Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-09-23
OF NATIONAL CRANKS
Washington is a Center, as 1t is
Headquarters for Hobbies.
THE WOMEN WHO WOULD BE MEN
Lead the List as Being Most Noticeable, and
Others Follow.
SOME DECIDEDLY AMUSING CLAIMS
CORRESPONDENCE OF THE DIsPATcH.l

People with hobbies and fixed peculiar
ideas abound here. They form large ele-
ment of the population, and in one sense an
important one. Every inventor with an
impossible flying machine or device for
obtaining perpetual motion comes to Con-
press with it sooner or later, and once here
he usually remains, besieging the halls OF
legislation with imaginary claims.
The men and women who have claims
AGAINST the Government are the majority oi
the cranks. Their claims are of all kinds.
Some of them are purely imaginary. Some
of them are based on services performed and
already sufficiently recompensed. Some
have real merit; but the claimant, through
constantly shooting at one target, has come
TO magnify the target beyond all natural
proportions.
In addition to these people there are the
men and women with peculiar ideas about
certain branches of the Government and the
way they should be managed.
DR.. Mary Walker is crank, although
she would be exceedingly angry if anyone
should tell her SO; and Charlotte Smith, the
President of the Woman's League, is
crank on the subject of working women, al
though suppose when Charlotte sees this
she will call down all sorts of madedictions
on my innocent head.
WITH OTHERS GRIEVANCES.
Charlotte Smith is in continual pursuit OF
the heads of the bureaus in the different de-
partments. always with some other womsn's
grievance to redress. She is a bustling
little woman who dresses in black, and who
usually carries in her well-gloved hands
bundle of papers. She makes it her bust
ness to see that the working women
in the departments are given
an Nqual chance with men, and she
usually carries her point. She has great
influence with certain members of Congress,
whose little faults and vices she has learned
through the House servants who are MEM
bers of the Woman's League, and whenever
she calls on the heads of departments for
recognition and fails to get it, she pulls
string or two, and they soon see the advisa-
bilitv of letting her have her own way, at
least in part. She has an ample tear reser-
voir on which she frequently calls and
with good effect. Mrs. Smith was sister
of Bob Odlum, who was killed by jumping
from Brooklyn Bridge into East river.
DR.. Mary Walker is very different from
Mrs. Smith in every respect This explana-
tion is necessary when associatlng their
names In the same paragraph. DR.. Mary
Walker is a most disagreeable person, while
Mrs, Smith, when not rehearsing tale of
woe, is an exceedingly jolly individual.
HOW DIR. MARY is REMARKABLE.
DR.. Mary Walker. however, is remark
able woman. During the war she rendered
great service to the Union army in the hos
pitfalls OF the West. She asked no compensa-
tion for her work and received none. 1t
was during this period that she adopted the
bloomer costume, which was the first step
toward her inVestiture in mems garments.
After the war she came to Washington
and made application to Secretary Stanton
for q commission as army surgeon. She had
graduated as physician and mad done a ply |
sician's work during the war. The matter |
was referred to Judge Advocate General |
Holt for decision as to the legality of such |
an appointment. He decided that it was
perfectly legal and Secretary Stanton had
commission issued to DR.. Walker as Major
and surgeon of the army.
OF course the appointment was purely
honorary. There was no emolument at
taehed to it. DR.. Walker had some money
then, and she asked none of the Govern
ment. Shortly afterward she hung out her
anu Ou pIdCIlCO Vi IuBul-
cine, still wearing the bloomer costume.
She Joined hands with Belva Lockwood and
other enthusiasts In the organization of |
Woman's Rights Association, in which she |
became quite prominent; but she disagreed !
with her co-workers on the subject of dress, |
and she soon separated from them. At this |
time DR.. Walker wore the full male COS
tune which has distinguished her since.
PRACTICE WAS NOT GOOD,
ara she went to Congress for a pension. |
which she succeeded in obtaining. She also |
obtained a clerkship in the Pension Office. |
which she held for a number of years. Her |
ideas developed in so peculiar a wav. how |
ever, that her services were dispensed with. |
Since that time she has constantly pursued |
Congress with a claim for an additional |
pension, which she finds it very difficult to |
obtain. She succeeds, however. in making |
q complete nuisance of herself She de- |
mands the rights accorded to those who wear |
the male costume, but insists upon her priv |
ileges as a woman. She has been known to |
order man to drop the cigar he was smok- |
ing because its fumes offended her and be- |
cause he had mo right to smoke in the |
presence of lady"
She is grown so uncomfortable now that |
she is denied admittance to most of the de- |
partments and to the White House. She |
has not bothered President Harrison yery
much, but she used to make President Cleye.
lands life a burden. She would appear
regularly at his public receptions and de-
mand an immediate audience on the subject
of her grievances, which, it is almost un-
necessary to say, was not accorded her.
A GENERALS WIDOW.
Another woman who used to FREQUENT
President Cleveland's receptions was the
widow of General Ward B. Burnett. Cen
eral Burnett was distinguished soldier.
who died in 1884. His widow cherished.
even before his death, the idea that the Gov
ernment was indebted to her in large sums
of money, and she has been for manv years
laying siege to the Pension Office. Failing
there, she appeals to the Secretary of the
Interior, and from him to the President.
She has succeeded in seeing Secretary
Noble only once, and then for but a few
moments She managed to gain an inter-
view with Judge Chandler, the Assistant
Secretary of the Interior, recently, and in
formed him that he was "a fool" Mrs.
Burnett is somewhat violent at times. and
her wrath is directed almost indiscrimi-
nately at all with whom she comes in con-
tact.
Another local crank of some renoyp is
John Pope Hodnett, who has claim against
the Government for many thousand dollars
for services which he claims to have rem
dered to the workingmen of the District
many years ago. He was an organizer of
labor meetings in the time of the old Board
of Public Works, and championed the cause
of some laborers whom the contractors did
not pay; but he has no possible claim against
the Government.