Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1900-05-19

| In Foreign Languages.
| Intimately connected with the document
mill, of course, is the bureau or depart
| ment which prepares political reading mat
| ter for voters who have not mastered En-
glish-the Films and the Magyars, the Scan
| dinavians and the Bohemians, the Italians,
| the Poles and all the rest of the European
contingent.
1t has commonly, though not always.
| been considered good committee practice
| to issue TRANSACTIONS into almost every Eu-
ropean language of nearly all the docu-
| ments got out in English and the troubles
| of the functionary who has to look after
| this job are simply indescribable. To be-
| gin with. he is generally and Of necessity
| ignorant of the languages into which the
| documents to be translated, and there
| fore quite incompetent to judge the ability
| of those whom he has to engage trans
| lators or their work when 1t Is finished.
| His only safety lies in engaging two per-
| sons familiar with each of the unknown
| tongues into which the matter is to be
done. One of these he intrusts with the
| translation; the other examines it care
| fully when finished to see that no error has
| been committed
What was considered one Of the most i'm
portant documents In one campaign came
near being a verttable boomerang, so far as
the Firms were concerned. The translator
| understood Finnish all right, but his knowl-
edge of English limited, and he trans
formed alternatives into negatives and vice
versa in a wholesale fashion that made the
document stand in Finnish for exactly the
reverse of what 1t stood for in English.
Fortunately the errors were discovered in
time to prevent the distribution of any Of
the uncorrected copies of the document,
though not until after the plates had been
put upon the press and about half a ton of
good, clean white paper had been spoiled.
Documents in German AMI French are cas-
lily handled. of course, and generally by
special bureaus
Campaign Artists and Poets.
Campaign committees are generally ex
tensive patrons of what might by a stretch
be termed the arts and also of what its
writers fondly believe to be poetry.
Under the head of the arts may be in
Guided the millions of candidates portraits
which are put out under committee au-
spices, also the cartoons, diagrams, maps,
badges (pins and buttons) and the like.
Opinions differ to the value of such
things in the getting of votes, but commit
tees always spend thousands. sometimes
hundreds of thousands in this direction.
One portrait engraver known to the writer
delivered more than a million portraits of
both the republican and democratic candi
dates to the committees in 1892, and his
profits thereon were big enough to make up
for the heavy losses of an entire year
Naturally the tendency on the part OF
committees to indulge in art attracts no
end of cranks to submit no end of crank de-
signs. Every day from the beginning to the
end Of the campaign the mails are laden
with them; every day the public reception
room is crowded with men and a Sprinkling
of women who prefer bringing their produc-
tons in person to intrusting them to Uncle
Sans mail. In the nature of things not
one in thousand of the submitted designs
are accepted, but a larger or smaller num-
Der generally of surprising crudeneSs and
lack of cleverneSs are almost always taken
over and made use of in addition to those
which are done by professional cartoon
draughtsmen. A comprehensive collection
of the rejected ones would form a museum
of SURPRISING stupidity.
The poetry sent to the committeeman 1t
arrives at headquarters in wholesale guam
titles daily-is generally in the form OF
songs. 1t need hardly be stated that most
of it is written by persons who have never
learned to scan their lines and have little
songs for the republican committee In 1885
tried to make bone" rhyme with Home
and gate" with take" Most commit
tees buy campaign songs pretty freely and
it is agreed on all hands that a taking COM
position set to stirring music Is mighty
good investment whether the poetry Is very
good or not. Indignant and sometimes
abusive letters from geniuses whose art"
and poetry have been turned down, make
up very considerable portion Of the com,
mittee's mail from day to day. Naturally
this sort of mail grows as the campaign
progresses, and is generally pretty heavy
by the end of the contest.
Press bureau, plate department, dccu-
ment mill and the art and poetry divisions
are naturally in control Of the committee
secretary, generally and on principle
much overworked man. The committees
statistician, who is generally figuring and
making fluctuations of previous votes from