By virtue of the authority vested in me by the Act of June 23, 1934 (Public No. 461, 73d Congress), it is hereby ordered that a corporation of the District of Columbia be and is hereby created, said corporation to be named as
Federal Prison Industries, Inc.
1. The governing body of said corporation shall consist of a board of five directors to hold office at the pleasure of the President. The following persons shall constitute the first Board of Directors:
Mr. Sanford Bates
Mr. Thomas A. Rickert
Hon. John B. Miller
Dr. M. L. Brittain
Mr. Sam A. Lewisohn
2. The principal office of said corporation shall be in the City of Washington, District of Columbia, but the corporation shall have power and authority to establish such other offices or agencies as it may deem necessary or appropriate.
3. The said corporation shall have power to determine in what manner and to what extent industrial operations shall be carried on in the several penal and correctional institutions of the United States and shall, so far as practicable, so diversify prison industrial operations that no single private industry shall be forced to bear an undue burden of competition with the products of the prison workshops. It shall also have power to do all things it is authorized to do by the said Act of June 23, 1934, and all things incident to or necessary or proper in the exercise of its functions ....
Franklin D. Roosevelt, Executive Order 6917 Establishing the Federal Prison Industries, Inc. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/208304