Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1909-04-04
By Walter Clark

envied by good
many clerks who have
heard of the woman that has nothing to do but
sign the Presidents name land her own), and
is well paid for it. Now. any man, woman or
child. rich poor, bond or free, who has ever
been required to write his or her name six hun
bred times in one day will fail to appreciate
the meaning of the word envy in this con-
text 1t is more genteel occupation than saw
ing wood but in some other respects not pre-
ferable to that humble and tedious mode of
gaining livelihood.
Last year the woman in the Interior Depart
ment wrote the Presidents name ninety thou
sand five hundred and twenty-five times and
her own an equal number. (This is good
place to explain that the signatures were at
fee. place in Washington where Uncle Sam
gives title to several million acres of agricul-
turaI. mineral. and timber land every year
The patents last year were ninety thousand
hve hundred and twenty-five in number and
each patent bore the signatory form, "Theo-
dore Roosevelt, by Margaret Young. Secretary"
The words of the two proper names have to
be written out by Mrs Young: the words
by" and Secretary" are part of the printed
form
1t was in 1888 that Congress enacted law
authorizing the appointment of person to sign
the name of the President to land patents At
that time the West was wild and woolly. the
homestead law was scarcely dreamed of, and
the Land Office was only bureau of the Treas
ury Department.; now it is part of the Interior
Department., and occupies a great marble
building all by itself The present secretary
works just twice as hard as did her predecessor
(who died in 1000; for the recent reforms in
the General Land Office have caused greater
celebrity in the issuance of patents The num-
Der issued in the fiscal year 1908 was twice as
many as IN 1907.
The signer of the Presidents name receives
twelve hundred dollars year. but she has to
sign her name and his more than forty times
an hour seven hours each day. three hundred
and six days in the year. If she is i'll for day.
she has to work twice as hard the next day; for
nobody else is authorized to sign the name of
the President
No Time Clock at the Treasury
ury, who is now at the head of one of the
largest financial institutions in the world, in
troduced mechanical time registers into the
treasury there was protest of outraged free
American citizenship-and Clerkship-that was
heard in the farthest corner of the Union. Were
treasury clerks factory hands or menials, to be
treated in this manner! Why should they be
required to register by means of a machine the
time of their arrival and departure? Why in
deedi The obnoxious clocks were removed, or
probably every clerk would have lmportuned
every Representative and Senator in Congress
to learn the reason why not.
So this little pot of civil service boiled over
Yet every clerk in the grim granite building
across the way from the White House is
quired to be on time at nine NJ and to re-
main on duty for seven hours The time clock
with its incitation to riot, has gone: but it left
in its wake big book. several of Them in fact,
one at each outer door. A hapless clerk may be
five minutes tardy in the morning. Or by the
same small margin, H. c may leave prema-
turely in the afternoon: but his signature Tor
hers) must be written in the big book at the
door of entrance exit
This record is to be blotted out subsequently
by an acceptable excuse duly presented to the
clerks bureau chief or to the chief clerk of the
Treasury Department The big book at each
door tells many tales of hurried breakfasts and
street cars that became stalled at ffty-five
AM Yet for some reason it is deemed a more
sympathetic record of these homely incidents in
the daily life of clerks than the clicking time re-
corders that suffered the obloquy of clerical in
dignation.
Queer Jobs with Uncle Sam
A LMOST every occupation known to civilized
people is represented in the service of the
United States Government. Besides the more
common avocations there are many more or
less unusual There are, for example, the SCI
entists and scientific assistants-the agrostolo-
gists, photographers. climatologsts, forecasters,
entomologists, geographers, biologists, and
physicists, not to mention the dIetlsts, dletl-
tians, and Economists. The following among
Uncle Sans civil service employees sound
familiar, but it may cause surprise that the
Government has need of them.
Bath attendants, cab inspectors, choristers,