The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-07-08
A RIoToUs TIME.
How Post Office Department Clerks Trifed With Fate, and the Song They Sang About High
 nfnoiala

O1AC4dA5s Washington Dispatch to New York Sun A peculiar ceremony, which according to the printed program purported to be departmental independence celebration" was held at the Postoffice Department this afternoon. This was the only depart mental celebration in Washington today and 1t will probably be the last one held at the Postofice Department for many years to come.
 the corridors of their respective doors in closing the vast exterior court of the building. Most of them. particularly the male contingent, seemed to be very en- thusiastic-suspiciously so in fact When the time came, however, for the singing of My Country, 'Tis of Thee,' by the entire assemblage, this interest was ex- plained.
 The first stanza was not more than halt sung when MT. Castle and the mem bers of the Committee on Arrangements, who occupied the balcony jutting out from the first floor. from which the ad- dresses were delivered, wished themselves well cut of the whole affair. One of the committeeman tried to reach the coat tails of the cornestist who was leading the singers but he was so well to the front that the act would have been too noticeable.
 Consequently. the clerks, with great glee and abandon, finished three stanzas of the unauthorized version of America" before the, cornetist received sn intimation by means of a window pole that there had been enough music for the present AL most every clerk in the building had a carbon copy of the following:
 Bribers, 'tis up to thee.
 Forty per cent for me.
 To thee l turn;
 ShnilIH I mud in ey1a In1
 Swear there's no one to blame
 For frauds and rake-off game.
 No dough we spurn.
 For laws we have respect,
 When they don't crooks affect.
 For this we stand;
 We find that if We steal,
 With big men in the deal
 IT there's no one to squeal.
 What fears our band?
 Graft was a noble art.
 In which we all took part
 And made our fame: When Beavers, Machen, Gron.
 Coined cash and then made off,
 To them our hats we'll doff.
 They capped our game.
 Crafts were to keep most dark. Tipped us by Uncle Mark,
 And Perry Heath;
 You need not go to jail
 For. you can all get hail,
 With you in honor'S scale,
 In glory's wreath.
 Following the rendition of this parody. there were a number of recitations and addresses actually down on the program. During lull in the ceremonies, however, robust young man in his shirt sleeves, and armed with a paper megaphone about six feet long, approached the gallery on the sixth floor and shouted so he could have been heard two blocks away: 'AttentiOnt The following joint letter of regret has just been received from former Superintendents Beavers and Machen. of the salary and allowance and free delivery divisions. respectively: To Our Late Henchmen in the Postofice N Department:
 We are with you in this celebration. We have always been for almost any old kind of liberty and are even now fighting hard Tor it But We are irrevocably opposed to the liberty of the press.
 Yours in exile.
 Beavers and Machen. The members of the Committee on Ar engagements became almost apoplectic du- ring the reading of the foregoing.