Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1902-02-21
i Aaudlin Sympathy.

who write the slush which appears in
some of the adipose city dailies, cease
soldering all over those classes of
people having a sure thing salary, for
which a reasonable amount of labor is
to be performed? The idea these wri-
tiers entertain evidently is that manual
labor and salary payments are incon-
gruous and unwarranted.
The latest sample of such rot (par-
don the term) that has come to our
table, is a cartoon in the Examiner by
Davenport, representing a letter car
rier loaded down with an improbable
weight OF mail matter, with this SEN
tence underneath:
(which would you rather be, a race
horse achO goes mile and has four men
to take care of him when he comes back,
or a letter carrier, who goes forty miles
and has to take care of family when he
comes back? Don't you think great
government ought to treat a letter car
rier almost as well as the race-track
tout treats his horse?"
All this, We know, is quite pathet ic
and might pass as an exaggerated ef.
fort to work the lachrymal glands of
the more sympathetic of its readers,
had not the editor OF the Examiner
added force to the picture by making
it the subject of leader which, by
skillful word-painting brings the sub
ject into still more prominent view.
Thereupon forbearance ceases to be a
virtue.
Now we submit, in all candor, if
there is not . much more inviting
field for artistic work to be found in
portraying the needs of the man with
the pick or the spade, to be found on
the streets of all our larger cities, and
the clerks in the stores, the operatives
in the factories, who are not protected
by prescribed hours of labor, nor have
an interchangeable. imperishable payroll
back of them to save the worry that
kills. The cartoonist seems to assume
that it is only the letter.carrying class
of labor who have families to support,
when the fact is that many of the
poorer wage-earners have to put their
young children at werk to exc out .
miserable existence.
The pay of the letter-carrier is about
equal to the daily wage-rate of the Or
binary mechanic. but he has only to
pass fair examination in photography
and chirography against the mechan-
les apprenticeship; he works eight
hours against the mechanics ten; he
has u monthly salary. paid in full,
against few fragmentary claims for
service, some OF which are bound to be
Of doubtful pay, and has the assurance
Of . provision for himself and family
by steady service, instead of . contin-
ual. persistent search for jobs to keep
the wolf from the door.
The best indication that the salaries
paid our letter.carriers 10 satisfactory
is the fact that they cling to their po.
sitions. They need not do 20 for an
hour, if they can do better in any other
occupation. That it is . good thing,
capable of expansion" is evidenced
by the organization they have been
enabled to establish under the stimu.
lus of zeal inspired by civil service
rules, which made them able at times
TO set at defiance their superiors in Of.
fee. The elimination Of this disposi-
ton, an effort 70 work Congress for
increase Of salaries, became 90 fla-
gravity aggressive, few weeks ago,
that it became necessary for the Pres.
ident to cut the Gordian knot by q
proclamation declaring that any such
an attempt hereafter would be fol-
lowedby dismissal from Office. That
was one instance in which the Prssi-
dental cross-cut for relief from an in.
tolerable nuisance was applauded by
all fair-thinking people.
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