Arizona republican., 1897-10-08
WASHINGTON GOSSIP.
The New Orders for Postal Clerks
 Room for Incompetent Men.

Washington, Oct. 2. -(Special)El | When Postmaster-Gen Gary issued an order last week prohibiting postal clerks everywhere from selling tickets to balls, concerts, picnics, theaters and the like, and also forbiddihg their in curing indebtedness which they have no reasonable prospectY of being able to pay, he brandished a two-edged sword. Postal clerks>fn nearly all of the large cities have mutual benefit associations that )take care of the members who fall sick. These benefit associations are r?dn at a very small cost to the members and the deficit is made up, generally, by holding the grand annual concert and ball of the association. THe letter carriers them selves sell the tickets and instances are related where the tactics pursued in disposing/o of them amounted to lit tie less than coercion. Just how the associationE will exist without this finacial aN cannot be seen. The part of the ofder relating to the contract ing of d9bts is in line with the ''pay-up- or-be-fTed" policy of the present ad- minis 1ation. This part of the order is of Special interest to the clerks of the department in Washington, where there are many chances to go into debt, and where some government clerks indulge themselves in fnan ciering to the full limit of their credit.
 Another thing that worries the /tlerks in many of the departments is / the apparent determination of the heads of those departmgents to judge each clerk solely upon his merits. This is new experience to many of the clerks. They have been accustomed to being rated according to their reputed political worth. In one of the de- partments recently it was found that some of the clerks were being paid more than was commensurate with the labor they performed, while others were net receiving a fair equivalent for their services. The overpaid ones promptly received notice to appear be- fore the head of the department and show cause why their pay should not be reduced. They could not show cause, so down went the salaries while underpaid clerks who were working hard and faithfully, and with intelligence, had their pay increased. Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Vanderlip discovered a while ago that he needed more expert stenographers and typewriters in his department He had plenty of poor ones, but he wanted the other kind. So he held an examination to see if any of the ste nographers and typewrters in the of flee could pass it. Nearly all of them failed, and he announced this week that fifteen or twenty of them would have to make room for competent per- n that 1ina nf Tn petence seems to have no place in which to store itself under this ad- ministration.
 The comptroller of the treasury, Mr. Tracewell, was telling political stories at the Riggs house one evening this week and he related with a good deal of pleasure his experiences in his cam paign for congress in Indiana in 1894. His opponent was Captain Stocks lager, ncw a lawyer doing business in this city. The two men had been friends from boylood, and when they went into the campaign they made an agreement that they would be friends at the close. Indiana politics are apt to be bitter, and it was not long be- fore some of the political friends of MT. Tracewell had started stories re- f1ecting upon the personal character of Captain StoeksIager. As soon as these stories reached the ears of the present comptroller of the treasury he took pains to deny them from the stump, and every speech he made from that time until the close of the cam- paign was prefaced by the statement that the stories being circulated against Captain Stockslager were un- founded. This courtesy was appre-