Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1885-07-03
Washington Letter.

Washington Letter.
From our Regular Correspondent.
WASHINGTON, June IS, 1888.
The new Cabinet officers aud the
chiefs of bureau under them are very
much embarrassed by their inheri-
lance of asylums for the aged, blind
and deaf. The Government offices
are these asylums, and there are in
them hundreds of superanuated men
and women who do actually DO work.
They were not remarkable for ell
ersy and efficiency ever in their
prime. Now they are sans eyes, sans
ears, SANS everything but pocket.
They 90 to the departments day after
day as has been their custom for
years. They sit at their desks and
do nothing, but once a month, when
pay day comes, they are each handed
one hundred dollars in crisp new
notes. I have in my mind an old
man, both blind and deaf, who is
daily brought to and taken home
from the Patent Office by members
of bis family in order that he may
draw the pay he is absolutely inca
pable of earning. If these superan-
uated people should be discharged,
they would doubtless die from the
shock, and more or less suffering
would be entailed upon their de-
pendent families. But, it is, never
theless, n gross wrong to the tax
payer and subversion of tho pur-
poses of the civil service to make the
Government offices an asylum for
this class. The Government pays
thousands of dollars yearly for rent
of offices, and the rooms of many de-
partments are overcrowded with
desks. 1t would be in the interest
of economy to Fay these old and
helpless people to stay away from
the departments SO that competent
men might be placed at the desks
which they only cucumber.
There is another class that ought
to be discharged The departments
were filled with pretty women by a
system fostered and practiced by the
Republican party. There is not q
Republican Senator or ex-senator
who has not lovely proteges, and
some of them have dozens, in the
Government offices here. They
were not appointed under civil ser
vice rules, but in direct contraven-
ton of civil service principles-be.
cause they were pretty and helpless,
or because they were sisters, cousins,
aunts and mothers-in-law. To say
that they are not efficient is putting
it very mildly. Ten good clerks,
such as are found in the business
houses of the city, can do more and
better work than one hundred of
these women, and will be glad to do
it for less pay than tho women re-
ceive. The fact is that the civil SER
vice has been most shamefully run
down at the heels as we'll as at the
head during the long ascendency of
the party of moral ideas and loose
practices.
During the last three and a half
months great progress has been
made in the neglected and belated
work of many Government Offices,
but the best results cannot be hoped
for until radical changes have been
made in both the men, women and
methods of the worst demoralized
civil service under the sun.
Proof that a new era has opened
in national affairs is seen every day
here. The last Republican Senate
succeeded in passing a subsidy bill
of 100000 in favor of the Pacific
Mail Steamship Company. Mr.. Villas
has been looking into the subject,
and be finds that the present rates
paid for the mails are ample. As
the act of Congress is not manda-
tory, but merely gives him permits.
sion to spend the money, the Post.
master General. will, with the ap-
prevail of the President, expend not
one cent of the appropriation. This
will BIO very fatiggjLg and nauaea.iug