The daily morning journal and courier., 1899-12-07
RED TAPE IN WASHINGTON.
Senator's Wife Discovers That There
 Are Two Kinds.

| Are Two Kinds.
 '"The thing that interested me mos
 when I arrived in Washington the frs
 time was red tape" observed the wife | of prominent senator to a Washington Star reporter "and though in the many years have been in Washington have seen red tape in many forms, do no know that have got over it since. 'The red tape I refer to it not the cir cuitous manner of transacting public ol
 governmental business, which has beer
 so often the subject of criticism and
 narratives of official life, but the req
 linen red tape itself. It has been
 the custom of the senate post-office fol many years to send senator's mail to their private residences or rooms tied ur in a bundle with piece of red tape
 though now and then it happens that
 the mail comes to us tied up with a
 piece of string.
 TThe first piece of red tape that
 ever reached me in this way sent back
 to my home, as souvenir of Washing
 ton. For several months I sent pieces
 to my friends in letters. We get two
 and three moils each day, and with each
 a piece of red tape, so you can see how
 it gathers. I have kept up the distri-
 button of this red tape ever since and
 in the ten or more years of my resi-
 dence in Washington, as may be imag-
 ined, I have sent off great deal. Be-
 sides this have plenty to tie up all
 bundles in my house. My stock I keep in a vase on the mantel of our sitting
 room. The servants and the members of my family, when they want a string, always know where to find one. con- fess that the red tape has been of value to me in many ways.
 Tn my travels in my own state I find that the little red tape souvenirs I have distributed are kept by those I have sent them to in the same spirit that caused me to send them, and I as- sure you it is very pleasant to be con- stantly remembered by and through them, even if I am not remembered in any other way I have, however, seen enough of the other kind-the how-not- to-do-it kind-of red tape of official life and am not so much enamored with it. The red linen tape will do what is re- quired of it. and in positive and plOlilpl way, WIblCi L dIiI SO-Iy lr Say, cannot be said of that which Is officially known as red tape One is thing, the other is system. I defend the former while, like thousands of others, I decry the latter.
 When a girl I came to Washington on visit to my uncle, who was a de- partment official. I spent part of day in his room in the treasury department. My uncle's desk, I remember, was piled up with the papers connected with a well-known private claim. They were tied up with red tape, the linen kind then, and have been tied up equally as strong by red tape of the official kind, which is not tape, but an iron chain, ever since. How many years ago? That does not matter, but it is as long IS the ordinary lifetime,' as calculated by the insurance companies. Recently visited the same office in the treasury department. By coincidence the same claim was under consideration and the same papers were piled up on a desk. The official in charge was unWraDping md reading them, as was my uncle ! when I first visited the department as | girl. He has been dead over thirty years, but that claim is apparently no learer settlement than it was tIen. An iron chain instead of red linen tape | las bound that claim up. The original | claimants are dead, and their success ors are nearing their graves with old | tge''