Newark Evening Star And Newark Advertiser

EXONERATES DR. WILEY IN ITS REPORT

Committee Finds Contract With Dr. Rusby Is Invalid Under Law.

WASHINGTON, Jan. 22.—Exonerating Dr. Harvey W. Wiley of the charge of "conspiracy" in employing Dr. H. H. Rusby, an expert chemist, at a salary unauthorized by law, recommending the discontinuance of the Remsen Referee Board, unless sanctioned by legislative action, and suggesting changes in the administration of the pure food law, the House committee which investigated the famous Wiley-McCabe controversy in the department of agriculture made its report today.

The report of the committee is unanimous. Its language is temperate and does not go so far as some of the adherents of Dr. Wiley hoped, but it recommends that the bureau of chemistry, headed by Dr. Wiley, be given latitude in the administration of the pure food laws.

The report, however, does not recommend the dismissal of Solicitor George P. McCabe, alleged to have dominated the board of food and drug inspection.

The investigation of the Wiley-McCabe controversy grew out of the employment of Dr. Rusby at a rate technically larger than the per diem for experts allowed under the law. The Rusby contract called for $1,600 salary for eighty days' work, as Dr. Rusby refused to work for less. The House committee on expenditures in the Department of Agriculture, commonly known as the Moss committee, finds that Secretary Wilson was informed of the peculiar nature of the Rusby employment; that he approved of it and that no conspiracy existed among Dr. Wiley and his assistants in the Bureau of Chemistry to evade the law. The chief chemist is completely exonerated, although the committee finds the Rusby contract invalid under the law.