The record-union., 1897-06-10
TN THE ANTEROOM.
Pen Picture Of a Daily Scene at the
White House.
The Crank, the Sentimental Female
and the Unrecognized Great rlan
Comedy and Tragedy.

OhASAy dhA
No President has even been so per-
sistently badgered as Major Mckinley.
Nearly two months have now passed
since March 4th, and the officeseekerS
are as pertinacious as ever. The ante
room of the Chief Executive is con-
| tinually thronged with people who have
something to ask for and their re-
quests embrace a thousand and one
matters which have no relation to
places in the Governments employ. II
offices We're the only things sought, the
problem would be comparatively easy.
AS it is, the business quarters OF the
White House for many hours every day
present to the observing eye kaleldO-
scopic picture, ever changing, with
new forms and faces going and coming
sometimes offering elements of the
ludicrous, but more often suggesting
the tragic
You would go far to find such an as
semblage of hopes doomed to disap-
| pointment as are gathered in the ante
room of the President Who, for ex-
ample, is that sad-faced woman, who
sits patiently waiting? burrows made
by tears are on her cheeks. Once, per-
| haps, she was young and pretty, but
her husband died, and her son, her idol
and hope, went wrong. He took to evil
| courses, and finally he killed a man in
a barroom brawl. The jury called it
murder, and the slayer was condemned
| to be hanged. The Governor of the
State refused a pardon, and now the
mothers only hope is that she may
gain propitiatory word from the kind
hearted Major.
| BY her side, his hat clasped nervously
| between his knees, is a wiZened man,
on whose face the word Crank is writ
ten as plainly as if in printed letters.
| Beneath his chair he has a perpetual
motion machine, which the Patent Of
| flee has refused to consider. All he
needs is a written line from Major Nc
Kinley to make him a millionaire. In
strong contrast with him is a gentle
man of distinguished appearance, who
wears an aspect of some diSdain and
unmistakable disgust. He is really a
very important citizen from a distant
| Commonwealth and has waited for
three hours, because his name is I'M
known to the subordinates who guard
| the executive door.
More resigned is the expression of
another individual just opposite Some
how he has failed to secure the recog-
milton for which he has been striving.
Every day for many weeks he has been
waiting for a chance to pay homage
| to the Presidents Secretary, but only
| once has he seen the President, and
then the Major was non-committal. AT
! the beginning a place at 81, 600 or SO
was what he looked for, but now he
/ would be glad to get anything at S6a
| a month. Sickening with hope deferred
! he has moved meanwhile from a first
class hotel into a boarding house, and
lately he has been subsisting to some
extent on free lunches.
The door of the Secretary's room
opens, and out pops a man with an ex-
| tremely cheerful expression of coun-
tenance He chances around upon the
melancholy looking assemblage with a
| Multiplying gaze; then, putting on his
hat with a jaunty air, strides through
the crowd and disappears. 1t is evident
that he is a successful applicant. There
are some such, but they are rare. AS a
rule, the people who get offices are not
those who come and whine for them
ON the executive doormat. Neverthe-
less, it does happen now and then that
by sheer force of cheek and persistence
an individual will worry the President
into throwing him bone.
There is nothing more exasperating
| to the waits" than to see a person of
no apparent consequence make his way
through the Secretary's room and enter
without a moments delay, the portal
being thrown wide with respectable
bow by the colored man in charge OF
that duty. This, presumably, is mem
Der of Congress, who has at all times
the entree From the Secretarys room
he passes directly and without formal
| ity into the immediate presence OF the
| Chief Magistrate. who inclineS his ear
| to whatever this important visitor may
have to say, while others, though pre-
viously admitted, step back and wait.
1t should be understood that Major
McKinley's anteroom is only a section
of wide hallway at the east end of the
Executive Mansion on the second floor.
1t is cut off from the private living
quarters Of the President by double
door. On either side of this piece of
hallway are the office rooms OF the
White House-the Cabinet room, Major
McKinley's room, and the Secretary S
room on the right as you enter; the
telegraph room and a room occupied by
several clerks on the left. AT every
door stands guard, so that nobody
may intrude The portal of Secretary
Porter is tended by a colored servitor
named Simmons who has done the
| same duty for years and who knows
| everybody.
Simmons is a man worth being polite
to. He admits people to the Secre-
| tary's room as his own judgment die