The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1892-04-23
PUBLIC MEMS MAIL.
QUEER LETTERS SENT TO THE
PRESIDENT AND his CABINET.

AAOW VIC w hltS house lA6ll lS 1anOIeO
and How Answered-A Girl Gets the
Presidents Necktie for Crazy Quilt.
A Poor German Who Wants Piano
for Use at Family Prayers-Modest
Request of Colored Boy.
From the Louisville Coatrier-Journal
WASHINGTON, April This is the age
Of the private secretary. Every public
man here at Washington now requires one
or more watch-dogs to protect him from the
public, and the richer the man is or the
higher his position, the more careful are
the watchers placed around him. President
Harrison is guarded by messengers and sec
retaries at every point, and every cabinet
minister has a messenger sitting before
the front door of his office and a
secretary or two through whose
hands the visitors have to pass
before they get to the great ~ am" within.
1t is the same with regard to letters as it is
with persons. These men receive thousands
Of letters a month, and all these have to
pass the argus eyes of the private secretary.
If they are important they reach him. IL
they are foolish, cranky or impudent they
are consigned to the waste basket. Presi-
dent Harrisons mail contains at least 800
letters every day, or more than 9, 200 a week
and over 100000 a year. II he an
swered these letters himself it would
take oil his time merely TO read them and
to dictate replies and the result is the mail
is weeded out again and again before it
reaches him, and only the really important
letters are called to bis attention. These
letters are brought to the white house BY a
! special messenger. They are first given
into the hands OF the executive clerk, Il. h.
TibbotJ, who opens them with q steel paper
cutter and rapidly reads their contents. AS
he goes over letter he passes upon its inn
| pOrtance and decides its fate as far as its
probable future is concerned. If, it
| is a request to President Harrison TO
| look up a pension case, he marks the word
pension on II and it goes TO the pension
Office. If 1t effects treasury claim 1T goes
TO the treasury department, and if it is a
request for an autograph or money it is
dropped into the waste basket. The i'm
portanG letters are laid aside and are car
ried into Mr.. HalfOrd, the Presidents pri-
vate secretary, who uses mis- hoe on the
epistolary garden aud cuts out all letters
! but those which the President must see. By
| the time the mail gets to the President, it
has been cut down half or two-thirds
and he rapidly disposes of the balance by
| dictation. Mr.. Talbot is his confidential
stenOgrapher, and he goes to the Presidents
! room from time to time during the day
whenever M. Harrison is at leisure and
takes his answers to his mail. He tells me
tae President dictates very rapidly, rarely
| changing word or a sentence, and that he
rapidly looks over his letters after they are
presented to him In typewriting, and signs
them himself.
The begging letters which come TO the
white house are numbered by hundreds
every week. They come from all parts of
the country, and a number are received
every day from foreign lands. The ma
jority of the begging letters from the diff
ferent states are from foreigners, and the
only ones of any account that come from
native Americans are appeals for aid for
churches and charity organizations. Some
of these begging letters are full of pathos,
and the majority Of them are from
poor and ignorant people. The
President is addressed in all sorts of
ways His correspondents call him His
Highnessn "His Excellency," "Mr. Ben
Harrison 1.-THE Hon. Ben Harrison" ellis
Godhead, the President" and the letters are
full Of the rudest of spelling and writing.
About half of the envelopes are marked
Private Personal" or For the Pres-
dent Only and some eof them are sent
in care of Private Secretary HalEord A
large number are sent in care OF Mrs. Har-
rlson, or are inclosed in envelopes addressed
to Mrs. Harrison, with note that she pre-
sent them to the President, and all sorts of
pious lodges are resorted to to get the
| Presidents eye. The worst of all are the
autograph fieuds. boys and girls, men and
women all over the country, when they
start a collection, write, telling the Presi-
dent they want his name first Ia their book,
and they send cards for him, on which they
ask him to put his autograph. They want
presents Of bis photograph, locks of his
hair and samples of Mrs. Harrison's dresses
for crazy quilts. There is one Ohio man
| who has written regularly for something of
|
was nominated. The day after the conven-
ton he wrote for two photographs, pre-
tending they were for the Harrison Club
in his town. They were sent and week or
so later the man wrote that they must have
gotten lost in the mails and asking for more.
| Other dodgers we're attempted as to other
things, and the man is probably an auto
| graph pedler as well as an autograph col
! lector. None OF these autograph letters are
| responded to, though some begging letters
aud letters on business of various kinds
receive an answer signed by one Of the
| Presidents secretaries, stating what has
been done with them.
Some Of the letters received by the Presi-
dent are very funny, and some are 50 witty
| that they command an answer in spite Of
| the demon OF the waste basket. This was
| the case with a letter from young western
girl last week who wrote ner scresd in
| poetry, and asking for something that the
President had worn for patch in a crazy
quilt to be sold at a church fair Her letter
fell into the hands of one of the young
ladies connected with the white house, and
she was SO amused by it that she got
| necktie Of the Presidents and sent it to the
girl.
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 10, 900, and these all have to
be disposed of by the various clerks. The
whole interior department has a queer cor
respondence, and Secretary Mobiles mail is
full of curious letters about lands and
titles, pensions and patents, and
the perpetual motion crank and
the man with hobby send in their
letters by the score. There is a man at
| Philadelphia who writes the President from
six to eight fat letters every week and
signs himself HIS Godhead." He evidently
thinks he is a god, and he is a crazy Wash
ington lawyer, who was once an able prac-
titoner, but whose mind became unbaI-
anced, and whose chief business now seems
to he 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