CONTRIBUTIONS TO WESTERN BOTANY NO. 16 



As to whether there is any disposition now on the part of Government 

 officials to mflict silence on the part of employees below them so that they 

 will not dare to tell any truth or express any opinion about the correctness of 

 opinions of their superiors, or any attempt to punish outsiders who disagree 

 with them, certain things which have come up since the publication of my 

 Contributions No. 15 certainly look that way, and whenever I feel sure that 

 this is the fact there will be an investigation of the Department of Agricul- 

 ture that I think will rattle a few dry bones. The disposition to militarize 

 the Government has had an impetus since the war that is disastrous. No 

 first class men will tolerate any such thing long. And if the departments are 

 to be filled up with slaves the quicker we who pay the bills find it out the 

 sooner it will be ended. Heads of departments are not hired to boss but to 



To me the most infamous sin is that of trying to suppress the right to 

 individual expression. We find this tendency everywhere; it is essential to 

 the dominence of the half-wits. It often hurts to have our stupidities exposed, 

 and it pleases to have them glossed over, but the end is always bad. Even 

 the best of men often slop through work that they should do well. If we 

 were always brought up with a short halter it would be far better for scien- 

 tific research. There is always too much of a tendency to worship our fore- 

 bears, and to do homage to dignified people, when in fact dignified people 

 are always ignoramuses. This is the cloak they put on to hide incompetence. 

 Interested parties might speak of this slur on a Government attorney 

 that I have made above, as taking an unfair advantage of a perfectly legiti- 

 mate event (that might have happened once in a million times) to dicredit 

 an innocent party. No one would regret more than I to make such an error. 

 But certain things in my intercourse with that attorney led me to feel sure 

 that if he could have bribed me he would have done it in the case in point. 

 In addition to his utter incompetence to handle the case was evident to all 

 throughout and had not the opposing attorneys tried to discredit the Govern- 

 ment witnesses the case of the Government would have fallen flat. But they 

 were not wise enough to let the witnesses alone and so brought out the facts 

 that definitely defeated the railroads and compelled a settlement rather than 

 to send the experts of the railroads to jail for perjury, and attempted bribery, 

 lie documents from the Government archives. 



In "Desert" I have written of Dr. Engelra inu. 



