The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1911-09-15

| the charge by the personnel board was
that DR. Wiley, DR.. Kebler, DR.. Bige-
| low and DR.. Rusby in effect conspired
to put on the record a contract for a
! general employment of DR. Rusby's SER
vices for 81. 500 a year but actually and
~cretly made a contract with him by
| which he was only to do enough work
during the year for the 81 500 to secure
him a compensation of $40 a day and
! that this was done in deliberate and
| defiant violation of the law as inter-
| preted by the attorney general in the
! opinion already referred to- in which he
held that congress had limited the COM
| pensatiOn of experts to SO a day.
after you submitted to me the re-
port of the personnel board, I asked
the attorney general to examine it and
give me his opinion in respect to the
matter because it concerned the viola
ton of the law as interpreted by him
/ in one of his opinions. He did so and
/ advised me that the recommendation
of the personnel board ought to be
! carried out. In connection with his
recommendation he invited attention
to a clause in the appropriation bill
| of March Is, 1898, still in force, that
enjoins on the head of each depart
ment the duty of exacting from the
employees in that department who are
under an annual salary labor amount
ing to seven hours a day.
Trial Was Not Fair.
IAN examination of the records sat
T
been presented to the persons involved
in such a way as to enable them to
make full defense. They had only
been called as witnesses and cross ex-
that they were under trial which
might involve their dismissal. Accord
ingly I directed you to submit the
whole record, together with the opin-
ion of the attorney general to each 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 Kebler
and Rusby or that he ever consciously
entered into an arrangement by which
DR.. Rusby was in effect to receive
compensation at a rate in excess Of
that prescribed by the statute as inter-
preted by the attorney general. The
truth is it appears from the answers
of DR.. Wiley, DR.. Kebler and DR.. Bige-
low that there had been a good many
precedents in the department which
seemed to justify the employment of
DR.. Rusby at an annual salary when it
was not expected that his entire time
would be taken up.
This was the case with respect to
the employment of what was known
as the Remsen board. That board was
created by order of President Roose-
Welt for the very important purpose of
enabling the secretary of agriculture
to have reviewed the decisions of the
bureau of chemistry in cases VIII ere
those decisions involved disputed tech
meal questions and would, If sustained,
have destroyed valuable and profitable
business heretofore regarded as lawful.
In such cases 1t was deemed wise not
to allow the destruction of what would
be otherwise lawful property and bust
ness on the decision of only one expert
or the head of a bureau. Accordingly
the Remsen board was created of
number of experts, all of whom were
known to be engaged in other pro-
fesSioanl work than that of the review
ing board. DR.. Remsen, the head of
the board occupies an important posi-
ton in Johns Hopkins university and
that is his principal occupation. An
other member, DR.. Russell Chittenden
of the Sheffield Scientific school, is
dean of that school and that is his
chief vocation.
The Rensen Board.
Hence the employment of the Rem
sen board at the rate OF $1,000 a year
FOR each member necessarily involved
the proposition that such an annual
salary might lawfully. be paid without
requiring labor of seven hours a day
from each person SO employed. This
the attorney general in his opinion in
Inmates, is contrary to the statute, but
in the agricultural department it was
not thought to be the case. Solicitor |
to whom I referred the ques- |
zion OF. procedure made in the case, re- !
piled that in the practice of the de- |
partment the clause in the appropria- |
ton act of March 4, 1907, has been had |
TO have no application to the employ |
nent of experts outside of washington. |
1t is necessary fully to understand this |
difference between the attitude of the |
department toward an employment at |
an annual salary of this kind, and the /
opinion of the attorney general in this
natter because if DR.. Wiley and his
associates had understood the $1,000 |
annual salary required them to exact |
rom RuSby seven hours a day for all |
he workdays of the year, then of
course his employment must have been
Known by them to be illegal and under
he circumstances to be only a cover
or a different contract of employment; t.
)ut if they understood, as seems to |
rave been the case generally in the
agricultural department that such an |
employment at an annual salary might /
De entered into with experts of this
lind, and only subject the experts to
IN obligation to work for the depart
nent whenever called on, with the I'M
Outstanding that they had some other
vocation to which their chief attention |
vas given, it clearly reconciled the l.
Lction of DR.. Wiley with a desire to
comply with the law.
understands Error.
1.-The recommendation of the attorney
General given to me was only on part
# the evidence and hence his judgment
vas different, doubtless, from what it
would have been if he had had the
Whole record before him, as I have now.
t seems fairly clear that DR.. Wiley,
fter an examination of the records con
luded that the employment of DR..
2usby at 50 a day for laboratory work
nd $50 a day for court work, would
mount to 81 500 a year if the depart
aent called on him whenever they
eeded him and that it was this ar
angement to which you consented. In
)r. Kebler's anxiety to induce DIR.
lusby to accept the new terms of en-
loyment he certainly betrayed a will
ngness to construe the contract of en- {
loyment of DR.. Rusby at $1,000 a year Is
one way to reconcile it with the law, s