Whereas it has been brought to the notice of the President of the
United States that in the World's Industrial and Cotton Centennial
Exhibition of Arts, Manufactures, and Products of the Soil and Mines,
to be held in the city of New Orleans, commencing December 1, 1884,
for the purpose of celebrating the one hundredth anniversary of the
production, manufacture, and commerce of cotton, 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 adaptation 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, and one to be named in behalf of the
Bureau of Education, 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, the Director
of the Smithsonian Institution, and the Commissioner of Education 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 number such other
officers as they may think necessary; and that the said board, when
organized, shall be authorized, under the direction of the President,
to confer with the executive officers of the World's Industrial Cotton
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,'the Director of the Smithsonian Institution, and the
Commissioner of Education shall be submitted to the President for
designation.
Done at the city of Washington, this 9th day of April, 1884, and of the
Independence of the United States the one hundred and eighth.