Joseph McKenna

“ If it exists at all it exists in the word 'fix' in the collocation 'fix the compensation.' But the instant signification of the word is the opposite of change-it declares stability and confirmation-and, giving it this sense, it is the natural complement of the power to increase, establishes the increase (fixes it) thereafter as the legal compensation. And this, we think, is the proper construction, direct, intelligible and adequate.
It is, however, urged that the act implies minimum and maximum salaries, especially of inspectors, and also the power of classification of inspectors. ”

“ Counsel for the government have confined themselves to narrower limits and even urge that the argument based on 'long continued and contemporaneous construction * * * is irrelevant for the reason that section 8 of the said Act of 1909 repealed all laws and parts of laws inconsistent' with it, and that its obvious purpose was to relieve the Secretary from whatever construction might have been put upon his acts or those of his predecessors under previous legislation. ”