terms or by reference, the grounds of the decisions rendered.* The amount, from the payment of which the Government, by the action of this commission, will be relieved, will fall but little short of $17,000,000. This result has been reached by the rejection of some claims and contracts, by the curtailment or modification of others, and by the reduction of prices when found excessive or extravagant. We are well satisfied that no principle or law has been violated in the conclusions at which we have arrived; that considerations of equity, when these existed, have not been overlooked, and that no undue advantage has been taken of the power of the Government in dealing with its citizens. In our desire to protect, as far as practicable, the public interests no private right has been infringed, nor is it believed that any one of the contractors whose engagements have been the subject of our investigations will, if provident and reasonably skillful in the execution of his contract, suffer loss, or fail to realize a fair profit.

A longer time than was anticipated has been occupied in the discharge of our duties. The magnitude of the issues submitted to us forbade that they should be determined either hastily or in the absence of a thorough scrutiny of the merits of each claim separately considered. It has been the endeavor of the commission not only to be just, but, as far as possible, to satisfy the claimants that we had been so. Accordingly, be repeated conferences with frank explanations offered to the parties, both as to the strict legality of the action proposed and as to its absolute necessity from considerations of public policy, we have sought to secure their acquiescence in our decisions. Our efforts in this direction have met with even unlooked for success. It maybe safely affirmed that a large majority of the claimants are content with the disposition made of their cases. Many of them, public spirited citizens, have cheerfully expressed their awriting. That amid the variety of character presented by so large a number of shrewd business men, exceptions to this should have presented themselves, will surprise no one who reflects that in every society will be found those who - setting up a distinction between honesty in public and honesty in private affairs - find it difficult to realize that the Government has any rights, or the law, which protects its treasury, any obligatory forces as against their own personal interests. Such men seem to delude themselves with the belief that however much they may be found to respect the property of its individual citizens, the country, as a whole, is a fair subject of plunder - a belief of ready growth amid the disorders consequent upon great national convulsions. A few such we have encountered, and while our action has necessarily left upon them an unpleasant impression, it is altogether probable that their baffled schemes against the public treasury will hereafter become the basis of appeals to Congress.

As the reports made in the particular cases fully exhibit the details of our labors, a very brief resume of their results and of the considerations suggested in the course of our investigations may here suffice.

It may be stated, generally, that we have found the system under which have been issued the numerous orders or contracts for ordnance and ordnance stores that have been referred to us strongly marked with improvidence. The amount of these orders or contracts

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*These special reports are published in Senate Executive Document No. 72, Thirty-seventh Congress, second session.

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