The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-11-28
DAY AT THE WHITE HOUSE
HOW THE PRESIDENTS MAIL is PRE-
PARED FOR MS INSPECTION.
The Dodges of Office Seekers and the
Applications of Beggars-Secretary
Porter and His Duties.

copyrighted, 1897, by Frank G.. Carpenter)
WASHINGTON, Nov 26.-There is no
buster place in the United States just now
than the White House. The new Congress
has brought a horde of ofiice-seekers with
it, and the President is besieged almost as
much as he was at the beginning Of his
administration. 1 found thirty people cool
ing their heels in his anteroom when l
called at the executive mansion the other
morning, and / spent the day there watch
ing the crowd come and go, and studying
the manner in which business is done.
Shortly after 1 arrived the first mail came
in. 1t was brought from the city postofflce
in the War Department wagon, and the
driver carried the great bags upon his shout
der to the second floor and dumped them
down in the Presidents counting room.
This room is on the north side of the ex-
ecutive mansion, facing Lafayette square.
1t is filled with clerks, some of whom are
rafting typewriters so noisily that you can
hardly hear yourself think. Others are sort
ing letters. Some are writing, and others
are reading 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
a month The chief work is with the letters.
There are about six hundred in the mail
this morning, and every one Of them has
to be read and briefed, in order to save
the gray matter of the President and his
secretary. First, the letters are sorted. The
private letters of the President and Mrs.
Mckinley are taken out, and the balance
are pitched, one by one, into different
baskets, according to their apparent i'm
portance. The clerk who sorts them knows
the handwriting of the most prominent
men Of the country, and he can tell Utmost
at a glance such letters as demand immedi-
ate attention.
After sorting, the letters are boiled down.
The Juice is sucked out of each OF them,
and only the condensed extract gets to the
President A letter of twenty pages is put
into five lines, and voluminous document
into a sentence. The men who read the
letters write few words across the upper
left-hand corner of the first page of each
letter, showing just what is in 1t. This is
for Secretary Porter, who. by this means
can grasp the whole mail in short time
and direct the making UP Of a set of briefs
for the President. The letters themselves
never get to the President. He will not see
q
in this morning. This is also the case as
to his personal and private correspondence.
All of the letters are briefed and they
are put in such order that any Of them can
be given to the President at moments
notice, if he so desires. Sometimes brief
does not tell all he wants, and he calls for
the letter itself. In answering his mail
President Mckinley directs Secretary Por-
ter what to say. He writes no answers MINI
self, and does not even dictate the replies
to stenographer. 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 letters are addressed
Personal and Private by men who
think THAT this will bring their letters d.
rectly to the President In most cases such
letters are from Office seekers, and most of
them the President never sees. They are
referred by printed form to the depart
ment to which they belong.
Here is one marked confidential" The
writer wants a consulship. 1t goes to the
State Department. There is another marked
Il
you, the executive clerk, opens it. 1t is
also from man who wants Office. Here is
a third, on the outside of which is written
Important Not to be opened by the Sec
retary." That letter comes from a crank
who wants to tell the President of a new
version of the Bible, ard so it goes. Many
of the other letters, however, are very i'm
portant AS l see the mail opened and
hria T hax lu oIror mo ic
handled. There is not a paper which is
misplaced. Every Enclosure is fastened by
a clip to the letter itself, and though al
ready more than one hundred thousand let
tiers have been received since the 4th of
March, am told that not a single paper
has been lost. Every letter must be care
fully watched. There are a few which are
unanswered, but there are none which es-
cape the eyes of the clerk.
Let us stop a moment and look over some
of the other letters. 1t is easy to see why
they should not be shown to the President
If every one was important he could not
read and answer them all. Think what a
thousand letters day meansl If he took
a minute to a letter and worked without
stopping from o'clock in the morning I'M
til o'clock at night he could look over
only six hundred letters in 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 understand 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 re-
forming the world. There are cranks who
think they own the treasury and cranks
who want the President to move out in or
der that they may move in. There are
scores of people who write asking for auto
graphs and photographs. Some want Mrs.
Mckinley to send them sentiment, and
others write the President for an autograph
page of his message.
LETTERS FROM BEGGARS.
The beggars are the worst of the lot.
The Presidents salary could be spent five
times over in satisfying the requests which
come into the White House. Let us take
a look at that pile of begging letters which
has come this morning. Here is Western
church which wants 5000 to help lift the
mortgage on it's new building There is a
note from a Sunday school superintendent
who asks for $25 toward a new organ, and
there a note from an Indiana hospital ask
ing Mckinley to endow a bed That
scented sheet i~ rom Kentucky girl who
wishes the Pr dent to send her $500 to
complete het education. and the poorly
written letter beside it is from widow
with seven fatherless children, who asks
Mckinley to give her something out of his