practical
purposes, as independent and important as the departments themselves.

The organization of all the different departments is much the same. At
the head of each is an officer appointed by the President, the President
thus having control generally over the whole executive business of the
government. These officers are called Secretaries, except in the cases
of the Post Office Department, whose head is the Postmaster-General, and
of the Department of Justice, whose head is the Attorney-General. In a
number of the Departments there are also one, two, three or four
assistant secretaries, according as the business of the departments
requires. For convenience in the despatch of business, the departments
are divided into bureaus, the bureaus into divisions, and the divisions
into rooms, until, finally, the individual workers--the clerks--are
readied. Each bureau and division has at its head an officer called
Commissioner and Chief of Division, respectively. Each department and
bureau, and, in some cases, the division also, has a Chief Clerk who has
charge of the details of the administration, and immediate oversight
over the clerks.[1] All work in one finely organized system. The clerk
is responsible to his chief of division, the chief of division to his
commissioner, the commissioner to the Secretary and he, finally, to
Congress. Each man has his particular place in the system, and no one
works at random.[2]

[Footnote 1: There are a number of officials and clerks who properly
belong to no division or bureau, as, for instance, the librarian's
private secretary and other clerical assistance in the Secretary's
office, who are under his immediate supervision.]

[Footnote 2: This system is not always carried out perfectly in
practice. In some cases an officer is termed commissioner who is more
properly a chief of division, and _vice versa_. In other cases the title
of commissioner or chief of division is represented by a more technical
designation as Director of the U.S. Geological Survey, Comptroller of
the Currency, etc.] The President and heads of departments appoint all
officers in the executive departments. It is manifestly impossible for
them to base their appointments upon personal knowledge. Hence has
arisen the custom of filling almost all offices not controlled by the
Civil Service Commission upon the recommendation of congressmen, each of
whom controls for the most part the patronage of his own district. Only