Wichita eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1886-1890, 1889-05-05
Senate Clerk. BIZ S.lsJ. n M0

handed over to Mr.. Nathan Smith, another
experienced clerk, and he goes through al
that mass of papers to find If there be any
discoverable error in any OF the work.
When els assured that the case is really
for consideration he lays it on the Post
master Generals table, and that hard
working official must take time to read
over that Presidential brief. If he finds
any thing which attracts his special atten-
ton, he turns to the paper in the case,
which has been carefully numbered by Mr..
Rea, in order to enable Elm to find it easily,
and reads the original paper. After study.
ing the case carefully the Postmaster-Gen.
eral takes the entire bundle to the White
House, and there with the President goes
over it again, and finally decides who shall
have the appointment, and writes the name
in the proper place, and sends it back to the
department with orders for the commission
to issue. Meantime, there are papers com.
ing into the department relating TO every
fOurth-class Office in the land, and there are
fifty-seven thousand of them. In each case
there are numerous letters and petitions
which have to be handled as carefully as
the New York case. Every mail brings
into the department whole armfuls of COM
munications concerning the offices. Many
of them relate to accounts of postmasters,
defaultings, rents, clerk hire, and almost
innumerable subjects, besides the appoint
ments. 1t will be so for the next year OF
more, and then business will settle down ia
regular routine again. But, even then, II
will be a Woodworking Office, and every
employee in it earns his or her bread and
butter. The salaries in this department
range from nine hundred to eighteen hun.
dred dollars per annum.
The average reader will consider this
something desirable. But after one has
held clerkship in one of the executive de.
partmentS In Washington and inevitably &C.
quired the expensive habits of life in this
city, the salary shrinks into insignifcance
The young man who is wise, or who will
listen to the words of wisdom, will never
seek a Government position in the civil
service, nor accept it if rendered unsought.
1t is vanity of vanities. People who live al
a distance from the National capital will dc
well to understand that the glamor with
which their lmaginations surround Govern.
ment positions is usually Elementary and
more creditable to their powers of mental
eccentrlclty than to their mature judg.
ment. 1t is far better to have salary OF
SIX hundred dollars per annum in town
or city of the interior OF on the coast, than
to have an income of twelve hundred dol.
lars from the Government at Washington.
The chief clerkships and heads of bureaus
go to those who have distinguished them.
selves in the political walks of life The
real wage-workers become familiar with
the business and are almost Invaluable in
their several positions; but they can never
rise. There are several men in the Office of
the First Assistant Postmaster-Genera
who are competent to manage the depart
ment, fully as competent as any prominent
citizen who might at any time be called to
the Postmaster-Generalship but they are
serfs of the Republic, with no power to rise.
and they never will rise during their life.
times. The days may come and the DAYS
may go, but they will be Government
clerks. Occasionally one of them, unable to
control natural and commemorate spirit OF
lifts his head and aspires to
chief clerkship, but usually he is marked
thereafter by his superior officer as a good
man to keep down, and ne is relentlessly
The average Government
clerk is poor, and to be poor is to be friend
less generally. SMITH D. FRY.