Republican news item. [volume] (Laport, Pa.) 1896-19??, 1902-07-31
A SENATOR FROM PENNSYLVANIA
HIS Works Harder Than Any Average
Business Man In the State.


The bulk of Pennsylvania busi-
ness in Washington rests on the
broad shoulders of Senator Boies
Penrose. The junior Senator has al
ways borne this burden. 1t is an heri-
tage of the office Quay did it when
Cameron was the senior Senator, and
Penrose does it now that Quay is his
senior. Here are few statistics and
facts about the junior Senator's daily
work when congress is in session:
His daily mail averages between 400
and 500 letters. 1t embraces every
thing from the prayer of broken
hearted mother whose soldier son has
been court martialed and for whom
she is begging a pardon, down to the
request of farmer for an agricultural
bulletin on the destruction of plant
lice. Every mail is a mixture of tear
stained epistles, begging, threatening,
demanding and commenting letters.
Every letter is answered within
twenty-four hours Of its receipt. Peo-
pie imagine that Senator Penrose's
private secretary attends to all the
ator does nothing but make speeches
and sit in the cloak rooms. That IS
dream of the canal boat era. To
attend to correspondence, file and tab
ulate it, so that any letter received
within five years can be produced in
five minutes, requires the services of an
assistant to the secretary and four
stenographers.
The rooms of the Committe on I'm
migration is Senator Penrose's office.
Here he receives hundreds of callers
every day. Secretary Andrews is in
charge and here letters and kilograms
are dictated The actual work room is
over in the Maltby building. where all
day the "clack" of the typewriters goes
ceaselessly on. There are the docu-
ments, maps, plans, seeds, and other
impedimenta OF senatorial life are fold
ed, wrapped and expressed
Four persons are engaged in this.
In addition, two men are constantly
employed in visiting the departments
and gathering information in which
constituents are interested In all a
staff of eight persons is required to at
tend to his purely clerical and depart
mental work.
Senator Penrose has the reputation
in Washington of being the hardest
worked member of the United States
Senate. His duties are executive rath-
| er than legislative. as these facts dem
onstrate: Pennsylvania is larger than
New England with its II Senators, and
the records of the Senate post Office
shows that the mail of Pennsylvania 8
Senators is the largest that goes
through the Office with the single ex-
ception of Senator Hanna's, and he is
chairman of the Republican National
Committee.
Senator Penrose has distributed more
public documents than all the New
England Senators combined. Last year
he had demands for $4,000 packages of
seeds. Each Senator is allotted $4,000
packages. BY begging from Senators
whose constituents were careless, Mr..
| Penrose secured the whole amount de-
| manded
At the last session Senator Penrose
| introduced and had passed more bills
than any two Senators. Pennsylvania
| had more claims against the govern
| ment than all the rest of the United
States put together. They were border
| raid claims, claims of the state against
| the National Government, of ship bull
ders, armor plate makers. and the
| thousand and one individual claims for
| losses sustained. All told over 500
| bills of every kind were introduced by
| the junior Senator Since he went into
Office he has handled over 10000 pen
| sion claims for three wars-Colonel
George Nox Mccain, in the Philadel-
phia Press .,