Daily Yellowstone journal., 1886-02-25
CONGRESSMEN'S LETTERS.
TIE AVERAGE lAWMANER GETS
FROM TEN TO FIFTY EACH DAY.
ssme of Them Very FuIny-Iiow the
Congressman Disposcs Of His Corre-
spendence = stenographer aud Type
writer-A Big Thing to u Constituent.

The letters received 10y congressman arc
d. ii all kinds, AMI some Of them are very
funny. Your average congressman gets
from ten To fifty letters day, AMI the
member who wUuld do any work upon the
great questions uf the day must Use a
stenOgraphcr. Now nearly every IIem-
her 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 bundle
of about twenty letters in his hands, and
sits down in his room with his slCiI6c-
rapher at his side. The steHngrapher has
pencil and a notebook. Tue congress
man takes up lelter 10y letter, and rs fast
rs lie can talk reads on an answer to il,
which the Shorthand man tax = down rs
FAST as the wUrus fall from the members
hips.
A half hour pa -srs, and the twenty let
tiers have been hDi,ned. What would have
taken the member ur hours To do for
himself he has accomplished in thirty
minutes by the aid of ms st0n0grapher.
This NAV Ice at II o'clock in the morning.
lie now goes 10 the capitol, aul when lac
returns for dinner &C 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 nuies on the type
writer. Others must have them written
out by hand as letters on the typewriter
look too much Ike printed circulars. In
written letters nine out Of ten men who
receive the letters viii think the congress
men did all the writing themselves
BIG THING To \ CONSTITUENT.
A long letter from a congressman is n
big thing to the constituent in the back
county. He takes IL around anu shows it
70 his friends, then lays it away in the
family Bible, and keeps it as reverently
as though it was h 5 grandfather's will and
the old man was yet alive, had lots OF
property, and hsely to drop off any day.
Some congressrlen answer every letter
they receive, NJ 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 oflice-seeking letters at all. A
great part Of the correspondence Of q con-
gresham relates TO garden seeds and pub
lie documents. An Ohio member told me
the other day that mis- constituents kept
better track of the government publica-
tons 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
Gen. Grosvenor says he gets letters from
every state in the Union on pension mat
tiers. 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, anG he thinks that
S315,000,0O0 ought to be devoted to this
purpose. A Kansas man got letter the
other day, accompanied by n curious
horseshoe. which blacksmith wanted
him 10 get patented for him, and another
member know has just answered letter
Of O Yankee doctor, who is anxious that
the president should send him out west as
the government vaceinator Of the Indians
Carp in Cleveland Leader.