New Ulm weekly review. [volume] (New Ulm, Minn.) 1878-1892, 1885-09-02
WASHINGTON LETTER.

Washington, Aug. 2Sth, 1885.
The President is deep in Adirondack
forests and the ofice-seeker worries
him only in his dreams. But the dream
of the ofice-seeker has vanished, as
has also the dreamer. Five months ago
sleek, well dressed host of politicians
came down upon w Washington. Conf
dence blazed in their eyes and hilarty
was painted on their noses, their stem
torian voices, and loud American laugh
ter could be heard in the hotel Hobbies,
in hundreds of saloons, and on the
streets. Like the poor Indian they
have passed away. They read
their doom in the decisive stiff back of
the departing President. Unsavory
old sinners, Whiskey bloated political
workers, your services are not needed,
you are indeed almost as unfit for
place in the body polite, as you
would be in the Church militant.
The President had not left Washing
ton day before it was discovered, and
the sad intelligence sent abroad, that
the White House was in Republican
hands. The same old clerks and at
taches who were there under Grant,
Hayes. and Arthur, are there still.
The Democratic President disap-
pearing in the woods and leaving the
White House to the tender mercies of
the Republican clerks is q spectacle
that makes the stoutest-hearted office
seeker sick and tired. All the letters
directed to the President, even those
marked ''privste" and personal must
pass through the hands of these clerks.
and very few of them, perhaps only
about two per cent, will ever be seen
by the President.
| The Pressure for Office during the
last five months has not been parallel
in the history of the country. 1t was
expected that there would be COM
plete change, and applications were
multiplied beyond anything that had
been known. The hard times had
thrown hundreds of men and woman
out of employment, and hundreds of
applicants who had known indepen-
dence and wealth, turned their faces
toward Washington. At first they ap-
piled for high Offices, those command
ing good salaries and assuring social
position. Despairing of these they fall
to begging for anything, and have fin
ally departed with nothing.
The ups and downs of political life
are curious. A few days or months
make all the difference in the world.
Capt. c. E. Henry, who was Marshal
of the District under Garfield, and was
looked upon as next to the President, is
now running his Ohio farm just where
he was twenty years ago. when Gar.
field first found him and made him a
postal-clerk. Mr.. Henry recently told
how the politicians treated him here
while Garfield lived. Said he: '''They
worried me almost to death. I was
flooded with invitations to dine. Sena-
tors. judges, generals, all were after
me with the men of low degree. urging
me to do this and that and to intercede
for them. The moment the crack of
Guiteau's pistol resounded these peo-
pie did not know me. So far as that
was concerned, it was relief, but it
was terrible comment upon the weak
ness of humanity
And so it is with every man who has
been near President, and, in fact,
with the President themselves. Here
is j. Stanley Brown, who in 1880 in
Mentor and 1881 in Washington was
the most sought of any man except the
President himself. He is now lust
starting life as school boy. He has
resigned his clerkship to go to college
About two hundred newspapers come
to the White House daily. Under for
mer Administrations they were nearly
all paid for, the expense often coming
to as much as $4,000 per annum. Col.
Lamont as soon as he took charge of
things, reduced the subscription list
nearly seventy-five percent. But there
are just as many papers as ever. The
editors seem determined that the Presi-
dent shall read their opinion of him,
and if he don't choose to pay for it they
will furnish it free. Col. Lamont also
discharged the exchange clerk. who
had been drawing salary of $3.50 per
month. The Colonel does the exchange
reading himself, and his experience as
an editor comes in good play.
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