Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 37, Number 26, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 April 1905 — BOARD IS OUSTED. [ARTICLE]

BOARD IS OUSTED.

Canal Commissioners Quit at Request of the President. President Roosevelt has asked for and received the resignations of all of tin members of the istlimiam—sanal commission. He is now at liberty to reorganize the commission upon any basis that the exigencies of the work to be performed upon the isthmus may seem to require, and the announcement is made that the President has selected as the head of the new commission Theodore I’. Shonts. president of the Toledo, St. Louis and Western Railway, which is more widely known ns the “Clover Leaf” line. Whether he will reappoint any of the members of the existing board will depend tfpon themselves and circumstances. He would be glad to have Messrs. William Barclay Parsons, William 11. Burr, Benjamin M. Harrod and Carl Ewald Grunsky, who are civil..engineers of high attainment, resume their old positions with the understanding that instead of devoting themselves to the executive and financial details of the enterprise they shall proceed to the isthmus of Panama forthwith and assume personal supervis v ion of certain sections of the canal, which are to be created hereafter. This will involve a complete surrender of their present authority as commissioners and submission to Chief Engineer Wallace, who is to be a member of the reorganized board. At is understood that Messrs. Parsons, Hrr and Grunsky already have signiHl a willingness to accept reappointunder terms which the President ■l dictate, and that hereafter they will to take up their several reson the isthmus, wlie-e they can look after the engineering doBls of the work of constructing the <Sinal. The selection of Mr. Shonts does not imply that he is a SIOO,OOO man. a Washington correspondent says. His salary will be $25,000 per year, the same as that of Chief Engineer Wallace. The fiction about thesaPresident seeking to employ as chief executive of the canal enterprise a man of sufficient executive talent and experience to justify payment to him of a salary of SIOO,OOO per yenr was not conceived by the President. He never said that he would pay aqy man so large a salary, but on the contrary, has concluded negotiations for the services of several ex-railway presidents upon the theory that they would he willing to work for $25,000 per year. It is no violation of confidence to state that the President could have employed any one of a dozen successful railway men for that salary.