The Washington times., 1911-01-09
Advice to Clerks.

| To the Editor Of The Washington Times
Since you have so kindly allowed the
Government clerks use Of your columns
for an expression OF their views. / beg
leave t. make a suggestion to the clerks
| themselves.
Most of the letters are good and right
to the point, but l fear their efforts are
| misdirected.
Clerks. you face a hard proposition.
Your President is quoted as having said
| that 81 per day is enough for working
! mamie and his Cabinet are making po-
litical capital of their stand for an eco
| nomicaf Administration, and in Con-
, Gress you have body without soul or
| conscience. so far as your needs and
tights are concerned.
There are. 1t is true, some notable eX-
ceptions-a few men in both House and
| Senate, who realize and are shamed by
the injustice being done you: but, gen.
orally speaking. Congress does not give
serious thought to your betterment.
When men are so brazen as to ad-
, vance, as they have done, the salaries
of themselves and all high officials, Civ
ing only partial service to the Govern
ment as they do, taking long vacation
trips at public expense, providing them
selves with all possible luxury and
squeezing every dollar they possibly can
out of the common purse-when, I say.
men do that, and at the same time talk
econrmy when your needs are men,
toned. you need hope for no voluntary
relief from such.
Study the annual reports OF the dis
hr1rSinV officers Of SangfS and House
and get A line on these economists (?)-
see the thousands and thousands of dol
lars spent for lemonade, mineral wa
ters, Quinine. peppermint, carriage and
taxicab hire. See what it costs for a
party of mourning Congressman to see
a departed colleague planted, think
about the petty stationery graft and
the nice little allowance for the salary
of a secretary which, in many cases,
goes into the pockets of the members
themselves or one Of their families
while I $50 stenographer does the work
Last spring. one of the big fve' in
Congress was asked if he thought Con-
gress would act on a retirement meas
ure. He replied that he hardly thought
so, as they were pretty busy and 'it
gets hot here, you know, and we must
sands Of clerks who never had money
enough to send wife and baby out of
the city for a month.-always too busy
to take up the cause of the cierks-al-
ways putting off.
Now then, these men heed the voter.
only. Every two years the Congress!
men beg his support, and 1 think they
realize now as never before the uncer-
tainty of their jobs.
You clerks stop grumbling and writing
complaining letters to the papers, and
each of you send to ten, twenty, or fifty
of your friends back home" a concise,
uneXaggerated statement of living con-
ditions here, of your struggle to make
ends meet, of the hapless condition of
the clerks in the middle and lower
grades, as we'll as the impossibility of
the older men in higher grades, saving
anything, and ask each friend to i'm
mediately demand of his Congressman
a righting of this wrong. Do this-do
it nOw-and you will get something.
The old excuse of the Congressman
that the people back home" will raise
howl is all rot and ! know 1t.
Some people in the country doubtless
do think you have a good job, but
when your friends are told frankly how
you are Sforced to pinch, and in many
cases are going deeply in debt for neces-
saries; they will raise a howl that will
jar the economists (O or I miss my
guess. Respectfully, READER