Executive Order 23-1

Whereas the Government of His Majesty the King of Italy has extended to the Government of the United States an invitation to participate in a sanitary conference to be held at Rome on the 15th day of May, 1885, for the purpose of devising efficient measures to prevent the invasion of cholera and to mitigate its disastrous consequences; and

Whereas, by a provision of the act of Congress entitled "An act making appropriations for sundry civil expenses of the Government for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1886, and for other purposes," approved March 3, 1885, for the suppression of epidemic diseases, the President of the United States is authorized, in case of threatened or actual epidemic of cholera or yellow fever, to use certain appropriated sums, made immediately available, "in aid of State and local boards or otherwise, in his discretion, in preventing and suppressing the spread of the same and for maintaining quarantine and maritime inspections at points of danger;" and

Whereas there is imminent danger of a recurrence of a cholera epidemic in Europe, which may be brought to our shores unless adequate measures of international or local quarantine and maritime inspection are taken in season, which measures of preventive inspection are proper to be considered by the aforesaid conference, to the end that their efficiency in divers countries may be secured:

Now, therefore, in virtue of the discretionary authority conferred upon me by the aforesaid act of Congress, I hereby designate and appoint Major George M. Sternberg, surgeon in the United States Army, to attend said conference at Rome as the delegate thereto on the part of the Government of the United States, under the directions and instructions of the Secretary of State; and I hereby direct the Secretary of War to detail the said George M. Sternberg to perform the special service to which he is thus assigned, with full pay and allowances as on active service; and I further direct that the reasonable and necessary expenses of travel and sojourn of the said George M. Sternberg in proceeding from Washington to Rome, and during his attendance there upon the sessions of the said conference, and in returning, upon the conclusion thereof, from Rome to Washington, be adjusted and paid from the appropriation available under the aforesaid act of March 3, 1885, upon his statement of account approved by the Secretary of State.

Done at the city of Washington, this 25th day of April, A. D. 1885, and of the Independence of the United States the one hundred and ninth.

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By the President:
 * , Secretary of State.