Sunday Washington globe., 1902-06-29
A SCISSORS ARTIST
Receiving $4,000 Per Annum
From Uncle Sam.
COL. ISAAC EDWARDS CLARK
The Clipper, Compiler and Paster Of
Cuttings on Art and Industry-FOur
Volumes i'm Twenty Years-The Her
cuIean Labors OF His Gigantic In.
teliect Equaled Only by am Ameri.
can sculptor in Mexico.

Colonel Isaac Edwards Clark, distin
guished looking old gentleman of about
sixty-fve years of age, holds the record for
Government snaps.
Years and years ago. or, to be more def
mite, we will say about twenty years ago,
through the influence Of that great re-
former, the Honorable Whitelaw Reid,
special envoy Ia waiting to do the dunkey
act for King Edward on his recovery, Con-
gress passed special act creating an Office in
the Bureau Of Education at the corner Of
Eighth and C streets, entitled Art and In
dustry, To the position of superintendent
and geueralissino Of this art and industry
Office Colonel Clark was appointed at a
salary of g. 400 per anuum.
The duties Of the position not being well
defined Colonel Clark mapped out his own
program and has been following It from the
time Of his appointment to the present day.
The colonel is a scholar aud exceedingly
erudite in all matters pertaining to art and
industry which he finds in the magazines
newspapers, books and scientific journals Of
the country. 1t Is estimated that he has
worn more than a dozen pairs of imported
scissors clipping these extracts to paste
them in scrap books.
The Colouel's modus obeyaRdi being,
when he lights upon a paragraph on art or
industry, to seize the aforesaid paragraph
aud deftly extract il with a scissors. He
then transfers it to his scrap book aud makes
suitable comment underneath with his
faber Having filed a large scrap book
with these clippings aud his own comments
and the necessary connections, the Colonel
sends the book TO the Government Printing
Office as an original production, and eveutu-
ally places 1t ia the library Of the Bureau of
Education and any other libraries that he
can get 1t Ia.
Four such books has been published in the
seats thar the Colonel las held ris Sc 100
per annum position, but ne has the material
on hand in the newspaper, magazine, and
other cuttings for equally interesting and
original companion volumes The Colonel
is slow and methodical in his labors because
these labOrs are of a semi scientific character
requiring the exercise of a sUper6ue intel
lect in determi ming what paragraph, among
the many daily appearing on art aud in
dustry, shall be selected by his scissors.
The Colouels intellectual labors have
only one counterpart on the American con-
tiuent in the precise, deliberate and method.
ical labors of an American citizen who has
been under sentence of death in Mexico for
over ten years. This American citizen is a
sculptor by profession aud was engaged at
the time Of his trouble in sculpturiug the
| figures and designs on the magnificent ca
thedral being erected in that country. In a
brawl or misunderstanding with a fellow
workman. he committed a homicide for
which he was tried by the Mexican courts
aud sentenced to death. But it was discov-
/ cred after sentence and fortunately before
| execution that he alone could execute the
sculptured figures designed by the architect
/ and which he had been at work upO- when
| he fell a victim of the laws.
| This discovery saved his life, stay Of
| execution being granted for the time being
7 till he should complete his task. This oc-
/ CURED some ten years ago as stated, and the
task is not yet completed.
/ This American citizen is the most deliber-
ate, painstaking, and methodical workman
now living, for as might naturally be in
ferred, he is in no hurry 20 complete the
| task the reward of which is to be his execu-
tion aud extinction by the garote.
Now while no such tragic fate awaits the
/ completion of Colonel Clark's intellectual
efforts yet the stupendous undertaking of
his task as a compiler of printed paragraphs
on art and industry, in all languages and in
all sorts Of magazines and current literature,
readily accounts for the time consumed in
producing the volumes mentisned, and also
foreshadows an end as far distant to the
labors of his gigantic intellect as the com
pletion of the sculptured figures on the
Mexican cathedral by the American citizen,
referred to, who works in the shadow of the
scaffod.
To the Hon Whitelaw Reid, therefore,
the taxpayers of the entire country owe a
debt Of gratitude for not only the creation
of this Office, but the discovery Of the right
man to adorn the position at a salary Of
s.. 400 per anuum, in the person of Colonel
Isaac Edwards Clark.
Colonel Clark arrives at the Bureau of
Education armed with his daily papers, and
having seated himself in his comfortable
Office chair proceeds to peruse their columns
till the lunch hour. He then rises In the
slow and dignihed manner habtual to him
and proceeds to attend to the wants Of the
inner man, which consumes and fills up the
time till three or three thirty p. m, when
he returns armed with a copy of the Star
the columns Of which the colonel scans for
items on art and industry and incidentally
the current news on the coronation of i'm.
perial Edward or ths-latest phases Of the
revolutions in South America
Thus having completed his days labor
he retires with the same diguihed aud
measured tread Characteristic Of all his
movements at 4;3o or S p. M. and is not
again seen at the Bureau Of Education till
some hour of the next succeeding day when
he goes through the same routine, varied
now and again by the clipping Of one or
more cuttings andsthe transfer Of the same
70 his scrap books.