The Pulaski citizen. [volume] (Pulaski, Tenn.) 1866-current, 1886-03-25

The letters received by congressman are
OF all kinds, and some of them are very
funny. Your average congressman gets
from ten to nifty letters a day, and the
member who would do any,work upon the
great questions of the day must use u
stenographer. Now nearly every mem
Der has his shorthand clerk, who comes in
the morning or evening, answers all his
mail, and runs about the departments
for him. The Congressman takes a bundle
Of about twenty letters in his hands, and
sits down in his room with his stenog-
rapher at his side. The stenographer has
a pencil and notebook The congress
man takes up letter by letter, and as fast
as he can talk reads off an answer to it.,
which the shorthand man takes down as
fast as the words fall from the members
lips
a half hour passes, and the twenty let.
ters have been finished. What would have
taken the member four hours to do for
himself he has accomplished in thirty
minutes by the aid of his stenographer.
This may be at II o'clock in the morning.
He now goes To the capitol, and when he
returns for dinner at 3 his twenty letters
are lying on the table ready for him TO
sign. He does this and his clerk mails
them. Some congressman allow their
clerks to write their notes on the type
NAANNAs 0tAAEAN must nave AlitAA WHICH
out by hand, as letters on the typewriter
look too much like printed circulars. In
written letters nine out OF ten men who
receive the letters Will think the congress
men did all the writing themselves.
BIG THING To CONSTITUENT.
A long letter from n congressman Is a
big thing to the constituent in the back
county. He takes il around and shows il
to his friends. then lays it away in the
family Bible, and keeps it as reverently
as thor III it was his grandfather's Will and
the old man was yet alive, had lots Of
property and likely to drop of any day.
Some congressman answer every letter
they receive, no matter how trivial the
affair, or how silly the request. Others
throw a great part OF their correspond.
ence into the waste-basket and some
never read ofice-seeldng letters at all. a
great part Of the correspondence Of a con.
gresham relates to garden seeds and pub.
lie documents. An Ohio member told me
the other day that his constituents kept
better track of the government publica
tiOns than he did himself. Said he: "They
watch the papers closely, and when any,
thing new is>published my first knowl.
edge of it, in many cases, comes from re,
quests for it,"
The pension letters form another large
portion of the congresSmen's mail, and
zen. GruSNenOr says he gets letters from
every state In the Union on pension mat.
ters. A number of letters have been com.
ing in lately from an old crank who wants
congress to pension school teachers who
have outlived their usefulness. This man
says the government has millions Of idle
money in the treasury, and he thinks that
Sl5OO0,OO0 ought 60 be devoted TO this
purpose A Kansas man got a letter the
other day, accompanied 10y a curious
horseshoe, Which "A blacksmith wanted
him to get patented for him, and another
member / know has just answered "A letter
of Yankee doctor, who is anxious that
the president should send him out west rs
the government yaccinator of the Indians
Carp IN Cleveland Leader