Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1899-08-19

Think of the Offices surging with PATIENTS
ETC.. etc. Lovely. isn't it? And yet. when
you try to tell them that every one of these
puddles is itself graduating scores of toads
every year, and that all Of these puddes
look quite naturally. upon professional men
from other communities as interlopers. they
! make that old. pin-headed reply, Well,
there's always room at the top,'
Another thing that keeps us landowners
, sort OF between the devil and the deep sea-
Is the beauty of Washington, and The
Dreamy. placid ease and comfort of exist
enee here. We all have a chance to look
around this country-which. by the way is
another one of the things that hold US
down to our government iobs-the thirty
days with pay. l mean-and We all have a
cnance to size up the comparative joys OF
lie In Washington and in other cities
other cities, mind you, much less the mis-
cradle little hamiets where the female rela-
ives OF landowners want them to go to
locate Well we, of course, see that there
Is no other place of residence in it with
washington. Washington folks have a
chance to, and do. think and don't know
of many cities in the country of which this
can be said. Ones friends-the houses cf
people he knows well and respects ami
whose company he enjoys-the beauty of
the seasons changing in WaShington-the
well-behaved tranquility of population
that Is yet metropolitan and cosmopolitan
the old familiar scenes faces sounds-the
sundowner has to think about abandoning
all or this for that of which he knows not,
Hear the voices of those six or seven dar-
Ky men parading down the street-they
niend SWeetly, and the music falls pleas
antly upon the ear in the quiet OF The even
ing, doesn't it, hey? Well, do you know
that Washington is the only c!ty-real gen.
ulne CITY mind youth the country where
you may near such music : happen to
Know voluntary exileS from Washington
living in Japan. San Francisco. New York,
London, Chicago Toledo. neutrality-suspicious.
OF piaces-who write me- or tell me when
they come back here for visits that on
many summer night they have lonsed to
near the blended music of the Washington
darkles voices. But, here. this is senti-
nent! Let's get back to facts. The general
quiet joy of living in Washington. then. l
say, Is another bond that keeps US SHUTDOWN
ers tied to our government desks
Hard to Get Capital Together.
Another thing Is this: In order to make
the break for that mysterious, never posi-
lively selected place that we have in view
to locate we ought to have few thousand
dollars, anyhow, hadn't We? OF course!
You cannot go out to Sioux Falls say can
you, with just the price of a railroad ticket
and months board. hang out your shingle
(hoW utterly weary l of that trite
phrase-hang out your shingle!) and wait
for practice, you? What are you going
to do while the citizens of your new COM
n.unity are sizing you up preliminary to
giving you few crumbs of practice? Car
ry the hod? Drive a truck? Go a-picking
hops! Hardly. Why. you've got to have
enough money to carry you along for
lew years. That's positive. Well, we sun
downers don't save money. I'm speaking
now in bulk. Like the very great ma jority
OF government employees, we spend what
we make just as fast make it. Mar
ried or single, our whole paw constitutes
simply d slush fund. 1t comes pretty easily
ana 1t goes infinitely easier. Loi how many
myriad times do we all say to ourselves
we sundowners in the departments-that
We're positively going to save up enough
inside OF two three l,S
to strike out'-another terrible cant phrase
among sundowners-for the still unpicked
bourne and go along, waiting for practice
But We don't do it, son.
The ex-sundowners who have struck
ont and made hits for themselves in their
professions have, in about 80 per cent of
the cases, lost their jobs. They haven't
re signed them. l haven't the least doubt
III the world that it would be to the huge
advantage of most of the men, especially
the younger men. in the departments who
are equipped with professions if their bill
lets We're forcibiy taken away from them.
Then they'd simply have to hustle. Doubt
less good many of them would land on
their feet, somewhere or other, in the prac-
tee of their professions Those who did
not get to the shingle-hanging-c sta ge
would take to other pursuits, and perhaps
eN entually do well they did in the
government service, feeling, too, more like
factors in the worlds affairs than govern
ment people ever feel | know numbers of
young doctors who have lost their depart
mental billets within the past ten a
dozen years-young Washington men who
got their medical educations here. Perhaps
with only few dollars to their names, lots
OF them made the jump that they had
long been postponing account of their
pleasant anchorage here in Washington,
and a soodly percentage of them have won
out l know numbers of young lawyers to
whom the same thing has happened, and
some of them happen this way once in a
Whife, stop at the best hotels, and hunt me
up for the sake of showing what fine
cigars they are able to smoke, and what
hot cards they have made of themselves in
general.
An Old, Old story.
"On the other hand, l have known of
others who. after having been removed
from their easygoin6 governmental biz
let's have made really diigent stabs at sue
cess at their professions ali over the coun-
try, only to fail, and only to come back
here. looking more or less frayed, and
move heaven and earth TO get back the po-
sliionS they lost in the departments. These
failures, too, have ben men, some of
them, who have possessed, in starting out
just many prerequisites for success as
We're possessed by the chaps who succeed
ed. Its good deal Of lottery There
were two young lawyers, for instance
10th graduates of the Columbian Law
School-who left the department I in
five years ago. They had been room mates
and chums here, and they saved up money
to make their StabS. One went to Ne
braska and the other to Kansas. They
were young chaps of about equal ability.
One is now the assistant counsel for one of
the biggest railroads west of the Missis-
sIppi river, and gets salary of about S13,
go year, with pickings. The other came
back here at the end of two years, and,
after having free-lunched it for year or
SO. got himself reiRStated in the depart
ment, where he still is, just contented
bug in rug. He's one sundowner.
anyhow, who never gets any more hot
tlushes of ambition, and he only smiles
slow smiles when he hea us talking about |
making for places to locate
"Oh, it's queer thing, this business of
being Il sundowner, but I'll tell you conf |
dentiaily, between you and me and the |
gatepost, that some of these old days, after |
I've saved up couple o thousand and |
have canvassed the ground thoroughly. |
why, I'm just going to tell EN- they can |
have their old job, and make break out |
for the
At which point the sundowner caught |
himself and smiled drearily.
Don't Work Too Much.
From the New York Sun.
Il have tried working nights and seven |
days in the week and all that sort OF thing" " |
said Mr.. Bitterly, with a vague idea that !
nature would make an exception in my |