The Sauk Centre herald. (Sauk Centre, Stearns County, Minn.) 1886-current, 1905-04-27

for forty-this includes light and
heat. After the little ones come with
their love and crying needs, the young
couple begin to face new problems
which grow with the little children,
until they become serious difficulties,
for all this time only the twenty-five
dollars week has remained sta
tionary.
A cheap house means cheap
neighborhood with a large percentage
of the neighbors of the colored
population in the rear OF the house, if
not next door. In the schools in such
neighborhood, and on the sidewalks
during playtime the children come in
contact with undesirable associates.
If they move into a more desirable
location it means an increase in
expenses.
Such problems as these are to be
met with everywhere, but in no city in
America is there so large population
socially and intellectually equal, yet
divided by incomes ranging from
$1,000, $14OO, $1,000, $500, $4,000, $4,000,
and $4,000 a year. 1t is just this
difference of two hundred year in
this scale of salaries that makes life
in Washington among the clerks so
complicated.
Mrs. A. whose husband receives
81 400 year lives next door to Mrs. B.
whose husband receives 81 800. These
husbands are in the same department,
perhaps in the same division of that
department. They are friends and
their wives are intimate acquaintes.
Mrs. c. lives near by, and her husband
is only 81 200 clerk in the same
room with the other two men, and she
too is friend of Mrs. A. and Mrs. B.
Here begins the heartaches and the
trials of the wives of these clerks.
Here arises the temptation to do as
your neighbor does.
This also is not peculiar to Wash
ington, but one would think so if they
believed all the trash that is written
about Washington society, and how
the clerks ape the manner of living of
the member of congress, and the
member the senator, and the senator
the Diplomats.
1t is true that some get into this
whirlpool of fashion and are lost, but
the little limitations of fashionable
life INDUCED in among the families
of the department employees are very
inexpensive affairs.
The wives of these clerks are not the
butterflies of fashion that so many
believe them to be. They are an
industrious hard working class Of
women, who soon learn to make a set
income go great way; who strain
every nerve to make ends meet, that
the little ones may be neatly clothed,
and as they get older, have an oppor-
tunity to learn some trade or business.
Daughters of government clerks
must earn their living if they don't
get married. A salary that allowed a
comfortable living for wife and little
ones, will not expand to a sufficient
extent to cover the expenses of a
family of big girls and boys. Promo
tons are slow, the number of positions
of the higher grade are few, and there
are always hundreds waiting for them.
With couple of boys and girl at
work, life of the clerk and his wife
becomes easier. He can now oc-
casionally take his wife to the theatre,
a pleasure not often endulged in when
the children were growing up. This
is one of the reasons why plays that
run for weeks in other cities can
seldom afford to remain in Washing
ton more than week.
When the children were little the
family were all crowded into the rear
rooms of the house, while the front
rooms were rented out to boarders,
and the so called "butterfy wife"
with the help Of a negro servant, not
only took care of her family of six or
seven-the average number of child
rem in family here-but catered to
the boarders besides. More than half
of the government clerks rent out
their rooms or take board9rs,, other
wise the expense of good house in
a good neighborhood could not have
been undertaken.
With one or two boys at work, the
oldest girl self-supporting, the second
assisting at home, the wife, if she is
so inclined, now has leisure to enter
little into the social life of the city.
She makes and returns calls, perhaps
has her day at home sin the season"
(from January to the beginning of
lent) and if she is fond of reading,
joins literary club. In manner and
culture she is the equal of those she
is said to initiate.
You must remember that the public
here have the privilege of paying their
respects to the president and his wife
occasionally, and of calling upon the