The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1897-11-28

lnefe is no DuSlef place IN the OnlLeQ
States just now than the White house
The new congress has brought horde
of ofIiceseekers with it, and the presi-
dent is besieged almost as much as he
was at the beginning of his admins
tration. L found thirty-six people
cooling their heels in his ante-room
when 1 called at the executive man.
sion the other morning, and 1 spent
2 the day there watching the crowd
: come and CO. and studying the man
= ner in which business is done.
PRESIDENT M'KINLEY's MAIL.
Shortly after L arrived the first mail
came in. 1t was brought from the city
pCstofice in the war department
wagon, and the driver carried the
great bags upon his shoulder to the
E second floor and dumped them down
s in the presidents counting room. This
+ room is on the north side Of the ex-
+ ecutive mansion, facing Lafayette
e square. 1t is filled with clerks some
Of whom are rafting typewrters so
nCisily that you can hardly hear your
& self think. Others are sorting letters.
Some are writing, and others are read
ing newspapers 1t is here that the
mail is handled. There are about a
thousand letters every day, and the
+ newspapers which come in every
morning would supply a good-sized
village with reading matter for
month. The chief work is with the
letters There are about six hundred
in the main this morning, and every
4 one of them has to be read and
E ~, to +l,n oat-
ter of the president and his secretary.
First the letters are sorted. The pri-
waite letters of the president and Mrs
Mckinley are taken out, and the bal
ance are pitched, one by one, into diff
ferent baskets according to their ap
parent Importance. The clerk who
sorts them knows the handwriting of
the most prominent men of the coun-
try, and he can tell almost at glance
such letters as demand immediate at
tcntion.
LETTERS BOILED DOWN.
After sorting, the letters are boiled
down. The juice is sucked out of each
of them, and only the condensed eX-
tract gets to the president. A letter
of twenty pages is put into five lines,
and a voluminous document into a
sentence. The men who read the let
tiers write a few lines across the up
per left-hand corner of the first page
OF each letter, showing just what is
in it. This is for Secretary Porter,
who by this means, can grasp the
whole mail in short time and direct
the making up of set of briefs fer
the president. The letters themselves
never get to the president. He viii
not see a dozen out of the six hundred
which came in this morning. This is
also the case as to his personal and
private correspondence. All of the let
tiers are brefed, and they are put in
such order that any of them can be
given to the president at a moments
notice, if he so desires. Sometimes a ]
brief does not tell all he wants, and
he calls for the letter itself. In
answering his mail President McKin-
ley directs Secretary Porter what to
say. He writes no answers himself
and does not even dictate the replies
to a stenogra pher. He has little time
to use the pen, and almost the only
letter which he writes is the one which
goes daily from here to his old mother
at Canton.
FOR THE PRESIDENTS EYE ONLY.
AS we look at the letters we see that
the marks on the envelopes give no
idea of the contents. Many of the let
tiers are addressed pei sOnaP' and
private" by men who think that this
will bring their letters directly to the
president In most cases sucn letters
are from office seekers, and most o1
them the president never sees. They
are referred by printed form to the
department to which they belong.
Hero is one marked ''J,Onfi0fn1ial ~
The writer wants a consuship. 1t
goes to the state department. There IS
another marked FOR the presidents
eye only" Mr.. Cortelyou, the eXccu-
tive clerk, opens it. 1t is also from d
man who wants office. Here is the third
on the outside of which is written I'M
portant Not to be opened by the sec
rotary" That letter comes from I.
crank, who wants to tell the president
of a new version of the Bible, and 50
it goes. Many of the other letters,
however, are very important. AS | see
the mail opened and briefed l notice
how carefully everything is handled.
There is not q paper which is mis-
placed. Every Enclosure is fastened by
a clip to the letter itself, and, though
already more than ore hundred thou
sand letters have been received since
the 4th of March, am told that not
a single paper has been lost. Every
letter must be carefully y watched.
There are a few which are unanswered,
but there are none which escape the
eyes of the clerks.
CRANKS WHO WRITE.
Let us stop a moment and look over
some of the other letters. 1t 1s-easy to
see why they should not be shown to
the president. If every one was i'm
portant he could not read and answer
them ALL Think what thousand let
ters a day meansi If he took a minute
to a letter and worked without stopping
from o'clock in the morning until Z
o'clock at night he could not look over
only six hundred letters in a day. -Four
hundred letters would be left unopened,
and he would run behind something
like three thousand letters a week.
More than half of these letters are
from office seekers. The clerks under
stand what to do with them. They are
referred to the high officials of the
various departments. a large number
are from cranks who have new
methods of reforming the world. There
are cranks who think they own the
treasury and cranks who want the
president to move out, in order that
thew NAV move in. There are scores of
neonle who write asking for autographs
and photographs. Some want Mrs. Nc
Kinlev to send them a sentiment, and
others write the president for an auto
graph page of his message.
BEGGARS TRY TO WORK MKIN-
LEY.
The beggars are the worst Of the lot.
The presidents salary could be spent
five times over in satisfying the re-
Quests which come into the White