J ONE 5, 1903.] 



i4 



SCIENCE. 



893 



name was changed to tlie International 

 Bureau of the American Republics, and 

 its affairs placed under the supervision of 

 a governing board composed of the Secre- 

 tary of State of the United States, who is 

 chairman, and the diplomatic representa- 

 tives in "Washington of all the other Ameri- 

 can republics represented in the bureau— 

 in other words, of all the American repub- 

 lics—numbering twenty. The bureau is 

 supported by contributions from all the re- 

 publics in proportion to the number of in- 

 habitants. Under the new plan the 

 bureau corresponds, through the diplomatic 

 representatives, with the executive depart- 

 ments of the several governments. It fur- 

 nishes information to any of the republics 

 requesting it. Each of the republics sends 

 to it two copies of each of its official pub- 

 lications, and supplies such information as 

 may, from time to time, be requested by the 

 director. All of the publications of the 

 bureau are public documents and as such 

 carried free in the mails of all the republics. 

 The bureau is the custodian of the archives 

 of the international American conferences, 

 and is charged with the performance of 

 any executive work specially imposed upon 

 it by the conferences. Among the duties 

 was the fixing of the date of meeting of the 

 commission for the study of the coffee 

 crisis, and the sanitary and customs con- 

 gresses. 



The necessity of forming a good library, 

 especially of the official publications of the 

 American states, was recognized by the 

 conference which founded the bureau. It 

 originated with the idea of creating a 

 monument to the work of the conference. 

 The second conference by resolution desig- 

 nated the library as the 'Columbus Me- 

 morial Library.' It has about 10,000 

 volumes, chiefly of works on Latin America. 

 The scope of the work of the bureau does 

 not yet seem to have been limited definitely, 



and it is believed that in the future it 

 may be found useful in many ways. 



Work of the Bureau of Insular Affairs: 

 Col. Clarence R. Edwards, chief of the 

 Bureaii of Insular Affairs, "War Depart- 

 ment. 



At the close of the Spanish "War, the 

 War Department was brought face to face 

 with a unique problem, i. e., the establish- 

 ment of a properly qualified civil govern- 

 ment under military control in the sur- 

 rendered territory, a territory that speed- 

 ily included Cuba, Porto Rico and the 

 Philippine Archipelago. The functions of 

 an organized government, in harmony with 

 American methods, had to be set in opera- 

 tion in an unpromising field. In a day al- 

 most, the United States was called upon to 

 govern more than twice as many people as 

 inhabited the United States at the close of 

 the Revolution. 



The "War Department found itself with- 

 out adequate machinery to handle this new 

 work. Its bureaus were adapted to mili- 

 tary requirements, while the new conditions 

 extended to all classes of government af- 

 fairs. 



The chief clerk of the "War Department 

 states that, for the sake of ready refer- 

 ence, the earliest Cuban customs cases, 

 being foreign to even the miscellaneous 

 class of records filed in the long-established 

 record division, were filed on his own desk. 

 On December 13, 1898, there was created in 

 the office of the Secretary of "War the 'Di- 

 vision of Customs and Insular Affairs,' 

 which has recently grown into the Bureau 

 of Insular Affairs. 



There is no more important branch of 

 the bureau than the legal questions that 

 have arisen. These questions develop a 

 broad field for investigation, including the 

 law of military occupation; the laws and 

 usages of civilized warfare; international 



