The Washington herald., 1913-12-07
Statesmen, Real and Near.
BY FRED c. KELLY.

Statesmen, Real and Near.
BY FRED c. KELLY.
To write PERSONAL on a letter ad-
dressed to the President of the United
States is just about as effective as tie
ing do Not Open Until Christmas tag
on a peanut and handing 1t to an aver
age park squirrel.
Yet about hall the people who write
| letters to Woodrow Wilson put per
sonar' or Strictly Conhdential' on the
: envelope. in the belief that no one but
the writer. the President. and the Al
mighty will ever know what is inside.
Other writer's inclose letters to the
| President in an envelope addressed to
i Secretary Tumulty and explain to Tum-
ulty that the letter is about something
that the President wouldn't want a living
soul to be in on
Still other writer's send letters in care
of Mrs. Wilson, or one OF the Presidents
daughters, the idea being that the Presi-
dent will then find such letters on his
plate at the breakfast table without any
OF the secretaries having a chance tc
| null them over.
AS a matter of fact. none of these
schemes work. For example. the only
effect OF addressing a letter in care OF
ono of the Presidents family Is to de-
lay il slightly. It must go to the
White House first, and then be sent over
to the executive offices. A letter to the
President, enclosed with one to Tumulty,
Is opened and read by Tumulty, and II Z
were OF much consequence it probably
would reach him anyway. and he would
show il to the President IL he thought
it worth while.
Every once in a Will. there is a pretty
little story in the papers about some
poor little blue-eyed boy OF delightful
personality who wrote a letter to the
Presidents daughter and urged her in
fiCence to get his papa out of Jail, a bet-
teT job. or something like that Ana
how the heart of the Presidents daugh-
ter was touched and the proposition went
right through in a jiffy. Strictly speak
ing, such stories are true, but here is
the idea:
The chances are that all that the Presi-
dents daughter had to do with the
episode was to turn the letter over TO the
boys in the executive ofice to be ham
died in the usual way. II the case is
a pathetic one and seems to have merit
il is looked into and some favOrabe e ac-
ton may be taken. And II the letter had
come in the usual way, instead OF through
the Presidents daughter, the case prob
ably would have been looked up anyhow,
with identically the same favorable result.
The only difference is that without the hu-
man interest angle the incident would
have been too prosaic to find its way
into the papers and no one would have
heard about it.
Letters that go through the usual chan
nel-"personaT' letters and others-are
all opened by Ira Smith, whose job at
the White House is to do just that.
About the only letters that Smith ever
turns over to the Presidest unopened are
those from members of the Presidents
immediate family. and even those might
be opened except for the fact that Smith
has a knack at recognizing handwriting.
The fact is that it is almost impossible
TO write a secret to the President and
have it still secret when it REACHES
him That is one of the great objections
to being President. Somebody might
write letter reminding the President of
some boyhood joke on him-something
that he wouldn't want known for, the
world-and yet half a dozen secretaries
might read II before he did.
The letters that reach the White
House every day for Ira Smith to open
and sort out will run as high as 100, TO
say nothing of perhaps 200 or 800 tele-
grams. Ordinarily. though. the mail is
much less than that. On an average day
II will run something like 800 OF this
number probably one-half would be sent
to some Of the departments. The others
would be sorted and sifted and hand
picked until a comparatively few remain
to greet the President when he reaches
his desk. Many days he has only about
a dozen letters to answer personally.
Even on the average the number is prob |
ably not more than twenty-five. which |
Is not more than the President would |
get II he were merely a popular cutillion |
leader or a city councilman at Xenia, |
Ohio.
In addition to these few letters that |
le answers personally. however, are a |
number that are disposed |
II for him and the answers brought TO |
aim for his signature. No one is per-
nitted to sign the Presidents name even !
20 the most trivial routine letter.
Here of late the communications to /
President Wilson conveying the glad It'd
ngs that a baby has just been named |
or him, have averaged four a day-in-
Heating that by the end of the present |
If the same rate should |
Ieep up, the name will be on the verge |
u becoming drug on the market |
FOUR a day is considered too many let
ers of one class for the President to
lnswer personally. and these are all an
wered for him in a routine way. Hence
T a fond mother goes rushing over to
he neighbors without pausing to wipe
he dough of her hands. in her eager
ess to show the Presidents letter to
Ter, she is making a great mistake.
he President probably never saw her
lote to him and did not dictate the
nswer.
Copyright. 1913. By Frcd c. Kelly. An rights re-
serTedl