624 CONGRESSIONAL PROCEEDINGS. 



connection they are spoken of as officers, but by no ingenuity of construc- 

 tion can that word, in this connection, be held to assign them special duties, 

 or confer any separate authority. 



" Thus careful has Congress been to provide an efficient system of opera- 

 tions, which can only come from harmony of purpose and unity of action. 



"This view of the intention of Congress, so clearly expressed in the law, 

 would be directly contradicted by the plan which has been suggested, of 

 organizing the institution definitely into several departments, placing at 

 the head of these departments different assistants, establishing their rela- 

 tive positions, prescribing distinct duties for them, assigning certain shares 

 of the income to be disbursed by them, and stating their authority, priv- 

 ileges, and remedies for infringement of their official rights, or of the inter- 

 ests intrusted to their care. All this would tend, not to secure a loyal and 

 harmonious co-operation, to a common end, of the assistants with the 

 secretary, but to encourage rivalry, to invite collision, to engender hostility, 

 to destroy subordination, to distract the operations of the institution, to 

 impair its efficiency, and to destroy its usefulness." 



This view of the question has been made very clear to the 

 committee in the course of the examination which they have 

 made, and by the testimony taken tor the purpose of sup- 

 porting Mr. Meacham's charges. All the difficulties in the 

 institution which have resulted in the dismissal by the sec- 

 retary of one of his assistants and of a person temporarily 

 employed upon the meteorological computations* seem to 

 have arisen from the desire of independent positions, en- 

 gendering rivalry and hostility, producing collisions and 

 insubordination utterly incompatible with the proper au- 

 thority of the secretary and the harmonious action so neces- 

 sary to the welfare of the institution. The tacts developed 

 in regard to those difficulties entirely satisfy your committee 

 that it is not desirable to have such by-laws as Mr. Meachani 

 thinks the regents should have made or procured. 



If any just cause of complaint by the assistants against the 

 secretary should arise, they can at all times resort for redress 

 to the regents, by memorial or other proper form of appli- 

 cation, and the patience with which such an application, 

 although entirely without cause, has been heard by the 

 executive committee, to which it was referred, and con- 

 sidered by the regents, is quite sufficient to show how need- 

 less for the purpose any by-laws are. 



It may be proper to say that the only section of the law 

 in which by-laws are mentioned is the 8th, which seems to 

 confer the power of enacting them upon the members of 

 the establishment, who are the President and Vice Presi- 

 dent of the United States, the members of the Cabinet, ex- 

 cept the Secretary of the Interior, (whose Department was 

 not created at the date of the act,) the Chief Justice of the 

 United States, the Commissioner of Patents, and the mayor 

 of Washington, with " such other persons as they may elect 

 honorary members . ' ' 



