Evening star., 1904-03-12
WINDOWS OPENED WIDE
AUDITOR MccARDY INSTITUTES
AN INNOVATION.

An innovation that is anything but pop
ular with the clerks has been instituted by
the new auditor for the Post Office De-
partment, ]. j. McCardy. and is based upon
the soundest principles of hygiene. Every
day at IL o'clock the windows of every Of
fice In his department are. by his order.
thrown open to permit current of air, or
several currents. to percolate through the
musty corridors and purify the stagnant
atmosphere. 1t has been observed that af-
ter few years of service in Washington
many a government clerk hates fresh air.
He avoids the open cars on his way to and
from work and anything resembling a draft
In his Office will cause him fright akin
to horror He lives and thrives on air that
would kill a horned toad and drive a sala-
mander to fresh water and ice cream. Air
of the kind permitted to remain in the
government Offices Of Washington would
not be countenanced in any other working
place In the world, and Auditor McCardy
had sooner set foot in his new Office
than he began to sniff and wonder what
was the matter. Comparatively speaking,
the Office of the auditor Is well ventilated,
but the new auditor came from the breezy
land of Minnesota, where they have ice
palaces through a great portion Of the year
and where strawberries don't ripen until
some time about the period when water
melons are happening down here in the
sunny south. He wanted fresh air and
he determined not only to get it. but to
see Cndl every Orn0r omplOyo OIL ms Qe-
partment got 1t, too.
The Fresh Air Order.
He first made a tour of inspection of his
workshop, having two motives in making
the trip; desire to get acquainted with
his co-laborers and a wish to better their
general health and make them happy and
contented men and women instead of slaves
to n tyrannous republic as many of them
fancied themselves to be. So when he re-
turned to his Office he sat him down and
issued an order to the effect that every
window in all three floors of his big de-
partment should be opened daily, when the
weather permitted, for half AN hour, in
order that fresh air might be admitted and
the clerks be correspondingly happier
But the generous minded auditor did not
know whereof he wrought, tor no sooner
had the paper weights been placed In po-
sition to keep the important government
documents from cavorting across the Po-
tomac into old Virginia than the clerks,
one and all, deserted their posts and took
to the corridors, where they waited until
the cooling breezes had waited to their
hearts content, and for the prescribed
half hour laid down in the order of the
auditor. There being several hundreds or
them and their work during half hour be-
ing absolutely stopped, it followed that the
government was hardly gaining in the i'm
proved health of it's employees what 1t was
losing by their idleness. And besides they
to them. free and untrammeled. from the
ice-covered hills of Maryland, but were
taking it after it had BEEN permitted to en-
ter the Office and had got warmed up nlt.
But of course, the kind-hsarted auditor
could not order the clerks to remain In the
rooms during the ventilating process Their
health might possibly be jeopardized, ana
he did not feel called upon to stand re-
sponsible for any deleterious effects. He
simply knew that they needed fresh air,
and he saw that they got it. The sixth
seventh and eighth floors of the department
building are devoted to the offices ana
;tnr n,df he
that play through the hundreds of windows
on those floors are sufficient to purify any
atmosphere, no matter how tainted it may
have become from constant use for hours
by hundreds of men and women.
Walking the Corridors
And now may be seen the interesting
sight daily of all those clerks walking
through the corridors on their several floors
or travelling up and down in the elevators
and trying to keep from freezing to death
as they imagine they will-whie their kind
hearted chief gives them the much-needed
fresh air.
1t has come to be such a sight that the
clerks on the other floors are in the habit
of going out in the corridors to see 1t, and
an invasion of sightseers is threatened when
the public becomes aware of what is going
on down in the Staid old Post once De-
partment. Throngs of pretty girls and 9th
ers to which neither of these terms can be
legitimately applied-old men and young,
boys and mesSengers-parade backward and
forward during the hated half hour, their
chatter and indignant expressions being
frequently waited downward to the great
glass roof that covers the city post office.
They have frightened away the sparrows
that have been in the habit of congregating
in the court and fitting about among the
palms and plants there, and there is no
certainty that they will not disorganize the
entire force of the department unless they
either remain in their offices during the
fresh-air experiment or are sent out to
their luncheons al that time.