Mexico weekly ledger., 1897-02-04
coNaREssMAn's SECRETARY.
In the Lower House the Advent of the
Assistant is of Recent Date Some
Facts About Wallace Bassford.

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Written for the Kansas City Sunday World.
MEXICO, Mo-, Jan. 23.-The Con-
gressional private secretary, at least
as regards the House end of the capi-
toll, is a comparatively new thing.
For many years the grave and rever-
end Senators have been well supplied
with committee clerks (and almost
everyone is chairman of some COM
mittee Dr. other), with committee
messengers and private secretaries.
All of these are really personal assist
ants to the member of the Upper
House. Sometimes a Senator's wife
or daughter is nominally his secretary
and draws the salary, while all the
duties are performed by the commit
tee clerk. But in the House the Rep
resentatives never had secretaries IN
til the Fifty-Third Congress, which
came in March 4, 1893, unless they
paid for the work out of their own
generally empty pockets. During the
Fifty-Third Congress the government
paid each members secretary 800
per month, and it might be added
right here that If any Congress ever
needed help it was that one The ex-
ira session began August z, 1898, and
of the two years for which the mem
bers selected, they stayed in
Washington about sixteen months.
Now that it has come to be a we'll
known fact that each member of the
House has the selection of a secretary
to make, he finds much material to
select from, and many kind offers of
assistance in making the choice. The
salary of $1,000 per year is nowadays
quite an inducement, to say nothing
of the desire of the average young
man to see and live in the beautiful
capital city of Washington.
The duties of the private secretary
are various. OF course he answers
letters-many of them-and postal
cards that request a package of flower
seed, or garden seed, or the Hon. MIR.
Sixteen-to-One' great speech, O. the
latest agricultural report. He runs
down to the Pension Bureau to see
why Comrade Browns pension is not
allowed, and swears when he firIss1
that Comrade- Brown only served
,Iweetsyyu days in a company of irregu-
lar militia and is not eligible. Then
he trots over to the War department
and asks Colonel Ainsworth if one
Jonathan Flintlock, the ancestor of
Bill Flintlock, fought at Kings noun
tain, or Kaskaskia or anywhere else.
One wants to know this because Bill
is a valuable constituent and wants to
have a big legal-looking certificate to
carry him into the society of the Sons
and Daughters of the Revolution.
Then he goes to the document room
of the House of Representatives and
gets a copy of the Wilson bill as it
passed the Senate and sends it to the
local cigar manufacturer. He is angry 4
because he heard that his Congress-
man had failed to get the proper re-
duetion on Sumatra wrappers. He is
after him and means to use the wit
ness to convict himself. Hence he
seeks a copy of the bill. And thus it
goes on and ever on. The tired Sec
takes the car for home at $3.50
p. m. and thinks pleasantly of the
5000 copies of the honorable gentle
mans last speech that he must ad-
dress before bedtime. The next
morning he gets a big bundle of coun-
try papers from nome, and n OF
them states that the Hon. MI. Pump
is not employing a secre-
tary, but is depesiting in his own
pocket the money intended to be used
for this work of sending out maps,
garden seed, documents and elo-
quence.
A REPRESENTATIVE SECRETARY. |
The Hon. Champ Clark, who prob
ably got a more widespread reputa-
ton out of his one term in Congress
than any other mar in Congress ever
got, has named as his private secre-
tary Mr. Wallace Bassford, of Mexico, |
who served with Mr.. Clark through |
the three sessions of the Fifty Third
Congress. Nj. Bassford is 25 years of
age and a native Missourian. He was
educated in the public schools of Mex
leo and n newspaper offices, which
latter, by-the-bye, are not bad places
in which to acquire very useful knowl-
edge. About a year of this time was
spent hustl1ng news for the Mexico |
LEDGER with that well known char
acter, Colonel "Bob" White. Two
years o were spent on the Kansas
City Times. While in Washington
with Mr.. CLARK he contributed articles
to various Western newspapers. In
the spring of 1895 he was married to
Miss Charlene Herbert Gibson, of
Washington. Their married life last
ed little more than a year, when it
was ended by the death of both the
young wife and infant son.
Mr.. Bassford is now pursuing the
study of medicine at the Homeopathic
Medical College of Missouri.
Williams Gentry.
Married, Friday afternoon, at
A O'Clock, at Bowling Green, Mr.. l..