Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1910-04-21
49, ~.
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BEHIND 81, SCENES
wIiIIls D. |
NATIONS IT, 81 II ITAE..l


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The average daily mail received at
the White House is, of course, very
large. The President cannot, it fol-
lows, read these letters as an ordinary
business man reads his morning mail,
but by carefully developed system
their contents are in substance pre-
scented to him, an exchange says. A
corps Of confidential clerks open the
letters and give them a first reading
They are then carefully sorted. Many
OF them do not need to go to the Presi-
dent, as they are simply recommends
lions for office. These, after being
courteously acknowledged, are referred
to the proper departments, and placed
on file there until the subject to which
each Of them relates can be taken up
for consideration. Many of the let
tiers are purely formal, or contain re-
quests for something which cannot be
granted. These the clerks answer and
the Presidents secretary signs. The
requests for charity are so many thai
special form" has been devised to
be used in answering them. They are
all alike necessarily and politely re-
fused. All letters which the President
ought to see are carefully briefed- that
is, a slip is pinned at the top of each
letter, and on this is a typewriter
synopsis of its contents, telling who
the writer is and what he has to pre-
sent. Frequently the President is suf-
ficiently interested by the brief to
cause him to read the whole letter
Sometimes the communication is re-
ferred to a cabinet officer, in which
case the slip is retained at the White
House and filed away. When a large
amount of persons write on the same
subject the letters are punched, and
the brief at the top gives the names Of
those who present one argument, and
in another list the persons who offer
a different view. This is an admir-
made necessary by the excessive bur-
dens Of the presidential office.
At the end of February, when eight
months of the fiscal year had expired,
the deficit of the treasury was little
less than twenty-five million dollars
The ordinary receipts were a little less
than four hundred and twenty
seven and half millions; tb@
ordinary expenses slightly more
than four hundred and fifty-two ~~il-
lions. The ordinary receipts and eX-
penditures are the entire receipts and
disbursements except those on account
of the public debt and the Panama ca
nal AS compared with the same
months of the preceding year the re-
oeipts were forty-tWo millions more,
and the disbursements a million and a
half less. In that former year the def
icit for the eight months up to the
end of February was sixty-Bight mil
lions, or more than forty-thI'ee millions
above that of the current year. The
appropriations become effective on the
first day of July; and in that and the
three or four succeeding months the
disbursements are heavy i'm amount
whereas the receipts are not usually
larger than the average. Almost al
ways the last few months of the fiscal
year, which ends with june, exhibit
an improvement over the first half of
the year.
The opinion of officials IN the cen,
sus bureau at Washington is said to
be that the population of the country
as whole will be found TO approx,
mate 90,000,000 If the same rate of
increase, however, has been maintain
ed in the last ten years as prevailed
IN the preceding ten the population
VIII reach 93,000,000. There are ex-
perts who figure that even q bigger
rate of increase will be found TO have
occurred and who declare that the
number of inhabitants of the United
States will be discovered to be par
ticularly close to the 100, 0O0, 900 mark.
If these optimists are right, the ma
tons population has jumped ahead
about 24,00O,000 in ten years. At the
last census the population was 76.000,-
900, an increase of about $4,000, 00O
over the census of 1890
An array of counsel greater in mum
Der and more notGA than ever assem-
bled at The Hague to engage in the
trial of special case has been retain
ed to represent America and Great
Britain in the determination of what
is undoubtedly the most important is
sue ever presented 70 the great peace
tribunal. Arguments will be begun on
June 1. Technically this is the dete-
mination of differences which hay
arisen between the TWO governments
as to the true intent of the provisions
of the treaty of 1918 defining the fish
ing rights of Americans and Cana
dams in their respective waters
Mrs. John B. Henderson has come to
be known as the Terpsichore Of Wash
ington. 1t was Mrs. Henderson who
formed the famous Greek and Span
ish waltz classes for the Lenten per-
iod in which her pupils danced upon
arising before open windows to make
them supple and graceful
Home consumption of the country's
products continues to show expansion
when compared with last year. For
the nine months ending with last
month the exports of breadstuffs, meat
and dairy products food animals cot