Happy 100th, FTC

ftc_ready_for_work

On Tuesday, March 16, 1915, the FTC met in its first session. Not much happened on that first day. DC Supreme Court Justice J. Harry Covington administered the oath to the first five Commissioners, Joseph E. Davies, Edward N. Hurley, William J. Harris, Will H. Perry, and George Rublee. Rublee, although never confirmed by the Senate, chaired the first meeting until Commissioner Davies was voted as the first Chairman. They then adjourned, and in the coming weeks, rather mundane business took up the Commission’s attention. The early FTC had a budget of less than $200,000—the equivalent of $4 million in today’s dollars. Its initial appropriation was so low that it sent a Commissioner to the President to ask for old furniture from the White House.