Septembee 22, 1911] 



SCIENCE 



369 



under an annual salary labor amounting to 

 seven hours every day but a holiday. 



An examination of the records satisfied me 

 that the questions had not been presented to 

 the persons involved in such a way as to en- 

 able them to make full defence. They had 

 only been called as witnesses and cross-ex- 

 amined without a full understanding that they 

 were under trial which might involve their 

 dismissal. Accordingly, I directed you to sub- 

 mit the whole record, together with the opin- 

 ion of the Attorney-General, to each one of 

 the persons charged, and invite from him an 

 answer. These answers were filed in due 

 course, and are quite full in detail. The 

 answer of Dr. Wiley specifically denies that 

 he ever saw the correspondence between Dr. 

 Kebler and Dr. Eusby, or that he ever con- 

 sciously entered into an arrangement by which 

 Dr. Eusby was in effect to receive compensa- 

 tion at a rate in excess of that prescribed by 

 the statute as interpreted by the Attorney- 

 General. The truth is, it appears from the 

 answers of Dr. Wiley, Dr. Kebler and Dr. 

 Bigelow, that there had been a good many 

 precedents in the department which seemed to 

 justify the employment of Dr. Eusby at an 

 annual salary, when it was not expected that 

 his entire time would be taken up. This was 

 the ease with respect to the employment of 

 what was known as the Eemsen Board. That 

 board was created by order of President 

 Eoosevelt for the very important purpose of 

 enabling the Secretary of Agriculture to have 

 reviewed the decisions of the Bureau of 

 Chemistry in cases where those decisions in- 

 volved disputed technical questions, and 

 would, if sustained, have destroyed valuable 

 and profitable business theretofore regarded 

 as lawful. In such cases it was deemed wise 

 not to allow the destruction of what would 

 be otherwise lawful property and business on 

 the decision of only one expert or the head of 

 the bureau. Accordingly, the Eemsen Board 

 was created, and is composed of experts, all 

 of whom were known to be engaged in other 

 professional work than that of the reviewing 

 board. Dr. Eemsen, the head of the board. 



occupies an important position in Johns Hop- 

 kins University, and that is his principal 

 occupation. Another member. Dr. Eussell 

 Chittenden, of the Shefiield Scientific School, 

 is dean of that school, and that is his chief 

 vocation. Hence, the employment of the 

 Eemsen Board at the rate of $2,000 a year for 

 each member necessarily involved the proposi- 

 tion that such an annual salary might law- 

 fully be paid without requiring labor of seven 

 hours a day from each person so employed. 

 This the Attorney-General in his opinion inti- 

 mates is contrary to the statute, but in the 

 Agricultural Department it was not thought 

 to be the case. Solicitor MeCabe, to whom I 

 referred the question of precedents made in 

 the case, replied that in the practise of the 

 department the clause in the appropriation 

 act of March 15, 1898, had been held to have 

 no application to the employment of experts 

 outside of Washington. 



It is necessary fully to understand this dif- 

 ference between the attitude of the depart- 

 ment toward an employment at an annual sal- 

 ary of this kind and the opinion of the At- 

 torney-General in this matter, because if Dr. 

 Wiley and his associates had understoood that 

 the $1,600 annual salary required them to ex- 

 act from Dr. Eusby seven hours a day for aU 

 the work days of the year, then of course his 

 employment must have been known by them 

 to be illegal and under the circumstances to 

 be only a cover for a different contract of em- 

 ployment; but if they understood, as seems to 

 have been the case generally in the agricul- 

 tural department, that such an employment 

 at an annual salary might be entered into with 

 experts of this kind, and only subject the ex- 

 perts to an obligation to work for the depart- 

 ment whenever called upon, with the under- 

 standing that they had some other vocation 

 to which their chief attention was given, it 

 clearly reconciled the action of Dr. Wiley 

 with a desire to comply with the law. The 

 recommendation of the Attorney-General 

 given to me was upon only part of the evi- 

 dence, and hence his judgment was different, 

 doubtless from what it would have been if 



