2 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1926 
THE BOARD OF REGENTS 
The affairs of the Institution are administered by a Board of 
Regents whose membership consists of “the Vice President, the 
Chief Justice, three Members of the Senate, and three Members of 
the House of Representatives, together with six other persons other 
than Members of Congress, two of whom shall be resident in the 
city of Washington, and the other four shall be inhabitants of some 
State, but no two of them of the same State.” One of the Regents 
is elected chancellor by the board; in the past the selection has 
fallen upon the Vice President or the Chief Justice; and a suitable 
person is chosen by the Regents as secretary of the Institution, who 
is also secretary of the Board of Regents and the executive officer 
directly in charge of the Institution’s activities. 
The following changes occurred in the personnel of the board 
during the year: The Hon. George Gray, of Delaware, died August 
7, 1925, and Mr. Dwight W. Morrow, of New Jersey, was appointed 
a citizen Regent on January 7, 1926, to fill the vacancy thus created. 
The roll of Regents at the close of the fiscal year was as iol- 
lows: William H. Taft, Chief Justice of the United States, chan- 
cellor; Charles G. Dawes, Vice President of the United States; 
members from the Senate—Reed Smoot, George Wharton Pepper, 
Woodbridge N. Ferris; members from the House of Representa- 
tives—Albert Johnson, R. Walton Moore, Walter H. Newton; citizen 
members—Charles F. Choate, jr., Massachusetts; Henry White, 
Washington, D. C.; Robert S. Brookings, Missouri; Irwin Bb. 
Laughlin, Pennsylvania; Frederic A. Delano, Washington, D. C.; 
and Dwight W. Morrow, New Jersey. 
GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS 
The Smithsonian Institution is a private establishment given to 
the American people by a philanthropic English gentleman for the 
increase and diffusion of knowledge among men. Out of its private 
investigations and collections grew up activities of immense public 
value. They have been the foundation of nine prominent Govern- 
ment bureaus. Of these, seven are still, by direction of Congress, 
administered by the Smithsonian Institution for the use of the public 
and for these public bureaus Congressional appropriations are 
made. ‘These appropriations are strictly limited to these special 
objects. It was out of investigations made by the Smith- 
sonian Institution, not out of any Government initiative, 
that these valuable public bureaus, including the Weather Bureau 
and the Fish Commission, grew up. Similarly, it is logical to 
suppose that out of the free activities of the Smithsonian Institu- 
tion great public benefits would arise in future if it had means 
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