News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1885-08-27
WASHINGTON LETTER.
WASHINGTON, D. {
Aug. II, 1885.


The President is deep in the Adj
rondack forests, and the office-seeker
worries him only in his dreams. But
the dream of the office-seeker has
vanished, as has also the dreamer.
Five months ago sleek, well dressed
host of politicians came down upon
Washington. Confidence blazed in
their eyes and hilarity was painted on
their noses: their stentorian voices
and loud American laughter 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 tho
body polite, as you would be in the
church militant.
The President had not left Wash
ington day before it was discovered
and the sad intelligence sent abroad,
that the White House was in Republi-
can hands. The same old clerks and
attaches 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 spectacle
that makes the stoutest hearted office
seeker sick and tired. All the letters
directed to the President, even those
marked ''private" and "personal"
must pass through the hands of these
clerks, and very few of them, per-
haps only about two per cent. will
ever be seen by the President.
The pressure for Office during the
last FIVE months has not been para l.
leled in the history of the country. 1t
was expected that there would be a
complete change, and applications
were multiplied beyond anything that
had been known. The hard times
had thrown hundreds of men and
women out of employment, and hun
dreds of applicants who had known
independence and wealth, turned their
faces toward Washington. At first
they applied for high offices, those
commanding good salaries and assur-
ing social position. Despairing of
these they fell to begging for any
thing, and have finally departed with
nothing.
The ups and downs of political life
are curious. A few days or months
make all the difference in the world q.
Capt. G. E. Henry, who was Mar
shall of the District under Garfield,
and was looked upon as next to Pres
,~faent, is now running his Ohio farm
just where he was twenty years ago,
when Garfield first found him and
made him postal clerk. Mr.. Henry
recently told how the politicians treat
ed him here while Garfield lived.
Said he, "They worried me almost to
death. / was flooded with invita-
tons to dine. Senators, judges, gen.
erals, 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 people did not
know me. So far as that was con-
cerned it was a relief, but it was a
terrible comment upon the weakness
of humanity"
And so it is with every man who
has been near a President, and, in
fact, with the Presidents themselves.
Here is J. Stanley Brown, who in 1880
in Mentor, and 1881 in Washington
was the most sought of any man ex-
cept the President himself. He is
now just starting life as a school boy.
He has resigned his clerkship to go to
college.
About two hundred newspapers
come to the White House daily. I'm
der former administrations they were
nearly all paid for, the expense often
coming to as much as $4,000 per an