South Bend news-times. (South Bend, Ind.) 1913-1938, 1917-12-07
SLIFE
A VERY BUSY ONE
Weeks Memorandum Shows
Many CaIIS-SOme
Are "FreakS."
News-rimes Special Service:

INDIANAPOLIS, Dec THE
daily life OF a secretary Of a mem
Der Of congress is full of surprises,
some pleasant and some otherwise.
and it is far from being a daily path
OF routine. Requests-reasOnable
and unreasonabIe-and advice
good, Indifferent and bad-are re-
ceived daily. No matter where the
senator, representative or his secre-
tary may 20. and regardless of
whether congress is in session or
recess, the members constituents
seek him. The mail brings hundreds
of letters.
Frederick Z. Schortemeier, secre-
tary TO Sen. Harry 5. New of In
diana, and for a number of years a
reporter on an indianapolis news
paper, recently kept a memOran-
dunn Of a few Of the calls he or the
senator received in one week. He
said
Inventors Want Help.
During the week, one of the SEN
ator's constituents insisted on sell
ing a homemade horse-bridle TO
me for $500. The bride was prob
a6ly worth three or four dollars
and, moreover, neither the senator
nor 1 has a horse, but that did not
matter, 1 was TO buy the bride.
Another visitor told of having shot
a rabbit for this brother who was a
soldier. The huntsman had proceed
ed to take a shot without getting a
license. He wanted me to pay his
fine Of $3.50 or at least to have the
fine dropped. A third visitor had a
mechanical horse which he had in
vented-the advantage of this horse
over all other horses being that the
newcomer did not have to be fed.
Another inventor had a kite which
contained a gallon of nitro-glycer-
inc and his idea was to turn several
thousand of these lose on Berlin
and end the war in d day.
Many Wants Jobs.
Besides freaks of this nature"
continued Mr.. Schortemeier. "a SEN
ator and his secretary are mostly
disturbed by persons who decide
over night that they would make
excellent secret service men. Not
less than a dozen people every week
come with the assurance that they
would make excellent secret service
workers for the government. They
must all be turned down for the
reason that the government now
has $1,000 applications for this
work and that only a few men of
long detective experience are being
taken. II is a novel position TO say
the least and the requests are so
varied that they very much relieve
the tension and stress under which
all the governmental officials in
Washington are working in these
war times.
Calls at Night Too.
Not all of the persons who be-
Iieve they have business with the
senator or his secretary can wait
over night and often they come to
my home. Soon after my return
from Washington several weeks ago,
I was away one evening my wife
was reading. At a rather late hour
she heard a knock at the door.
When she answered, a large Negro
woman was standing there. Some
what frightened Mrs. Schortemeier
asked what was wanted. The caller
answered:
eff your husband is Sen. News
secretary. I want you just 10 tell
him TO get my old man a job at the
court house tomorrow morning. Use
decided that's what he wants to do,
and know vour man only has 10 saw
for him TO 90 TO work. Now don't
forget
Mr.. Schortemeier says the mes
sage was duly given him, but the
application had to be placed on
file for future reference"