"(b) If the examination or analysis be found correct, the Secretary of Agriculture shall give notice to the United States district attorney as prescribed * * The appropriation act of 1908 (35 Stat. 251, 261) made appropriations for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1909, and contained provisions in the lump-sum appropriation for "Laboratory, Department of Agriculture," similar to those above quoted from the act of 1907, except that the sentence "for the employment of additional assistants and chemists" was not included in the enumeration of the objects for which the lump-sum appropriation was made. The appropriation act of 1909 (35 Stat. 1049) contains similar provisions to those above cited from the act of 1908. Under these acts I am clearly of the opinion that the Secretary of Agriculture was empowered to employ in the Bureau of Chemistry such additional assistants and chemists as he should deem necessary to investigate the composition, adulteration, and false labeling or false branding of foods, drugs, beverages, condiments, and ingredients of such articles, when deemed advisable by him, and such assistants" and other persons" as he might deem necessary to carry into effect the food and drugs act. The form of appointment which you made, which accompanies your letter, shows that you appointed each of certain persons" consulting scientific expert to the Secretary of Agriculture, to aid in enforcing the provisions of the" food and drugs act, in the Department of Agriculture, at a salary of $25 per day for days actually employed, to be paid from the appropriation "Laboratory, Department of Agriculture, general expenses, Bureau of Chemistry," to perform such duties as should be required by the Secretary. While the form of appointment does not expressly specify that the expert is employed as a part of the Bureau of Chemistry, that fact is implied from the specification of the fund from which he is to be paid. In my opinion these appointments were expressly authorized by the acts of Congress referred to. 2. You further inform me that you organized the five persons so appointed into a board called the "referee board," and that you imposed upon them the duty to con sider and report to you upon the wholesomeness, or the deleterious character of such foods, or of such articles used in foods as you might refer to them. I do not understand from your communication that you conferred upon this so-called "referee board" any power. Their sole function was to investigate and report to you, and their detail to your office is justified in the provision of the act of March. 4, 1907, above quoted. The purposes for the employment of these gentlemen, and the organization of them by you into a board, are set forth in your letter. You point out that it was to enable you to have recourse to the disinterested and unbiased advice of eminent and expert chemists whenever a serious conflict of opinion may arise as to the deleteriousness of any particular article or substance added to food. It is, of course, apparent that in the administration of a statute of such far-reaching effect as the food and drugs act, the ordinary investigation and conclusions of the Bureau may be disputed by interested parties, and section 4 of the act provides for a rehearing by the Secretary of Agriculture whenever the conclusion of the Bureau is disputed. The Secretary would naturally desire to reach a right conclusion as to such matters and not subject the owners of articles affected by the ruling to litigation if any error should have been committed by the Bureau, and Congress would seem to have had that in mind in providing in the lump-sum appropriations of 1907 and 1908 for the employment of "such assistants, clerks, and other persons as the Secretary of Agriculture may consider necessary for the purposes named," i. e., the investigation of the composition, adulteration, and false labeling, or false branding of foods, drugs, beverages, etc., when deemed by him advisable. Your right to appoint any one of these men for that purpose can scarcely be seriously disputed under the provisions of the act above referred to, and, in my opinion, you were entirely justified in directing them to confer and act as a committee or board in advising you with respect to the enforcement of the act. 3. The act entitled "An act making appropriations for sundry civil expenses of the Government for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1910, and for other purposes," approved March 4, 1909 (35 Stat. 945), contains the following provision (p. 1027): "SEC. 9. That hereafter no part of the public monies, or of any appropriation heretofore or hereafter made by Congress shall be used for the payment of compensation or expenses of any commission, council, board, or other similar body, or any members thereof, or for expenses in connection with any work or the results of any work or action of any commission, council, board, or other similar body, unless the creation of the same shall be or shall have been authorized by law; nor shall there be employed by detail, hereafter or heretofore made, or otherwise personal services from any executive department or other Government establishment in connection with any such commission, council, board or other similar body." In You inform me that since this enactment a question has been raised as to your right to cause payments to be made to the above-mentioned experts, and you ask my opinion as to whether or not such objections are well founded. my opinion this section last quoted does not repeal the provisions of the appropriation act passed at the same session, authorizing the Secretary of Agriculture to employ "such assistants, clerks, and other persons as he may consider necessary" to enable him to carry into effect the provisions of the food and drugs act, nor to submit to a number of persons appointed pursuant to that act to consider jointly as a committee or board and report to him for his information any question upon which he is by law required to take action arising under that act. The commissions or boards referred to in section 9 of the act of March 4, 1909, are commissions or boards constituted without authority of law, and I can not conceive that it could ever be construed to prohibit the head of a Department from submitting to the concurrent investigation and report of several employees of his department any question which he might submit for investigation to any one of them. Inasmuch, therefore, as the employment of experts of the character referred to by you is authorized by law, and appropriations made out of which they may be paid for their services, as above set forth, I am of the opinion that neither section 9 of the sundry civil act, approved March 4, 1909, above referred to, nor any other legislation to which my attention has been called, has affected your right to employ such experts or submit to their joint investigation and report any question of fact affecting the adulteration or misbranding of articles concerning which any party from whom such articles have been obtained is entitled to be given an opportunity to be heard under the provisions of section 3 of the food and drugs act. Respectfully, GEORGE W. WICKERSHAM. The SECRETARY OF AGRICULTURE. SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON FORMS OF DEPARTMENTAL The special committee appointed by President Roosevelt on June 18, 1907, composed of a representative officer or employee of each of several of the Executive Departments, to investigate and examine into the forms of contracts used by the various Departments, bureaus, and offices of the Government, may lawfully proceed with the work of investigation intrusted to it. The prohibition in section 9 of the act of March 4, 1909 (35 Stat. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, SIR: Replying to yours of the 24th instant, inclosing a letter from the Treasury Department under date of April 19, I beg to say that I have sent for and obtained a copy of the order under which the members of the committee to investigate the forms of contracts used by the various Departments were appointed. I find that on June 18, 1907, President Roosevelt addressed a letter to each of the following-named persons, viz: James A. Wetmore, chairman, Supervising Architect's office, Treasury Department. B. F. Harrah, law clerk, office of the Comptroller of the Treasury. J. S. Carpenter, pay inspector, U. S. Navy, assistant to the Bureau of Supplies and Accounts, Navy Department. Morris Bien, supervising engineer, Reclamation Service, Department of the Interior. W. W. Warwick, examiner of accounts and auditor Canal Zone, War Department. which letter was in the following form: "THE WHITE HOUSE, "Washington. "OYSTER BAY, N. Y., 1907. "SIR: In accordance with the recommendations made to me by the committee on departmental methods in a report on Government contracts, dated April 30, 1907, you are hereby appointed a member and designated as chairman of a special committee of five to fully investigate and examine into the forms of contracts used by the various Departments, bureaus, and offices of the Government in order to remedy any defects which are found to exist therein. "The result of the work of the committee will be submitted for the approval of the legal officer of the respective Departments, and to the Attorney-General for final approval. "Mr. JAMES A. WETMORE, "THEODORE ROOSEVELT." "Chairman, Supervising Architect's Office, In Mr. Wetmore's letter to Mr. Carpenter he states that the committee is serving without additional compensation to the salary of its members, and makes no mention of its expenses. The prohibition in the sundry civil act of 1909 is against using any part of the public moneys or appro |