122 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXIV. No. 865 



fessor Eusby, in such a way as to result in his 

 getting a per diem compensation greater than 

 this obviously inadequate one, for the days 

 that he gave up to the work. Now, nobody 

 would have complained if Mr. Wickersham 

 had informed the President that this is a vio- 

 lation of the law. Nobody would have found 

 fault with him if he had expressed his opinion 

 that such violation was a serious matter. But 

 when he went outside his province as a lawyer 

 and told the President that in his judgment 

 this disregard of a peculiar regulation, in so 

 small a matter, and without the slightest trace 

 or suspicion or hint of bad motive, was suffi- 

 cient reason for approving a recommendation 

 calling for the resignation of a faithful public 

 servant, filling with exceptional zeal and de- 

 votion an office of unusual importance, he 

 invited just such criticism as he has been sub- 

 jected to in the past few days. 



In deprecation of such criticism, the curi- 

 ous point is now put forward that Mr. Wick- 

 ersham's report was not intended to be made 

 public, but was designed solely for the Presi- 

 dent's private information and guidance. This 

 may be a good point for Mr. Taft himself to 

 fall back upon, but it is difficult to see how it 

 can do anything for Mr. Wickersham. If the 

 report was one for the President's private ear, 

 the President might, to be sure, throw it into 

 the waste-paper basket ; but that can not have 

 been the purpose for which it was originally 

 destined. So far as in him lay, Mr. Wicker- 

 sham backed up the personnel board's recom- 

 mendation ; and it is impossible to see wherein 

 there is any less demerit in the advice to do 

 an act of injustice because the advice was 

 given in secret. To most minds, we fancy, 

 that is an aggravation of such an offence, not 

 an extenuation. And it is impossible not to 

 recall the fact that in the unhappy muddle 

 over the Lawler memorandum in the Bal- 

 linger ease, in which Mr. Wickersham bore a 

 conspicuous part, a bungling policy of secrecy 

 was responsible for the worst of the trouble. 



There is another analogy between the pres- 

 ent affair and that of the Ballinger-Cunning- 

 ham-Pinchot difficulty which the President 

 will do well to bear in mind. In this case, as 



in that, there are two aspects which the sub- 

 ject presents; in this case, as in that, every- 

 thing depends upon maintaining a sense of 

 proportion as between these aspects. There is 

 the narrow view of the mere lawyer and the 

 mere disciplinarian; there is the broad view 

 of the man responsible for large and difficult 

 affairs. It is not necessary to ignore the re- 

 quirements of law or even the exactions of red 

 tape in order to do justice to the larger things. 

 But it is one thing to insist that even the most 

 zealous and well-intentioned of officers must 

 obey the law; it is quite another thing to per- 

 mit the enemies that such officers are con- 

 stantly making to seize upon little errors, or 

 technicalities, or violations even of official 

 etiquette, as a means of getting them out of 

 the way. Such work as that of fighting land 

 thieves or food adulterators demands en- 

 thusiastic zeal and inexhaustible energy; if 

 you are going to make the situation impossible 

 for a man who has these qualities unless he 

 combines with them an immaculate record 

 upon every technical point, you might as well 

 surrender at once to the land-grabbers and the 

 adulterators. And it is because the plain 

 people understand this that they insist upon 

 any such affair as the Ballinger case or the 

 Wiley case being uncovered from top to bot- 

 tom. Any attempt to confine it within nar- 

 row or technical bounds is sure to fail. — New 

 York Evening Post. 



SCIENTIFIC BOOKS 

 Contributions to Medical Science. By 

 Howard Taylor Eicketts. Chicago, Uni- 

 versity of Chicago Press. 1911. Pp. ix + 

 497. $5.33. 



The committee of the Chicago Pathological 

 Society which was intrusted with the office 

 of preparing a suitable memorial of Howard 

 Taylor Eicketts have issued a memorial vol- 

 ume containing many of the chief original 

 studies of this remarkable investigator. 



The volume opens with a brief and digni- 

 fied statement by Hektoen of the main events 

 of Dr. Eicketts's career, ending in his un- 

 timely death in Mexico City from the deadly 

 Mexican typhus, the disease whose secrets he 



