The Bureau of Accounts of the State Department classifies its business as follows:
(1) International indemnities, or trust funds. If you are an American citizen living abroad and suffer a loss of property unlawfully, you may expect the loss to be made good through this Bureau of Accounts; that is unless you happen to be a missionary, for Uncle Sam doesn’t always extend, or try to extend, to missionaries the same protection that is enjoyed by other citizens living abroad.
(2) Diplomatic and consular accounts, i. e., the salaries paid to these officers, together with all expenses incidental to the service.
(3) Accounts of the Department proper.
(4) Passports. If you wish to secure passports before going abroad, it must be done through the State Department, as they are issued nowhere else in the United States.
The telegraphic correspondence of the State Department, mostly in cipher, is conducted by this bureau.
The Bureau of Rolls and Library has the custody of the laws and treaties of the United States, together with the Revolutionary archives, etc. Its chief business is the “publication of the laws, treaties, proclamations and executive orders, work which must be performed with the utmost attainable promptness, speed and accuracy”, and its busy time is just after the adjournment of Congress. It is this Bureau that is honored with the custody of the original draft of the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution of the United States. It also has charge of the following:
- The records and papers of the Continental Congress,
- The Washington papers,
- The Madison papers,
- The Jefferson papers,
- The Hamilton papers,
- The Monroe papers,
- The Franklin papers,
- The papers of the Quartermaster General’s Department during the Revolutionary period.