The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-04-10


The great departments get bushels
upon bushels of mail every day. 1t keeps
one girl working constantly to merely cut
open the envelopes of the letters received
by the pension Office, and the average
number opened day is 10000 and these
all have to be disposed OF by the various
clerks. The whole interior department
has queer correspondence, and Secre-
tary Mobiles mail is full of curious letters
about lands and titles, pensions and pa
tents, and the perpetual motion crank and
the man with a hobby send in their letters
by the score. There is a man at Philadei-
phia who writes the president from SIX TO
eight fat letters every week and signs him
self Ellis Godhead." He evidently thinks
heis god, and he is crazy Washington
City lawyer who was once an able prac-
titioner, but whose mind became unbal-
anced and whose chief business now seems
to be in trying to instruct the president.
The queer letters that come to the treas
ury department are numbered by the tens
of thousands every year. The letters con-
tanning conscience money inclose sums
amounting from ten cents to thousands OF
dollars, and there are thousands of letters
referring to the war claims, and these all
go to the second auditor. Secretary
Fosters personal mail amounts 10 about
$50 letters day. These are handled by
his private secretary, r. ]. Wynne, and
Ouiy the TediIy liUpoTLalb UutS Hicct Vic
secretary's eye. Mr.. Foster is very chari-
table, but the begging letters never get to
him. They are torn up as matter OF
principle and thrown in the waste basket.
The other day the wife of state senator
from Ohio, who knew Secretary Foster
quite well, came in and took him to task
for not answering her letter asking for aid
for the Ohio church with which she was
connected. Secretary Foster looked up
astonished and said: why. my dear
madame, l never got your letter. You
must be mistaken. i did not see it."
''WeII wrote it." was the lady's an
swer, land 1 stamped it and I know it
must have come here"
1T must have gone to my private secre-
tary if it did," said Secretary Foster.
"How about it. Mr. Wynne?" speaking to
the man across the table. do you re-
member the madam's letter."
"Yes, do" said Wynne, 81 remember
1t very well. tore it up and threw it in
the waste basket. L do that with all such
letters, and if L didn't you would be as
poor as church mouse before the admin
istration is over. They come here on all
sorts of pretense asking for thousands of
dollars, and if thay were answered or con-
sidered, all of your time would be taken
up with them"
Mr.. Wynne then explained to the lady
how these letters came in. and she left
the office seeing that it was impossible for
Secretary Foster to attend to them, but
asking Mr.. Wynne to hereafter make an
exception in her case. This he promised
to do. A vast number of letters are re-
ceived by Secretary Foster in regard to
green goods circulars. and the men who
write these always say they are willing to
help the secretary ferret out the offenders
for consideration. There is a little toy
now sold which through trick enables
one to apparently make good greenbacks
out of white paper. 1t is done with gen.
uine bills, however, and is only clever
sleight-of-hand arrangement. The other
day the secretary received a letter telling
of this trick, and saying that the little
clothes-wringer-like machine would make
any kind of bills from one dollar up to
twenty, that the machine would be very
bad thing for the government, and that he
would expose the man if he were paid for
1t.
The private secretaries are expected to
keep beggars and cranks away from their
chiefs, and 1t will be surprising to many
to know that beggars come right up to
the Offices of the cabinet ministers and try
to get at them while they are at work.
These men wear all sorts of clothes, and it
is hard to detect the crank or the medi-
cant from business man. One called at
the treasury department the other day
and said he wanted to see Secretary Fos-
ter, whom he knew very well. Mr.. Wynne
received him in the anteroom. The man
wore clothes of preachers cut, and he
bad white cross on the lapel of his coat
He said he was minister, and that he had
known Mr.. Foster in Ohio, and that he
merely wanted to pay his respects to him,
He protested that he did not want any Of
flee or any money, but to merely shake
hands with his old friend, the secretary.
Mr.. Wynne concluded to risk him. He
was admitted. Secretary Foster did not
remember him, but he talked IN a most
familiar way, and finally struck the secre-
tary for $40. AS Mr.. Foster took this out
of his pocket and gave it to the man he
looked at Wynne as if to ask how the man
got in there, and Wynne stepped up to
him and said:
Didn't you say that You did not want
either money or an office, and you would
not ask Secretary Foster for anything if
let you in 2"
The man said, Eyes / did, but chang ed
my mind about the money after l got in,
and | forgot what told YOU"
THAT seems rather thin" said Wynne
as he let the man out, land l can assure
you you won't get in again."
The postmaster general perhaps re-
ceives more begging letters than any other
cabinet minister. He is known 10 have
an enormous income, and the vast sums
he has spent on Sunday-schools and other
charities have made him tine target of all
the professional and other beggars of the
United States. He gets thousands of let
tiers every year of this kind, and churches
of every denomination, Sunday-schools
and lecture-rooms send appeals to him
every day for aid. He gets hundreds of
letters from cranky business men nskiug
for e little capital to start them on the
road to fortune and his letters for charity
come from almost every country of the
world. One lies before me from Germany
1t is not translated, but there is a brief
connected with it, and this brief states
that "Gottlieb Hess, of SAKE Meiningeu.
Germany, states that he is in the habit of
keeping daily family prayers, and that
he can play the piano. He thinks these
family prayers might he much more i'm
pressIve if the singing could be accom-
panied by piano. hut he is too peor 10
buy one. and asks Mr. Wanamaker to send
him check for enough money 10 get
one"
These letters are of course never pre-
scented to the postmaster general, and Ii is
only those of real merit that ever meet his
eye. Ii IS impossible 10 investigate the
cases, and did the letters present genuine
want the fortune OF Jay Gould would be
900 small 10 satisfy them. | looked over a
large number OF them today. in a pile
which represented the pickings of those
received during the past week or so, and |
give few by way of illustration. Here is
one from the South:
NJ. HGaamak,r. am poor colored boy no,
having any chance TO school. never seen the In
side Os college, not able 10 get books ! ask Won,
TIE great bead of the Philadelphia sunday
school tU the name OF the Lord, please send me
the book called the American Cyclopedia, con
tanning $50 psCes. I take all NV idle time
uyiIg u wrlte. and tNtnk You srs great and
good nan our postofiios box IS ISL Yours
uuiy,
Here is letter from Omaha, written
evidently hy n Swede which asks NJ