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MEREDITH F. BURRILL, Director

the latter part of the fiscal year 1943 the present Division of Geography which, together with the interdepartmental Advisory Committee constitutes the Board on Geographical Names, was greatly expanded to enable it to formulate quickly policies with regard to geographic nomenclature in areas of actual or potential military operations, and to provide on short notice great quantities of correct geographical names in war theaters. In performing this work the Division has acquired the know-how for dealing with nomenclature problems and has developed techniques for rapidly processing large numbers of names in a given area. This has enabled the Division to edit maps and manuscripts and to check lists involving hundreds of names in a relatively short time. These nomenclature policies going beyond the well-known names that appear on all small scale maps, these techniques for handling large numbers of names, and the acquisition of general experience with geographical names are important facilities which the Division of Geography is in a position to place at the disposal of the agencies concerned.

Great strides in the formulation of policy have been made following clarification of the working relations of the Division of Geography and the interdepartmental Advisory Committee by Departmental Order No. 2002 dated October 26, 1944, and published in the Federal Register for November 1, 1944. The Federal agencies and private geographical societies represented on the Advisory Committee on June 30, 1945, were as follows: Government Printing Office, Library of Congress, State Department, Office of the Chief of Engineers, Military Intelligence Service, Post Office Department, Office of Naval Intelligence, Hydrographic Office, Forest Service, Bureau of the Census, Coast and Geodetic Survey, Geological Survey, National Archives, American Geographical Society of New York, the Geographic Society of Chicago, Geographical Society of Philadelphia, and the National Geographic Society.

The need for readily available source materials to accomplish the work for the armed forces required the acquisition of a map collection of approximately 100,000 maps and a library of 12,000 volumes pro

viding material applicable to the name problem. This is one of the largest general map collections in the United States and it is the only library of any size specializing in place-name materials.

names.

In the course of war work the master card file with the cooperation of the armed services has been built up from 18,745 names to 990,390 This file is a facility which is believed to have no counterpart anywhere. In addition to the 33,273 names on which decisions have been rendered, more than three-fourths of the others have been processed according to standard directions, with extensive cross-referencing of variant names. In addition to the master card file a Mongolian word file of 30,000 cards has been compiled to decipher Mongolian names which consist almost entirely of descriptive terms. At the present time there is no comparable English-Mongolian dictionary in existence.

The replacement value of the card files, the name decisions, the map collection, and the library of the Division of Geography is estimated conservatively at $850,000.

The value of the services of the Division of Geography to agencies concerned with place names is commensurate with the extent to which they use it and the completeness with which they rely upon it. Full value and complete consistency with regard to name usage can be gained only by a centralization of work on geographic nomenclature. With the aid of the name file now at hand the Division of Geography is prepared to handle with a minimum of additional research all normal peacetime requests of Government agencies for names in the theaters of World War II and most such requests for foreign names in other parts of the world.

With the close of hostilities it is planned to apply the techniques, facilities, and experience developed during the war to the backlog of approximately 4,500 domestic name problems which have accumulated while high priority war work postponed their solution. It is further planned to anticipate name problems in areas where large domestic mapping programs are going to be conducted by compiling state or territorial gazetteers for which each name will be processed. Eventually the entire Nation and each of the territories will be covered by such a gazetteer which should reduce to a minimum name problems arising from future mapping programs on a scale of 1:62,500 or smaller.

FOWLER HARPER, Solicitor

STREA

TREAMLINING of review and advisory procedures enabled the Solicitor's Office, during the past fiscal year, to devote a major part of its efforts to the legal implementation of departmental programs for peacetime reconversion, while continuing to carry its regular load of normal departmental legal work and the extra load imposed by departmental war activities in fuel, mineral, territorial, and various other fields. Legal programs have been formulated for the broader use of the public domain; the extension and improvement of the Federal range for grazing purposes; the resumption of operations on a peacetime schedule of the vast recreational, scenic and historical facilities of the National Park System and the accommodation of the millions of expected visitors who have been unable to avail themselves of these facilities in recent years because of wartime restrictions to travel; the exploration for and the development of the mineral resources of the country; the completion of the vast reclamation projects interrupted by the war; the social and economic development of the territorial and island possessions; the programs for land utilization in aid of the sound rehabilitation of thousands of returning veterans; the development of public power; the disposal of surplus property; and many others embodied in pending or proposed legislation.

Most of the programs for reconversion have been conceived in legislation presented to the Congress and nearly all are related more or less intimately to activities of the Department. The future of the light metals industry-aluminum and magnesium-was the subject of extensive hearings before a committee of the Senate, at which the Nation's leading industrial and governmental authorities, including Secretary Ickes, and the heads of several affected departmental agencies, testified. The future of this industry is closely interwoven with the Department's interests, especially in the programs of the Geological Survey, the Bureau of Mines, and the several Federal power agencies, and the questions of law involved are manifold.

The pattern for the future is clearly reflected in legislation proposed and sponsored by the Nation's industrial, scientific and military leaders, including proposals for the resurvey of the Nation's mineral

reserves as the basis of future control and beneficial use; for the creation of a minerals stock pile for industrial and military requirements; for scientific research and development; for the release to industry generally of scientific knowledge acquired in this war from allied and enemy sources; and for the control of patents developed in whole or in part with Federal funds.

Proposals for postwar scientific research and development which have been presented to the Congress have raised questions of law demanding the most careful consideration, since hardly a bill has been introduced which would not duplicate, supersede, or at least curtail existing activities in this field now authorized to be conducted by Bureaus of the Department. The proposals for the stock piling of strategic materials were and will continue to be major legal and legislative problems of Department-wide concern.

The equitable control of patents developed with the aid of Federal funds and the prevention of the monopolistic exploitation of such patents, is the subject of much concern to both industry and the Congress. The Mines Division of the Solicitor's Office has been engaged in drafting regulations with respect to the granting of licenses and the protection of the Government's interests in departmental patents. Many of these patents, including a recent application for one covering a device to locate ores required in the development and control of atomic energy, are of great importance in the future economy of the Nation.

The bills to create regional authorities affect virtually every activity of the Department, and if enacted doubtless would incorporate many of the functions now performed by several departmental agencies— those of the Bureau of Reclamation would be particularly affected as would also those of the Bureau of Mines, the Geological Survey, the National Park Service, the Grazing Service, the General Land Office, the Fish and Wildlife Service, the power projects and other conservation activities. The preparation of reports for congressional committees considering these measures, the marshalling of facts upon which the Secretary and the heads of the various bureaus could base their testimony before those committees and the questions of law involved required months of legal research, preparation and analysis. on the part not only of the Legislative Division of the Solicitor's Office but, also, of the lawyers of the bureaus involved.

As the plans develop for the future the vast amount of legal work which is inevitably bound up in the evolution of the reconversion programs becomes discernible. While the Legislative Division of the Solicitor's Office has been the clearing house for proposals originating in the Congress, or proposed for enactment by the Department, the entire legal staff of the Department necessarily has participated to the extent that plans affected a particular agency and its normal, peacetime functions.

SOLID FUELS ADMINISTRATION FOR WAR

The Legal Division of the Solid Fuels Administration for War drafted regulations and orders embodying the Administration's program for the distribution of limited supplies of bituminous coal, anthracite and other solid fuels. It prepared interpretations of provisions of the regulations and drafted exceptions and directions necessitated by constantly changing conditions in solid fuels' production and consumption. It continued to supervise the organization and functioning of industry advisory groups, and also handled all legal problems in connection with compliance proceedings brought to enforce regulations, and cooperated with the Department of Justice in criminal prosecutions. Following liquidation of the Coal Mines Administration in September 1944, and the transfer of the functions of that agency to the Solid Fuels Administration for War, the Division drafted the documents incident to the seizure and possession of struck coal mines by the Secretary under various Executive orders.

WAR RELOCATION AUTHORITY

On December 18, 1944, the United States Supreme Court announced two decisions of major significance to the program of the War Relocation Authority. They were Korematsu v. United States, 323 United States 214 (October 1944), in which the court upheld the constitutionality of the original Army orders excluding all persons of Japanese ancestry from west coast military areas, and Ex parte Mitsuye Endo, 323 United States 283 (October, 1944), in which the court held invalid the detention of an American citizen of Japanese ancestry conceded to be loyal to the United States. These decisions preceded by 1 day a revocation of the Army's mass exclusion orders and the institution by the Army of a plan for excluding individually from west coast military areas persons regarded as dangerous to the national security. Following these developments, the Solicitor's Office participated in the development and institution of a program designed to effect an orderly return of all eligible relocation center residents to normal communities and the prompt liquidation of the relocation centers, including the handling of legal problems relating to relocation center management, evacuee property management and disposal, and the rehabilitation of relocated evacuees.

GENERAL LAND OFFICE

The Law Division of the General Land Office handled more than 35,000 matters during the fiscal year, including assistance to the Department of Justice in the preparation of litigation; the rendering of legal opinions on a variety of subjects; claims relating to the public domain; the preparation of proposed legislation and reports on pend

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