368 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXIV. No. 873 



an annual salary and not devoting your whole time 

 to the bureau. I told him that if you were given 

 an appointment at the rate of $170 a month, you 

 would agree not to receive more than $20 a day 

 for time actually employed. By that I mean the 

 usual official day of seven and one half hours. 

 This would be equivalent to eight and one half 

 days a month on the average. I told him that if 

 it happened that your work for the department 

 amounted on the average to less time than that 

 you would ask for leave of absence for sufficient 

 time to bring it to that basis. 



Dr. Rusby answered this letter and ques- 

 tioned what was meant by it. He said he did 

 not understand Bigelow's letter clearly and 

 supposed that if he did not earn the entire 

 salary, he would not expect to receive any 

 more than was earned. 



Meantime, on February 6, Dr. Wiley sub- 

 mitted to you an appointment of Dr. Eusby 

 at a salary at the rate of $1,600 per annum on 

 the miscellaneous roll. He made the reduc- 

 tion after examining the records and finding 

 the amount of work done by Dr. Eusby dur- 

 ing the preceding two years. You approved 

 this appointment. 



After the appointment Dr. Bigelow wrote 

 Dr. Eusby that he thought the present ar- 

 rangement was better than the former ar- 

 rangement when he was receiving $20 per day 

 for laboratory work, and $50 a day for court 

 work, because, he said, " you are now assured 

 of getting a certain amount each month, irre- 

 spective of the time spent, and you can still 

 so plan your work as to interfere with your 

 regular dtities to a minimum extent." 



This did not satisfy Dr. Eusby, and he 

 sought further information in a letter dated 

 •March 3, 1911, as follows: 



Kindly recall that on my side the basis of com- 

 pensation is not less than $20 per day. At that 

 rate only eighty days' work per year are provided 

 for, and that is not time enough to satisfactorily 

 perform more than the current port work here, 

 leaving no time for examination of interstate 

 samples, especially microscopical examinations, or 

 for attendance at court. For every day at court, 

 on the average, one day of preparation is required. 



The above facts lead to the inquiry, would not 

 the salary named compel me to either do very 



much more than eighty days' work per year or 

 otherwise fail to do the necessary amount of work 

 in a satisfactory manner? 



On March 4 Dr. Kebler wrote to Dr. 

 Eusby, stating among other things the fol- 

 lowing : 



Personally I am of the opinion that your new 

 appointment is much better than the old. Under 

 this appointment you can do as little as one day's 

 work per month, and you get your salary. On the 

 other hand, if you work five or ten days, your 

 salary would be the same per month. It seems to 

 me that you have the matter largely in your own 

 hands. I am satisfied that if you do not accept 

 the new , appointment nothing more can be done 

 and your services, so far as our work is concerned, 

 can no longer be utilized materially in the future. 



On March 6 Dr. Eusby wrote to Dr. Kebler 

 saying that he had decided to accept the ap- 

 pointment. 



The nub of the charge by the Personnel 

 Board was that Dr. Wiley, Dr. Kebler Dr. 

 Bigelow and Dr. Eusby in eilect conspired to 

 put on the record a contract for a general em- 

 ployment of Dr. Eusby's services for $1,600 a 

 year, but actually and secretly made a con- 

 tract with him by which he was only to do 

 enough work during the year for the $1,600 

 to secure him a compensation of $20 a day^ 

 and that this was done in deliberate and de- 

 fiant violation of the law as interpreted by 

 the Attorney-General in the opinion already 

 referred to, in which he held that congress- 

 had limited the compensation of experts to $9 

 a day. 



After you submitted to me the report of the- 

 Personnel Board, I asked the Attorney Gen- 

 eral to examine it and give me his opinion in 

 respect to the matter, because it concerned 

 the violation of the law as interpreted by him 

 in one of his opinions. He did so, and ad- 

 vised me that the recommendations of the 

 Personnel Board ought to be carried out. In 

 connection with his recommendations he in- 

 vited attention to a clause in the Act of Con- 

 gress approved March 15, 1898 (30 Stat. L, 

 316), still in force, that enjoins upon the head 

 of each department the duty of exacting from 

 the employees in that department who are 



