The Evening post. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1888-1889, 1888-12-31

ufe or candidate Tor speaker; but 1t IS
all easy and leisurely
Every convenience is at hand; there
are pages and MESSENGERS to command,
and time enough for everything. AT
or . Congress adjourns, bringing on the
long dinner and the pleasant evening. IL
is becoming quite the fashion for Con
gressmen and Senators to make up little
dinner parties, sitting down at and get
ting up at or even o. What wonder
that some of our pubic men grow lazy.
and that all are unwilling to give up this
life Of ease and return to the hurry and
toll of q professional Or business career2
Yet public life h,s its drawbacks.
There are men who stay here so long
they become enervatel, rusty, unfit for
anything else. Not a few of them drift
into the Departments when they lose
their political grip. In the employ of
the Senate and House are three Exon
gressmen. There are dozen eX-Con-
gressmen in the Departments and one
ex-senator that know of. He was
pointed out to me on the street the other
day. His name is Frederick A. Sawyer
and though he was once Senator of the
United States and subsequently Assistant
Secretary of the Treasury, he now holds
second-class clerkship in the War De-
partment. There are seedy old men
hanging around the Capitol and the ho-
tells, unfortunate old nobodies who need
the services Of both cook and barber.
When they are not doing in the
chairs which, by sufferance they are per-
mitted to occupy, they may be seen try
ing to look wise and important. Ask
who they are and the clerk Of the hotel
will tell you: 80, he lsone Of our regu-
lar sitters / believe he used to be
Member of Congress- Some Of these
men imagine they are lobbyists, for they
know right well there are eX-Senators and
ex-Representatives in town who are lobby
lists, and who appear to gain little
honor and much profit in that vocation.
Another bane of public life in Wash
ington is letter writing Senators and
Representatives get bushels of letters.
Inquiries by the thousand reach them
about pensions, claims, land patents,
private bills, patents everything under
the sun. These must be answered
Many of them require visit to the Des
partments for Information. To the
Departments the Congressman must go,
making the rounds from one to the other,
or he must write large number of letters
does not sit on Saturday, and this day is
improved by Members for Department
work. The Senators have private secre-
taries, paid by the Government, to attend
to this business, but Representatives
with this luxury.
Congressman who can afford it hire
secretaries to attend to their letters, send
on don N.,tNtg Hs htff
the majority are too poor A new con
Germ in Washington might be called o
wholesale private secretary. For stip-
ulated sum, usually $50 month, 1t takes
charge of all the letters and public bust
ness which Congressman may wish to
turn over to it, makes inquiries at the
Departments, in each of which it keeps
a skilled man, and after obtaining the
necessary information writes letter of
reply which the Congressman has merely
to sign and send out to his constituent.
Senator Cullom's experience in this
letter writing matter may be taken as
fairly representative. i called on the
Senator one evening and found him hard
at work debating letters to a stenog-
rapher, A huge pile of unanswered let
tiers lay before him.
This" said he, sis one of the great
est burdens of publiclife NV secretary
and have been unable TO keep up with
our mail and | have been compelled to
employ n stenoprapher. We dare not let
our mail get day ahead of MS. for then
it would be almost impossible TO catch
up. When Senator Logan died my mail
more than doubled. Logan, you know,
had more friends and admirers than any
man in Congress. His Grand Army con.
nections were SO extensive that he re.
ceived mail much greater in volume
than that of any other Senator. After
his death many of his correspondents
turned to me, and I have done INV best
to serve them. But il is hard work. and
in my case largely precudes social pleas.
ures and often prevents me making that
careful study of public questions which
should like to make"
There will, of course. be the usual rush
to secure Office under the incoming Adj
ministration, but if the place seekers
could talk with a few Of The men who
were successful in getting Offices under
Cleveland | doubt IL their ardor would
be able to hold its warmth. Nearly ali
of the men who took Office under Cieye-
land four wears ago are poorer in rocket
than thew were when they came here
and now they have to face The rather
serious question of what to do after Hnr.
rison comes in. OF course reference is
here had only to the class of officials who
are changed with every chance Of Adj.
ministration. not the clerks under SO 600
a wear, who are all protected bv the civil
service laws.