y requested
the Commission to specify the awards it would approve without
investigation, to the end, presumably, that unchallenged awards might be
submitted for approval. The Commission declined to enter upon the matter
in this form for four reasons:

First. Because in its judgment every award should be subject to
challenge on account of fraud, or misconduct amounting to fraud, at any
time before the approval thereof.

Second. Because, through the means suggested, awards made by the company
which were under charges of fraud and corruption would escape
investigation, and the guilty parties would thereby be relieved from
probable prosecution on account of criminal connection therewith, should
the subject to be investigated disclose criminal action.

Third. The proposal did not come officially from the Exposition Company.

Fourth. That the proposition was made at so late a day as to preclude
the possibility of investigation during the life of the Commission.

Thus it unhappily occurs that the awards must be made, if made at all,
without the approval necessary to give them legal effect. This approval
the Commission could not give without investigation, in the presence of
unexplained charges of irregularity and fraud in certain cases.

By means of procrastination and evasion in the preparation of the
subject-matter, in disagreement for arbitration, and finally by the
issuance by authority of the company of official ribbons for a money
consideration without the knowledge or approval of the Commission, the
whole subject of the awarding of premiums is left without final action
by the Commission at the date of the termination of its existence.

No list of the awards made has been submitted by the company to the
Commission for approval, nor has the Commission ever been advised of the
reasons for the persistent refusal of the company to submit the awards
for its examination, save and except as set forth in the correspondence
on the subject embodied in this report.

The whole matter turns upon the insistence of the Commission to
investigate the charges of fraud made and fortified by affidavits in
certain cases.

The company was notified that the Commission would accept the findings
of the superior jury as conclusive in all cases excepting those in which
fraud or misconduct amounting to fraud was charged. Under these
circumstances, for the apparent purpose of avoiding such investigation
and for no other reason known to the