"SEC. 306. To the end that the work of the district courts shall be effectively and expeditiously transacted, it shall be the duty of the senior circuit judge of each circuit to call at such time and place as he shall designate, but at least twice in each year, a council composed of the circuit judges for such circuit, who are hereby designated a council for that purpose, at which council the senior circuit judge shall preside. The senior judge shall submit to the council the quarterly reports of the Director required to be filed by the provisions of section 304, clause (2), and such action shall be taken thereon by the council as may be necessary. It shall be the duty of the district judges promptly to carry out the directions of the council as to the administration of the business of their respective courts. Nothing contained in this section shall affect the provisions of existing law relating to the assignment of district judges to serve outside of the districts for which they, respectively, were appointed.

"SEC. 307. A conference shall be held annually in each judicial circuit, at such time and place, as shall be designated by the senior circuit judge thereof, which conference shall be composed of circuit and district judges in such circuit who reside within the continental United States, with participation in such conference on the part of members of the bar under rules to be prescribed by the circuit courts of appeals, for the purpose of considering the state of the business of the courts and advising ways and means of improving the administration of justice within the circuit. The senior circuit judge and each judge summoned and attending such conferences shall be allowed his actual expenses of travel and his necessary expenses for subsistence, not to exceed $10 per day, which payments shall be made by the United States marshal for the district in which the conference is held, upon the written certificate of the judge incurring such expenses.

"SEC. 308. The provisions of this chapter shall apply to the several United States circuit courts of appeals, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, the several district courts of the United States in the continental United States, the Court of Claims, the United States Court of Customs and Patent Appeals, the United States Customs Court, the District Court for the District of Alaska, the District Court for the District of Hawaii, the District Court of the United States for Puerto Rico, the United States District Court for the District of the Canal Zone, the District Court of the Virgin Islands, and the United States Court for China. The term 'courts' as used in this chapter means the courts specified in this section. The term 'continental United States' as used in this chapter means the States of the Union and the District of Columbia. For the purposes of this chapter, the District of Columbia shall be deemed to be a judicial circuit. The chief justice of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia shall have the duties, powers, and authority of the senior circuit judge for such circuit, and the associate justices of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia shall have the duties, powers, and authority of circuit judges for such circuit."

SEC. 2. The following quoted provision of the Act making appropriations for the Departments of State and Justice, and for

June 30, 1940, approved June 29, 1939, Public Act Numbered 156, Seventy-sixth Congress, first session, to wit: "That no part of this appropriation shall be used to defray the salary or expenses of any probation officer whose work fails to comply with the official orders, regulations, and probation standards promulgated by the Attorney General: Provided further, That no funds herein appropriated shall be used to defray the salary or expenses of any probation officer unless the district judge shall have so far as possible required the appointee to conform with the qualifications prescribed by the Attorney General: Provided further, That nothing herein contained shall be construed to abridge the right of the district judges to appoint probation officers, or to make such orders as may be necessary to govern probation officers in their own courts:" is hereby repealed. SEC. 3. Those employees of the Department of Justice engaged in the audit of accounts and vouchers referred to in section 304 of the Judicial Code shall, as far as practicable, be transferred to the Administrative Office of the United States Courts. In such event, the appropriations available for the current fiscal year, from which such employees are paid, shall be apportioned between the Department of Justice and the Administrative Office of the United States Courts, on the basis of duties transferred to the latter office. All records, documents, and papers relating to the audit of accounts referred to in section 304 of the Judicial Code shall be transferred from the Department of Justice to the Administrative Office of the United States Courts.

SEC. 4. All unexpended appropriations for the support, maintenance, and operation of the courts specified in section 306 of the Judicial Code for the current fiscal year, and all unexpended appropriations covering judicial personnel as specified in section 304 (1) of the Judicial Code, including appropriations for the salaries of justices and judges who have retired or who have resigned under the provisions of section 260 of the Judicial Code (U. S. C., title 28, sec. 375), are hereby transferred to the control of the Administrative Office of the United States Courts.

SEC. 5. All powers and duties now conferred or imposed by law upon the Department of Justice or the Attorney General, relating to the administrative audit of the accounts and vouchers referred to in section 304 of the Judicial Code, are hereby transferred to and vested in the Administrative Office of the United States Courts.

SEC. 6. All administrative powers and duties now conferred or imposed by law upon the Department of Justice or the Attorney General, respecting clerks of courts, deputy clerks of courts and clerical assistants, law clerks, secretaries, and stenographers to the judges, and librarians in charge of libraries of the courts, and such other employees of the courts not excluded by section 304 of chapter XV as hereinbefore set forth, are hereby vested in the Administrative Office of the United States Courts.

SEC. 7. This Act shall take effect ninety days after its approval.

[CHAPTER 521-1ST SESSION]

[H. R. 5988]

AN ACT

To amend an Act entitled "An Act to require the registration of certain persons employed by agencies to disseminate propaganda in the United States and for other purposes", approved June 8, 1938 (Public Law Numbered 583, Seventyfifth Congress, third session).

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That section 1 of the Act entitled "An Act to require the registration of certain persons employed by agencies to disseminate propaganda in the United States and for other purposes", approved June 8, 1938 (Public Law Numbered 583, Seventy-fifth Congress, third session), be, and it is hereby, amended to read as follows:

"That as used in this Act

"(a) The term 'person' means an individual, partnership, association, or corporation;

"(b) The term 'United States' includes the United States and any place subject to the jurisdiction thereof;

"(c) The term 'foreign principal' includes the government of a foreign country, a political party of a foreign country, a person domiciled abroad, any foreign business, partnership, association, corporation, or political organization, or a domestic organization subsidized, directly or indirectly, in whole or in part by any of the entities described herein;

"(d) The term 'agent of a foreign principal' means any person who acts or engages or agrees to act as a public-relations counsel, publicity agent, or as agent, servant, representative, or attorney for a foreign principal, and shall include any person who receives compensation from or is under the direction of a foreign principal: Provided, however, That such term shall not include

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(1) a duly accredited diplomatic or consular officer of a foreign government who is so recognized by the Department of State of the United States; nor

"(2) any official of a foreign government recognized by the United States as a government other than a public-relations counsel or publicity agent or a citizen of the United States, whose status and the character of whose duties as such official are of record in the Department of State of the United States; nor "(3) any member of the staff of or person employed by a duly accredited diplomatic or consular officer of a foreign government who is so recognized by the Department of State of the United States, other than a public-relations counsel or publicity agent, whose status and the character of whose duties as such member or employee are of record in the Department of State of the United States; nor

"(4) any person performing only private, nonpolitical, finan cial, mercantile, or other activities in furtherance of the bona fide trade or commerce of such foreign principal; nor

"(5) any person engaged only in activities in furtherance of bona fide religious, scholastic, academic, or scientific pursuits or of the fine arts.

"(e) The term 'Secretary' means the Secretary of State of the United States."

SEC. 2. That section 3 of the Act entitled "An Act to require the registration of certain persons employed by agencies to disseminate propaganda in the United States and for other purposes", approved June 8, 1938 (Public Law Numbered 583, Seventy-fifth Congress, third session), is hereby amended to read as follows:

"SEC. 3. Every person who has filed a registration statement required by section 2 shall, within thirty days after the expiration of each period of six months succeeding the first filing, file with the Secretary a statement, under oath, on a form prescribed by the Secretary, which shall set forth with respect to such preceding six months' period

"(a) Such facts as may be necessary to make the information required under section 2 hereof accurate and current with respect to such period;

"(b) The amount and form of compensation received by such person for acting as agent for a foreign principal which has been received during such six months' period either directly or indirectly from any foreign principal; and

"(c) A statement containing such details required under this Act as the Secretary shall fix, of the activities of such person as agent of a foreign principal during such six months' period.

SEC. 3. That section 4 of the Act entitled "An Act to require the registration of certain persons employed by agencies to disseminate propaganda in the United States and for other purposes", approved June 8, 1938 (Public Law Numbered 583, Seventy-fifth Congress, third session), is hereby amended to read as follows:

"SEC. 4. The Secretary shall retain in permanent form all statements filed under this Act, and such statements shall be public records and open to public examination and inspection at all reasonable hours, under such rules and regulations as the Secretary may prescribe! Provided, That the Secretary is hereby authorized to withdraw from the public records the registration statement of any person whose activities have ceased to be of a character which requires registration under the terms of this Act."

[CHAPTER 557-1ST SESSION]

[H. R. 6037]

AN ACT

To amend section 194 of an Act entitled "An Act to codify, revise, and amend the penal laws of the United States", approved March 4, 1909 (35 Stat. L. 1088).

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That section 194 of the Act to codify, revise, and amend the penal laws of the United States, approved March 4, 1909, as amended (U. S. C., 1934 edition, title 18, sec. 317), be amended to read as follows:

"SEC. 194. Whoever shall steal, take, or abstract, or by fraud or deception obtain, or attempt so to obtain, from or out of any mail, post office, or station thereof, or other authorized depository for mail matter, or from a letter or mail carrier, any letter, postal card, package, bag, or mail, or shall abstract or remove from any such letter, package, bag, or mail, any article or thing contained therein, or shall secrete, embezzle, or destroy any such letter, postal card, package, bag, or mail, or any article or thing contained therein; or whoever shall steal, take, or abstract, or by fraud or deception obtain any letter, postal card, package, bag, or mail, which has been left for collection upon or adjacent to a collection box or other authorized depository of mail matter; or whoever shall buy, receive, or conceal, or aid in buying, receiving, or concealing, or shall unlawfully have in his possession, any letter, postal card, package, bag, or mail, or any article or thing contained therein, which has been so stolen, taken, embezzled, or abstracted, as herein described, knowing the same to have been stolen, taken, embezzled, or abstracted; or whoever shall take any letter, postal card, or package out of any post office or station thereof, or out of any authorized depository for mail matter, or from any letter or mail carrier, or which has been in any post office or station thereof, or other authorized depository, or in the custody of any letter or mail carrier, before it has been delivered to the person to whom it was directed, with a design to obstruct the correspondence, or to pry into the business or secrets of another, or shall open, secrete, embezzle, or destroy the same, shall be fined not more than $2,000 or imprisoned not more than five years, or both."

Approved, August 7, 1939.

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