The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1882-03-09
AN INFAMOUS SYSTEM.
The Employment of Women in
Washington Clerkships
Mistake.
[Washlngton Correspondence /

I
a, my feet.
l tried TO calm her, and led her aside
| to friendly doorway. ! knew her for
an honest girl these two years, and the
| only dependence of widOwed and fool
| ish mother, who had recently been laid
! away in her grave. The father had
| died in office, and was buried at the eX-
pense of his fellow clerks. The widow
| got in place by selling her honor to her
late husbands friend, who represents a
pOpulOus district in Congress. She re-
tired to advance her daughter, then
| just budding into wOmanhOOd. From
| that hour this same member of Congress
has dOgged the daughter, and has
| sought by gradual advances to effect her
ruin. The mother died. The daughter
anticipated her salary to pay funeral
expenses. To-day she was discharged
from office.
Young, handsome, educated, penni-
| less, homeless, riendless-pursued by
a reckless libeTtine of wealth and high
political position! Think of it,
mOtheTs
81 am discharged" she said. "What
| shall do?"
Now, Pm a married man, and I'll tell
you what did. looked around rather
neryOusly, for fear some passing friend
would observe and OVerhear the suppli-
see am just as big fool as the rest of
the world. Then l asked her if she had
any friends of influence.
"Only One," she said, and | could see
her vince as she said 1t. But he"
she stopped and buried her face in her
handkerchief.
"Well-and hep"
Then she told me that same friend"
had followed her. There was no ques
IN ind 70 d 10
knew he could provide for her, but she
dared not go to him. She had asked him
| to have her retained and received his
| ultimatum. From her story of his re-
latiOns with her chief of bureau | made
up my mind that this Congressional
scOundrel had puTpOsely permitted her
discharged, believing she must lneYlta-
bly, fall into his hands. Now, | am no
saint, but it made my blood boil to see
this scheme against a helpless girl. |
would that | could print his name in
glaring headlines in every newspaper
in the country; but nobody would be-
lieye it,. You would not dare suggest
an infamy of such man. The seq ell
of this story is to come.
Few readers will appreciate the stu
alton of these departmental women sud
denly deprived of place. In other walks
of life one drops out here and there and
is not noticed. A shop girl discharged
goes to another shop. Here are several
hundred women thrown out at once
without warning. There is no other
shop to go to. Most of them are from
distant States, are widows, and orphans
and heads of families. Some of them
have been long in office, one place or
another, and have lived frugal lives and
are well-tO-dO. The great majority of
them are living from hand to mouth,
either of necessity or choice. As rule
they are honest, intelligent and virtu-
Ous 1t is a terrible thing to one of
these unfortunate dependents to lose
her place. There are nearly 400 OF
them marked for dismissal Monday in
the Census Bureau alone.
While tie reader is taking in this
article there will be some 300 of these
| 400 clustering around the dOOTways of
| the Census Bureau, crying about the
halls and sObbing over their empty
| desks-theirs no lOnger-and besleglng
and beseeching Congressman all over
| the city for their influence. There will
be many poor girls in straitened circum-
| stances, who have been honest and vir-
| tuOus all their lives, who will, probably
| for the first time, calmly contemplate
| the contingency of shame-WhO will
even make voluntary OveTtuTes to those
whom they believe all-pOwerful to aid
| them. There will be many who will
boldly face the world in the renewed
fight for bread, who would die before
they would ever think of such thing.
And there will be flock of male harpies
cTOwding about the more desperate WO-
men of this thTOng to catch them in the
| hour of desperation and bear them away
| to life of gilded sin. 1t is almost too
| sickening to contemplate. But it is a
| sight which Washington often witness
eS; so often that we have grown cal
| lOused and hard of heart. While clerk
in the Treasury, several years ago,
saw many of these wholesale discharges.
At one time there were 600 women
driven out of the Treasury in one day.
1t was a frantic mob. Women tainted
in the halls and tore their hair, and
cursed their superiOrs and wept in the
streets about the building, as if the gil
| gantic columns would pity them and re
store them to their places. From all
have seen it is clear to me that the en-
plOyment of women in the Government
offices is great mistake. 1t is not only
| pTejndicial to the service, but harmful
to the women themselves. 1t encOur-
| ages all sorts of licentiOusness. 1t pro-
| vides the means to members of Congress
of keeping their mistresses at Govern
ment expense. 1t demOralizes both
male and female employees. 1t is a
standing disgrace to manhood and wO-
manhood, 1t is satire on our age of
| civilization.
1t will not do to say that these cOndi-
tions are not necessary. 1t is enough
to know that they are true. 1 can
/ think of no worse fate for young,
handsome and intelligent woman than
to be sent to this place and put in a
Government Office. Where women have
\ comfortable incomes here it is not much
matter, but those who come from abroad
come to face too many ups and downs
and temptations for ordinary human
nature to resist. A detective who has
been here for twenty years says the
history of wrecked lives of those men
and women, especially the latter, who
have started out with a Government
office, would shock even a policeman.
He told me he knew of dozen cases, and
that there are plenty of them, where
women are living shameful lives, whose
respectable parents in the States be-
lieVed they were in the Government
employ. A number of such cases have
become public. Among the most notOri-
| GUS of these is the case of Nellie Bur.