretary of the Treasury may direct.

The General Supply Committee is required to make an annual schedule of articles needed by the Government offices in the District of Columbia, with the exception of the field service of the Army and Navy, standardizing such supplies and eliminating unnecessary grades and varieties. Manufacturers are invited to bid on the articles scheduled, the successful bidder receiving the total orders, many or few, for his product during one year. The General Supply Committee is not empowered to make the purchases, but after the contracts are made the purchasing officers of the various Government establishments, etc., order goods as needed from time to time from the contractors listed in the General Schedule of Supplies.

Previous to the organization of the General Supply Committee, for instance, there were more than 50 separate schedules. Each department and establishment pursued its own system without reference to the others, and, in a number of instances, there was a decided lack of uniformity in the methods practiced by the different services of the same department. Each Executive Department, independent establishment, and oftentimes a number of bureaus and offices therein, made its purchases independently. One of the inevitable results of these methods was an extensive duplication of

work and expense, which has now been simplified by the issuance of one Government schedule covering the entire Government service and effecting standardization as to price and quality. An idea of the immense amount of purchases made under contracts negotiated by the General Supply Committee is given by the total for 1918, which is approximately $12,000,000.

Under the present system, subcommittees, composed of experts assigned from the different departmental bureaus and Government establishments, consider the bids submitted and examine the samples applying thereto. Their recommendations are presented to the General Supply Committee, which meets at regular intervals, and upon adoption by said committee abstracts of all bids received, accompanied by the recommendations of the subcommittee, are forwarded to the Secretary of the Treasury for award of contract.

Awaiting the inspection and recommendation of the various subcommittees, the writer saw stacks of saucepans, bottles of ink, hospital equipment, test tube racks, typewriter ribbons, pens, desks, chairs, tables, rugs, typewriter paper, leather goods, and merchandise of every description, which were submitted by bidders upon specifications issued by the committee. These samples must all be examined and passed upon with a view to selecting the types of pencils, pins, desks, waste baskets, etc., that will best serve the purposes of the Government offices.

The Secretary of the Treasury in his report for 1916 recommended that the General Supply Committee be enlarged and that the committee be given power to contract for and to purchase all supplies of the Government, stating further that this would necessarily involve a warehousing system, making Government purchasing a wholesale rather than a retail proposition, as it is at present, and consequently lowering the prices at which manufacturers can afford to bid for contracts. The plan is under consideration.

The Property Transfer Division of the General Supply Committee was organized under the provisions of Executive order of December 3, 1918, and the Treasury Department regulations of Decomber 10, 1918, to take charge of surplus furniture, equipment, and supplies by transfer or sale.

It was pointed out that when the Government offices engaged in war work should be demobilized, a great quantity of merchandise of every kind would be thrown into disuse. The estimate is approximately $6,000,000 worth of second-hand merchandise and under the method of handling by transfer from war organizations to permanent offices of the Government, as requisitioned by their supply officers, and the allowance of a depreciation of not more than 25 per cent for previous use, the saving to the Government is enormous, compared with prices that could be expected to be realized from the former plan of disposal of surplus material, whereby the different departments handled such matters individually, generally by sale at public auction.

The Executive order of December 3, 1918, provides that all requisitions for material for Government use in the District of Columbia, excepting the field service of the Army and Navy, must pass through the General Supply Committee and must be filled from the stocks on hand if possible.

The 48 buildings formerly occupied by the Motor Transport Corps in East Potomac Park, Washington, have been placed at the disposal of the General Supply Committee. Up till May 15, 1919, about $1,000,000 worth of furniture, equipment, and supplies had been collected from demobilized Government offices, and about $500,000 has been reissued to other departments in lieu of the purchase of new material.

Furniture is repaired and refinished; typewriters are put in condition, cleaned, and set in orderly rows; every kind of merchandise is classified, ticketed, and credited to the department from which it was taken. Pins, automobiles, desks, tables, etc., are reissued and meet the requirements of the service almost as satisfactorily as new material.

Deliveries are prompt, which is an advantage over the time ordinarily required by the contractors. A requisition for 400 desks, 400 chairs, and 100 costumers was filled from the improvised warehouses of the General Supply Committee within three days. Six trucks are kept busy, collecting furniture, etc., and redelivering it to new users. The salvage of war material is a big job, but the details entrusted to the General Supply Committee are being handled in an efficient manner. 3,500 typewriters, 5,000 desks, 10,000 chairs, 3,500 tables— the approximate numbers of large articles received for storage and reissue up to May 10, give some idea of the problem. Citizens who want efficient business methods in the Government will find nothing to complain of in the work of the General Supply Committee.

THE UNITED STATES PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE.

The United States Public Health Service was established 120 years ago and is maintained as a part of the Treasury Department for the purpose of safeguarding the health of the Nation through the enforcement of domestic and maritime quarantine laws, and by continual research into all fields for the betterment of public sanitation and hygiene in both the rural districts and the populous industrial centers, so that any community or industrial enterprise confronted with problems relating to the health and welfare of the people may get expert advice and help from the Government whenever needed. Records are kept and the information compiled for reference, the experience of one community thus being available for the benefit of all, through Federal cooperation with the State, county, and city health boards.

The work of the Public Health Service is carried on under seven divisional heads: Scientific Research; Domestic (interstate) Quarantine; Foreign and Insular (maritime) Quarantine; Sanitary Reports and Statistics; Marine Hospitals and Relief: Personnel and Accounts; Venereal Disease Division; and Miscellaneous Work, including the dissemination of information and publications of educational value.

The Division of Research gathers information from many sources, including its own field investigations and experiments concerning the best methods of handling epidemics, of keeping the water supply pure, of treating various diseases that puzzle the medical profession, of finding the best ways to feed and care for children, and also how to maintain the most healthful conditions in industrial plants, to reduce