THE FOOD Another Case Wherein the Righteous Politicians Show How They Love to Uphold Does anybody here remember what became of the famous case of the Scandinavian employee of Salt Lake county who once got his accounts a little mixed and there was a discrepancy of some This unfortunate man was hounded by our great sleuths of justice the county politicians till he nearly expired as a result of the fate that awaited For he had not stolen but there was some irregularity in his buying and The manner in which the practical politicians prove their own virtue and show to the people just what kind of watchdogs of the public purse they are is simply The latest case is the concerted attack on the head food inspector for the all as we the various impure food trusts and drug trusts hate him for finding out the impurities and poisons in their Lawyers are freely hired by the attorney general of the nation or by a similar official of the state for every purpose that seems to require such expert but when Wiley of the bureau of chemistry at Washington makes the technical in his zeal for the food of the and employs an expert at of a the day's work of the chemist to be valued at and his court testimony at per a great hubbub is raised in many and his resignation is loudly- We let Dr Wiley he is the chief conservator today of the public health If he has paid a higher salary to the leading food chemist of the country than this miserable congressional law change the law- There was no evil motive in the doctor's his zeal for the public good led him into paying more for expert service than the statute had Because he thought the government should not lose the services of H. H. who is considered the country's Wiley entered into a salary arrangement violating the letter of the it is without to the treasury or injury to the service we gather from the was' originally paid a day for laboratory work and for attendance in court as an But a law was passed providing that the compensation paid to experts should not exceed a year or a This law was construed by the law officers of the department as meaning that the compensation any such person employed should not exceed a day or later a Rusby said he could not continue his with the bu reau at such and after much the evidence an arrangement made whereby he was put on a basis of a year and it was left to him to do such an amount of work for the bureau as would make his salary cover an allowance of a day for his expert work and a day for his court For making this arrangement the committee on personnel of the department of agriculture recommend to the President that Wiley and his W. D. be an opportunity to that L. F. chief of the drug be from his present and that Rusby be dismissed account of irregularities in connection with his appointment and his for appointment of William as unskilled With all this the attorney general and the president faces two unpleasant One is that of disciplining the man who has about the strongest hold on the American and the other is that of turning down the strong recommendation of his attorney the member of his cabinet on whom he chiefly relies for We simply hope that the president will see some way out of the difficulty without rid of the popular and energetic head of the bureau of Harvey W. Wiley was so useful and energetic in his crusade against impure foods and labeling that he was bound to create an army of and the bitter and continued efforts of these enemies to bring about his dismissal will cause a great many people to look with on the request for his That Wiley technically violated the law seems but for years the employment of experts as clerks and laborers has been the rule or not only in the but in the house and senate committee It is a pernicious and should be It is unfortunate for the administration that Dr Wiley's campaign against impure food has been so well done as to arouse the suspicion that a technical violation such as occurs every day is not the full and complete reason for his practical dismissal