Executive Order

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

EXECUTIVE ORDER

Whereas it has been brought to the notice of the President of the United States that in the International Exhibition of Arts, Manufactures, and Products of the Soil and Mine to be held in the city of Philadelphia in the year 1876 for the purpose of celebrating the one hundredth anniversary of the independence of the United States it is desirable that from the Executive Departments of the Government of the United States in which there may be articles suitable for the purpose intended there should appear such articles and materials as will, when presented in a collective exhibition, illustrate the functions and administrative faculties of the Government in time of peace and its resources as a war power, and thereby serve to demonstrate the nature of our institutions and their adaptations to the wants of the people:

Now, for the purpose of securing a complete and harmonious arrangement of the articles and materials designed to be exhibited from the Executive Departments of the Government, it is ordered that a board to be composed of one person to be named by the head of each of the Executive Departments which may have articles and materials to be exhibited, and also of one person to be named in behalf of the Smithsonian Institution and one to be named in behalf of the Department of Agriculture, be charged with the preparation, arrangement, and safe-keeping of such articles and materials as the heads of the several Departments and the Commissioner of Agriculture and the Director of the Smithsonian Institution may respectively decide shall be embraced in the collection; that one of the persons thus named, to be designated by the President, shall be chairman of such board, and that the board appoint from their own number such other officers as they may think necessary; and that the said board when organized be authorized, under the direction of the President, to confer with the executive officers of the Centennial Exhibition in relation to such matters connected with the subject as may pertain to the respective Departments having articles and materials on exhibition; and that the names of the persons thus selected by the heads of the several Departments, the Commissioner of Agriculture, and the Director of the Smithsonian Institution shall be submitted to the President for designation.

By order of the President:

HAMILTON FISH,

Secretary of State.