The age-herald., 1901-09-13
rrom Inc New York EvenIns Post.

Washington, September 9.-'Few psf> sons realize how vital a subject at the White House the possibility of Prcsidons tial assassination always has bcen, said an old clerical empioye there to your cor respondent today "Of course nothing Of this discussion gets out except when shot is actually fired or some other overt act committed which startlcs the coun- try. Of the large number of seemingly suspicious cases that, wether alarming or not, are nipped in the bud, little is ever known.
 "A very peculiar case came under my observation at the opening of the second Cleveland administration he continued. 'In those days. as in the early part of every new Presidents term, the crush of applicants for offices was tremendous. One of this pressing throng had desired to speak more confidentialy and at great CT length than was possible with the Pres ident's private secretary, and so he was turned over to me. Not infrequently 1 was assigned at such times to the not al- ways agreeable task of listening to what office-sekers had to say for themselves. This man was told that he might trust me fully and pour his confidential story into my ears. Accordingly he asked for a chancesto talk where he would not bS heard This was arranged. He then said he had been holding a small $l500 office since 1877. because of a distinguished ser vice which he had done the country, and that he naturally desired to be retained by the new Democratic administration, as it seems he had been by rIie earlier Cleve- land administration. According to the story he had saved President Hayes from assassination at his inauguratio ton. A party of fire eating partlsans from the south west inflsmed by the counting out of Mr. TiIden. had come on to Washington to kill Hayes; they found need of the assls- tnnce of some one who was familiar with the ropes locally and So by series or incidents which, as my guest related them, would rival any detective story, he became their assistant. They finally made him their confederate and trusted him fully. At the critical moment when all was ready he turned them over to the po- Ice and broke up the plot. but in such a way as to leave little evidence against them, and 80 at the request of those higher up, the police were advised to drop the matter and let the culprits flee AS best they could This man who had un- earthed the plot was accordingly put into A government slnecure a a reward, which he had since held.
 This at least, was his story, and hc brought quite a number of letters from prominent persons alluding to this strange and distinguished service; but the peculiarity was that these people all seemed to have heard of the service from him. To me, at least, he submitted no first-hand evidence that his story was true, nor was ever able to get from the few persons who seemed to know him more than that he claimed to have saved President Hayes life. But the important part of the story Is yet to come.
 ''fie seems not to have impressed the Cabinet minister under whom his sinecure came with this story, and so made an ap- peal over his head to the White House. In fact,she insisted that to retain him In office was courtesy which one President owed to another. and that 1t would be un- dignified for him to hawk his story through the departments, as his recogni- ton should be direct and unquestioned, from the chief executive himself. I &C., cordingly reported this to the private sec- retary. who made only that superficial ex animation which in the rush of those days was possible, and came to the conclusion that the mans claims were unsubstantial, that he had been using thls story for years to hold an office, by what resem- bled an ingenious system of trading checks. He would tell one man the story, and get from him a letter to another man alluding to 1t; this next man would speak a little more freely, as if he knew it, and by the time the rounds were made the claimant had what would have impressed a superficial observer as evidence Of his masterly work. At all events, Presiden- tial assassinations was the one theme that ran in his head. When he found that the Cleveland administration was not likely to do anything for him he began to talk to me of the chance that MT. Cleve- land stood of assassination. He became violently abusive. saying that he sup posed the only reason that MT. Cleveland would not recognize his services was that he probably wished that Hayes had act ually been assassinated, and all sorts of wild things of this kind.
 T reported his remarks, which were steadily growing more extreme, for he called at the White House almost daily to see if there were no developments moving In his favor, and was directed to encourage the conversation, or at least appear to take no offence at it. He told terrible tale of personal and domestic bereavements; one or two of his children had died of diphtheria: the poverty of the family was plnching, and each day grow ing worse. For 'hard-luck' stories, I never heard of the equal of those which he told me and he was rapidly growing more and more violent in his denunciations of tho President. When he had first called on me, he was full of expressions of con- fidence in MT. Cleveland's sense of jus rejoice in every animadversion to the President which he was able to hear or find in the newspapers. One day NIT. Cleveland chanced to emerge from the private part of the house and pass through the open corridor as this man was the signal for a stream of abuse which I would not have listened to had I not been directed to do so. 'Uron what meat doth this Caesar fecd?' was his opening exclamation, ard then he pro- ceeded to say all the mean things he could think of, ending up on this as on other oaoo s,onS by exnfessinR wonder that mn.