The daily morning journal and courier., 1896-05-16
A Day in Mrs. Cleyeland,s Life.

So large is the volume of material which comes with each mail from north, south, east and west addressed to Mrs. Cleveland, that it has been found necessary to divide into classes those letters which appear deserving of any notice whatever. First in this cat egory come the requests for charity. in numberleSs forms. Appeals for money are abundant, of course. Next come calls for food and clothing. Then come demands that she will make an apron for a fair in Podunk, or dress doll for a church exhibition at Smithville. Per haps the funniest of the begging letters are those which crave the gift of ba- by-carriage; they are usually accompa- nied by 8 clipped or copied quotation from an obscure local newspaper, in which an imaginative contributor de- scribes the Clevelands as receiving a carload of little carriages as presents from inventors and manufacturers all over the country directly after the birth of each child As matter of fact no such presents have ever come to them; but the fancy of the average Washington letter-writer runs riot on occasion, and represents as a real hap pening what might have occurred if the whole guild of American carriage mak- CTS had let themselves loose in search of a great advertisement.
 A second class of letters are those in which Mrs. Cleveland is besought to use her influence with the president to procure offices or other political favors for somebody in whom the writers are interested. Even the wives of promi- nent congressman have been known to bespeak in this way the interference of the President to obtain coveted com mittee assignments for their husbands in one or the other legislative chamber.
 To the third class belong letters ask ing the use of Mrs. Cleveland's name as a patroness for some enterprise. as a subscriber for a book, or as subject of a dedicatory paragraph.
 In a fourth class are grouped the con- ventional engraved invitations to take part in some festivity-a wedding, re- ception, a christening, a birthday par ty, the anniversary of a society, the laying of a cornerstone.
 The almost unbroken rule in all these cases is for one of the executive clerks to write a stereotyped form of answer, consisting of polite acknowledgement and declination. Here and there a missive will have some distinctive fea- ture which causes it to be set apart from the rest and brought to Mrs. Cleveland's notice when she retires from the breakfast-room and seats her. self at her desk. A request that she will allow herself to be named as god mother for some budding genius of a new generation is rarely refused an autograph is given where the circum- stances warrant the belief that the courtesy will not be abused, and on rare-very rare-occasions a photo graph is added. Now and then, at long intervals, one of the other requests re- ceives favorable response; but when the recipient is ungracious enough to share the news of his success with the public, the result is such a deluge of appeals and demands from chronic mendicants that the kindly feeling which prompted the experiment is turned to disgust, and the lesson costs the next thousand supplicants a prompt denial of their prayers.
 As an example of the use to which even the declination of an invitation may be put, single instance may be cited. From a social climber of the most self-obtrusive and offensive type, who had been eagerly bent for years on obtaining some personal recognition from the Presidents family, came one day card for the wedding reception of his daughter. The stereotyped re- sponse was sent by one of the clerks, expressing the regret of the President and Mrs. Cleveland that they would be unable to attend. The morning news papers on the day following the affair contained full account of all that took place, ending with a list of distin- guished guests; and the recorded pro- cession of generals and commodores and judges wound up with the an- nouncement that President and Mrs. Cleveland were to have honored the oc- casion with their presence. but at the last moment were unavoidably pre- vented and obliged to send their re- grets. Harper Bazar.