The Washington herald., 1913-03-16

Never was there business office
where the machinery, human and me
chanical, was more co'npletely niuoep t'
where more noise'ess office routioe pre-
walls than in the n=3cquarters OF or
national Executive.
The prestige of the establishment as
model of its kind, says Waldron Fawcett
in Business, rests on the circumstance
that possibly nowhere else IN the worio
is SO much mail handled and so many
callers received by so small an once
force, or so heavy a volume OF business
, done in such limited quarters
The total business staff, including ush-
ers. messengers and so on, numbers 1T
tie more than forty. And the modest
one-story Office annex to the White
House does not represent more than
fraction of the floor space occupied py
many large corporation.
Handling the White House mail is one
of the heaviest responsibilities of the
business done there It Is doubtful II
there is any other place where the IN
coming mail varies so tremendously
from day to day. In addition there Is
a rule that every letter addressed to
the President shall be acknowledged
from the White House. even though 1t
is referred to some government depart
ment.
Moreover, there is a rule also to the
, effect that every letter received must
be answered within twenty-four hours
unless exceptional circumstances make
this impossible. This policy Of prompt
ness taxes the resources of the White
House business establishment when. as
sometimes happens. the daily receipts
jump to 1000 letters or more.
1t is only fair to say, however. that
such circumstances are exceptional, al
though many newspaper readers have
been led TO believe that the President
received at least a thousand letters
every day OF his occupancy of the
office. As a matter of fact. there are
weeks at a stretch when. under normal
conditions. the daily mail will seldom
exceed 90 letters. and the average for
long intervals during the last admin
istration has been in the neighborhood
of $50 letters a day.
Mail Clerk Busy.
But this normal volume may be
quickly changed to the abnormal The
appearance of some new national is
sue, an international crisis. an impor-
tant declaration of policy by the Pres
ident, a proposal of new legislation, or
any one of number of turns of af-
fairs is likely to bring down upon the
White House an avalanche of letters
OF inquiry, advice. commendation, and
criticism.
Needless to say, the President sees
but A fraction of these letters, and he
replies personally to only a limited
number, not more than 10 per cent of
the total. even in the case of the pres
ent Executive, who dictates answers
to more letters than have most of his
predecessors. The winnowing process
10 which the letters are subjected
starts with the mail clerk. who opens
all incoming letters except the very
few missives which. in accordance with
a prearranged plan, bear upon the en-
velopes autograph initials or other in
sigma whic serve as secret pass
words indicating that these particu
lar letters are to pass to the hands of
the President unopened.
For the response to a considerable
portion of the letters received the mail
clerk is able to arrange without trou-
bling the President or his secretaries.
Among the correspondence taken out
by this first sitting process there may
be cited all those inquiries on any sub
iect which may be prominently in the
public mind and to which the White
House makes more or less stere-
otyped response. This will suggest to
the practical business man form let
ter" work. and yet, matter of fact,
the White House makes very little use
of what is commonly known the
form letter.
Form LettersUnknown.
Not only is the filled-in form letter un-
known in White House practice, but even
in the case of letters of reply which
duplicate one another in general purport
every effort is made to vary the phrase
ology and give each letter much in
dividuality as possible. Incidentally it
may be mentioned that letter signature
by proxy or the rubber stamp method is
unknown at the White House. Every
person who receives a letter bearing the
signature of the President can rest as
sured that the Chief Magistrate person.
ally penned the name.
Letters which cannot be handled by
the White House mail clerk on his own
responsibility are passed on to the Secre-
tary to the President or one of the two
Assistant Secretaries. The apportion-
ment of the mail among these three aids
is governed not by their relative rank