factures stating that it should be the province and duty of that bureau, under the direction of the secretary of the department, “to foster, promote, and develop the various manufacturing industries of the United States, and markets for the same at home and abroad, domestic and foreign.” There was also authorized by congress the establishment of the Bureau of Corporations, “to investigate into the organization, conduct, and management of any corporation or joint stock company engaged in interstate commerce; and to gather such information and data as will enable the president to make recommendations to congress for the regulation of commerce, the information obtained to be reported to the president, who may make such portions of it public as he thinks proper.”
Already in this department in its first year over ten million dollars have been expended, and it has had in its employ nine thousand two hundred and ten persons continuously in service, and many hundreds temporarily in service. Since labor and commerce are at the basis of all our national prosperity, it is time to systematize and more fully to supervise in the interest of the public the widespread network of supply and demand.
For the head of such a vast and intricate work, when Secretary Cortelyou resigned in June, 1904, the president found a man eminently fitted by natural aptitudes, wide experience and legal knowledge. He is the third man from the Pacific coast to hold office in the cabinet; and Secretary Metcalf comes to his responsible and exalted national position in his prime and in the full vigor of life.
He was born in Utica, New York, October 10, 1853, the son of William and Sarah P. Metcalf. His preparatory studies were carried on at the Utica free academy and at the Russell military school at New Haven, Connecticut. He entered the academic department of Yale with the class of 1876, remaining with the class until his junior year, when he entered the law department of Yale college, and was graduated in the year 1876 from that department. He was admitted to the Connecticut bar in the same year. In 1877 he was also admitted to the New York State bar, and he engaged in the practice of law for two years at Utica, New York. In 1879 he removed to California; and from 1881 to 1904 he was a member of the law firm of Metcalf and Metcalf, of Oakland. He was elected to the fifty-sixth, fifty-seventh and fifty-eighth Congresses. He was an efficient member of the Ways and Means
