I know you will pardon me if I insist that I know better the necessary qualifications of Special Agents than any person who knows nothing about it whatever. If there were experienced employees in the service who could be transferred I certainly should do so rather than to await an examination. You will remember a personal interview I had with you about this some months ago, and several requests, some of them personal and some of them in writing followed by the preparation of the questions in this Department, still followed by oral inquiry to which you courteously refer. I will explain again that I need some lawyers in the Special Agent Force. The government loses millions every year (and I speak within bounds) for want of suitable preparation of cases for presentation to the Board of General Appraisers. I want men who know evidence when they see it and who know how to present a case. I do not want a physician or a preacher, but I do want and must have lawyers. I care very little whether they know anything about Customs matters or not—they can learn that but they may know everything about Customs matters and cannot become lawyers. I have clerks in the Department who have graduated in law but that does not make a lawyer of a man. I know what the Department needs, and I want that need supplied. Please advise whether you will hold the required examinations or whether I will have to fill the vacancies with incompetent clerks, or by executive order. If you will join in a request that suitable men be put into this important work by executive order I will let the Civil Service Commission make the nominations from a list which I will furnish, or I will ask them to furnish the list and I will make the nominations. I am not trying to escape the Civil Service, for I heartily believe in it when so applied as to bring material that can be used to bring results. I appreciate your expressed desire to co-operate and I only ask that you make it good by co-operating. Very truly yours, LESLIE M. SHAW. LETTER FROM THE COMMISSION December 9, 1905. The Secretary of the Treasury: The Commission has the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 5th inst. in which are indicated your wishes with respect to the proposed examination for Special Agents.