Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1879-01-29
DEPARTMENT OF STATE.
An Account Of the Business Methods Of
the Department.


Washington Letter to Boston Herald.
The number of official communion
tons received at the state department
and which require an official answer.
varies from fifty to one hundred a day,
and perhaps seventy-fve is about the
average. The mail is opened in the
index bureau, and the first thing done
is the making out of an index of all the
communications. The letters are then
distributed to the different secretaries
and to the consular and diplomatic
bureaus. Only the most important
ones reach the eye of the secretary of
state. AL that the chief clerk is sure
Mr.. Eyarts will not desire to see he
distributes to the heads of bureaus for
their attention. Those which he may
or maynOt wish to see go to the assist
ant secretaries, who can use their
Judgment about consulting Mr.. Evarts.
But, when the answers are prepared,
all of them must be seen by Mr.. Evarts
or by Mr.. Seward, the work of signing
the mail being n of the final matters
of each day. The correspondence is
removed from one Office of the depart
ment to another, in closed wooden
boxes, so that the messengers do not
actually handle any of the paper which
they carry, and there is no opportu
nifty for anything to get lost, strayed
or stolen.
After Mr.. Evarts and Mr.. Seward
have signed the letters of the day.
they are sealed up by a trusted mes
senger, under the eye of the chief
clerk, and put in mailbags, which are
sent to the city postofice. The de-
partment has the option of making up
closed mails for foreign parts, in which
case the sealed mailbag is transmitted
to New York and sent abroad without
being opened. Besides its regular
official correspondence the department
has an immense amount of other cor
respOndence. Letters are constantly
coming from all over the world, in
every civilized language, and from
foreigners of many nationalities, who
happen to be in the United States.
asking for information, documents.
etc. The chief clerk states that many
letters come from Greece and from
Sweden, and the requests are as mani
fold as the ingenuity of man can de-
wise. These letters, whenever any
useful purpose can be subserved.
receive an answer. 1t is here that the
services of the translator are often in
request. He is a mar of large acquire
ments. but the department is not poor
in linguistic Auency and all communi-
cations in the language of every civil
lied nation of the world can be turned
into English at short notice. Among
the clerks is one who speaks japanese
Huently, and another is master of con-
versational Russian. French. Ger
man and Spanish scholars are of
course plentiful.
The department finds the use of the
telegraph a daily necessity, and has its
own special operator, who is a regular.
ly paid clerk. The department is con
nected with the offices of both tele-
graph companies here, and the depart
ment a get a special wire to New
York or elsewhere at any time by sim
ply asking for it. When important
negotiations are going on messages are
sent in cipher, and cable messages of
some kind are passing to and from the
department nearly every day. One of
the busiest men in the department is
the pardon and commission clerk. who
makes out all the papers in connection
with Presidential appointments and
pardons.
When the President decides to an
point a person to an Office, he makes a
notification o fthe fact to the secretary
OF state, and the nomination is made
out and sent to the senate. When the
nomination is confirmed, the parch.
ment commission, something less than
a yard square, is made out and for
warded to the White House for Mr..
Hayes signature. Then the state de.
partment transmits it to the persons
appointed.