The duties of the Secretary of War, the Secretary of
the Navy, and the Postmaster-General may be gathered
from their names. The Attorney- General is not only pub-
lic prosecutor and standing counsel for the United States,
but also to some extent what is called on the European con-
tinent a minister of justice. He has a general oversight —
it can hardly be described as a control — of the Federal



36 AMERICAN COMMONWEALTH

judicial departments, and especially of the prosecuting
officers called district attorneys, and executive court officers,
called United States marshals. He is the legal adviser of the
President in delicate questions as to the limit of executive
power. His opinions are frequently published officially, as
a justification of the President's conduct.
The Secretary of Agriculture has charge of aU matters
relating to the agricultural interests of the country. In
his department are the Weather Bureau, the Bureaus of
Forestry, of Soils, of Animal Industry, and of Plant In-
dustry. Experiments are constantly being carried on at
stations throughout the country.
The Department of Commerce and Labor was recently
created, and several bureaus placed under it, as the Census,
Immigration, Corporations, Statistics, Fisheries, and Labor,
which had been previously independent or under other
departments.
