Los Angeles herald., 1910-02-09

W Hl versy is but one of hundreds
| IH E of inquiries of great and
| lkA VNl small import that have been
&ksoNA1 made by the government
t. ough its legislative and executive
branchL In the past hundred years.
Millions of pages of testimony have
been accumulated and embalmed i'll
the records of the congress, the eX-
ecutive departments and the courts,
and millions of dollars have been spent
| in the asking of questions and the
gathering of facts Usually 1t Is con-
gress itself that provides for inVestl-
| cations and probes, but often the de-
partments do it on their own initia-
| tive.
| At the present time there are at least
| five important Investigations being
! conducted by the government The
! Ball.lger -Finchot controversy is being
threshed out, the monetary commission
has not finished It's work, tho Browns
vile court of inquiry is still asking
questions, and the meat trust is pelng
p~obed. In addition to these the I'M
! migration commission still has work
! to do. As a rule all governmental in
/ vtstlgdtions come high, but none are
| SO expensive as the commissions Great
| ed by congress. The immigration COM
mission already has spent more than
S6OO0OO in probing the immigration
question, and it wants still more
money. The monetary commission
also is spending money by the hundreds
OF thousands of dollars, and the indus
| trial commission was no more careful
| of Uncle Sans pocketbook when 1t
made it's Investigations into Industrial
! conditions.
Usually these commissions are little
more than pleasure junkets. The mem
bers travel abroad in regal style, and
nearly all of them are on the rolls at
| the capital. These commissions plan
to go abroad just about vacation time
and the senator or representative VINO
| is a member manages to find a place
| for his secretary, who is thus enabled
to draw two salaries from Uncle Sam,
and have his expenses paid While max
| ing a trip to Europe. Whether these
commissions really are worth what
| they cost is q question about which
there has been much discussion.
The senate Brownsville inquiry rep
resents about the most fruitless effort
to get at the truth that has ever re-
suited from a governmental investiga-
| tion. 1t cost several hundred thou
sand dollars to conduct the hearings,
and little more was known of the mat
ter when the senate got through than
before it began. The testimony mis-
books, which would occupy whole
| shelf in a sectional bookcase, witnesses
having been brought from the four cor
ners of the country.
The standard Oil probe made by the
department of commerce and labor ana
the beef trust investigation by the
same department are about the most
important investigations ever made
under q cabinet officer. 1t will be re-
called that in the beef trust investiga-
] CaT6oJ1 accnrtn cd
that the packers made a profit of only
80 cents each on the cattle they
butchered. Few Investigations have
been received with more incredulity.
Nobody believed that Garfield had
reached the bottom of his subject. The
Standard Oil investigation was the one
! that resulted in the Kenesaw Mountain
Lands verdict of $290OO,000 against the
Rockefeller combination.
The house and the senate have some
times been hoist by their own petard
when asking for information from the
departments. Many readers will recall
the time when the house asked for In
formation about the relations of mem
bers of congress with the postoffice de-
partment. There was never more in
dignant set of men than the members
of the house, when nearly all of them
were embraced in this report. 1t was
then that William Alden Smith made
his sensational speech nominating
Uncle Joe Cannon for president. The
house that now quarrels with Mr. Can
non applauded itself hoarse that day.
Few inquiries have attracted such
wide interest as the Schley court of
inquiry, in which it was attempted to
settle the controversy growing out of
the battle with the Spanish fleet at
Santiago. 1t is not too much to say
that Admiral Schley was the popular
hero, whatever may have been the
technicalities of the case. Senator
Rayner of Maryland was his principal
counsel. The embalmed beef inquiry,
after the close of the Spanish war, was
one of the most important army in
vestigations the service has seen.
In passing, one might mention the
work of the industrial commission,
which is remembered more for the say
ing of Henry o. Havemeyer of the
sugar trust, that the protective tariff