Elmore bulletin. [volume] (Rocky Bar, Idaho) 1889-1906, 1893-05-20
UNCERTAIN BUSINESS.

The HALEY News Miners special
Washington correspondent writes
"The experience of the many Office
seekers who have been swarming 20
Washington for the past sixty days
is ample proof OF the axiom that
"hisiory repeats itself" They are
following the beaten track that thou
sands have trod before ihem-the track
that Leads TO disappointment and re-
greet for so many. IL matters not
whether the change Of administration I
means also a change OF parties; the
result is the same as far as the office /
seekers are concerned. They move on I
the capital in solid phalnnx and storm !
the white house with all the determi- /
nation Of an army corps. They reach /
here full of courage and hope. and
thought Of failure does not enter their
minds. They wait complacently at
first for the appointments that never /
come, and then they become inn
patien aud finally desperate. They
are striving for big prizes when they
reach here, but most Of them are will
ling TO accept anything before they
leave. Three out OF four of them, of
course, get nothing and return home
disappointed. soured, aud often ruined
men. They are simply drinking the
dregsof disappointment from the bitter
chalice that has been pressed to the
lips Of thousands before them. This
is very sad business, this business Of
ice.seeking. Ii has wrecked thou
sands Of men, but that fact does not
decrease its fascination for thousands
of others. Not all Of these men who
flock to Washington in quest OF Office
are dependent upon it for support.
Many of them have professions or
vocations by which they have lived
comfortably at home: but they con.
tract the craze for federal Office, and
thenceforth they pursue the phantom
TO the exclusion OF everything else
They cannot think Of turning back
but hang on here hoping against hope
applying for one position after another
and getting none, swallowing disap.
pointment after disappointment un
iii all hope has fled. And the man,
of them become morbid and morost
and cannot gather courage to return
home and acknowledge their failure
These remain here indefinitely {,
haunt their congressman and thei
senators, ADD plead for consideration
that they demanded as a right in TN
beginning. Their money melts AVA.
with their hopes, and they drift iron
the hotel into the boarding house, ant
then to the cheap lodging house an,
the lunch counter, and are finally los
in the social maelstrom that claim
them. Washington is graveyard {
disappointed ambitions, and il IN,
young men ~ the country could kno'
the failures aud the hearthurnings ,
which il is the scene the number of II
dcluded victims might not be 80 grea
"Aliogether the number of thes
office seekers has now diminished con
siderahly and the Hobbies Of the hotel
do not contain one visible Democrat
patriot where a half dozen argued an
made stump speeches month agf
the news-stands still display placar
bearing the advice ask for the boo
giving full list 81 government office
not within the civil service, and f.
which no examination is required.
The keepers Of the stands say the sal
OF the book is almost as lively as Il
any time in the past Copies Of
may he found lying in half the hote
bedrooms Of the city, for il is rare tina
one OF the disappointed takes hi
volume hame with him. 1t would b
exceedingly difficult to explain I
the wife and family how lac failed whe
they could see for themselves th
enormous number 81 slices Of govern
ment pie that are being passe'
around"