DTYISION OF PUBLICATIONS. 387 



By section 4 of the act providing for the sundry civil expenses of 

 the Government for the year ending June 30, 1921, Congress author- 

 ized the continuance until that date of any journal, magazine, 

 periodical, or similar publication Avhich is now being issued, ''when, 

 if it shall not have been specificall}' authorized by Congress before 

 that date, such journal, magazine, periodical, or similar publication 

 shall be discontinued." 



Thus, although this department responded in full detail to the 

 request of the Joint Committee on Printing for information regard- 

 ing all its periodicals and similar publications, explaining the reasons 

 why they were necessary in the ]5ublic interest, and although the 

 department submitted a provision to be inserted in the sundry civil 

 bill which would have authorized them, we are still confronted with 

 the necessity of appealing to Congress for specific authority for the 

 publication of each indi\idual periodical. 



Some of the periodicals of this department have been issued for 

 man}' years, and have become indispensable. Others of more recent 

 institution have become equally necessary to the proper performance 

 of the department's duty to "acquire and to diffuse" useful informa- 

 tifin on agricultural subjects. The ^lonthly Crop Eeporter, the 

 Weekly Xews Letter, the Experiment Station Record, the Market 

 Reporter, and the Journal of Agricultural Research are instances 

 of such essential periodicals, not to mention others, which contain 

 material which must be published in some form, and no more eco- 

 nomical form than the periodical can be found. 



It is submitted that the general authority to print, which this 

 department now has under the organic act creating it and under 

 the printing law of 1895, should l)e extended to include definite 

 authority to issue periodicals, leaving to this department, not to 

 Congress or any committee of Congress, the decision as to what peri- 

 odicals to issue. For Congress to specify what periodicals may be 

 issued is to exercise executive functions. Still more are executive 

 functions being performed when the decision is left to a committee of 

 Congress. If discretion regai'ding executi^-e acts is to be lodged any- 

 where, it should be lodged in the executive branch of the Government. 



It sliould be noted in this connection that the Joint Committee 

 on Printing, under the jjrovisions of section 11 of the act quoted, 

 is still exercising authority over the field printing of the department, 

 deciding in individual cases what may be printed elsewhere than 

 at the (Jovernmont Printing Office and what may not. This proce- 

 dure is open to the same objection as has just been made to their 

 control over periodicals. 



In the interest of offiriont administration of this department, 

 section 11 of the act of March 1, 1919, should be repealed, and this 

 department should be left to decide for itself what and how to print, 

 subject only to the onlerly inquii-y which Congress has always made 

 in considering annually the amount which it will appropriate for 

 the printing and binding. 



CONTACTS WITH THE PRESS. 



The Office of Information, the channel through which the depart- 

 ment's information reaches the press, in the last year has served 

 more clas.ses of publications with a greater variet^y of press mate- 

 rial in a larger quantity than in any year since it was organized. 



