Denver labor bulletin., 1918-01-26
WAITER WILDER THROWS SPOTLIGHT
ONPUEBLO'S UNION TYPOPOSTMASTER
Walter Lawson Editor, in the Pueblo Cheftain

We have with US this morning the
Hon. Sherman S. Bellesfeld, Pueblo's
perennial postmaster. Other post
masters of Pueblo have come and gone
in accordance with the vicissitudes
of partisan politics or the personal
predictions of local congressman,
but the Hon. S. S. Bellesfield, afore-
said, while he may not, like Tenny
sons brook, go on forever, now has
an excellent chance of continuing in
his present position until he becomes
tired of the job or is physically inca
pacitated.
Postmaster Bellesfeld is a young
man in vigorous good health, so the
latter contingency is highly improb-
able. He is also a democrat, so that
the possibility of his resignation is
extremely remote.
The story of how Mr.. Bellesfield
reached his present proud position is
highly interesting, and affords a most
encouraging example to youthful
Americans. (Honest to goodness, this
is no joke;) The first film shows our
youthful hero faithfully occupied in
setting type, with occasional pi lines,
on a linotype machine in the Chieftain
Office 1t was this compulsory perusal
of daily republican editorials that in
spired him to seek other fields of labor
and started him on his upward career
Some cavilling critics who have in
quired whether political editorials
ever did any one any good are re-
quested to paste the foregoing para
graph in their scrap books.
Film two shows our hero, still
young, running for the state legisla-
ture Was he elected? He was. Spot
light!
AS legislator Mr.. Bellesfield made
good, so much so that he was pro-
NOTED to the senate. 1t was said at
that time that Senator Bellesfield
knew more about the printing bust
ness than any other man in the south
end of the capitol building, and the
most serious political mistake he ever
came near making was when he un-
dertook to impart his knowledge to
other senators. In the quiet recesses
of one of the cloak rooms he was
gently but firmly instructed by the
steering committee of his party that
the only person that had any right to
know anything about the public pri mt
ing was the commissioner of print
ing, who was created for that pur-
pose, exclusively, and what he knew
WOuluH nuTJ anyDOuy.
Had Woodrow Wilson been elected
president in 1904 instead of 1912 it is
extremely probable that S. S. Bellies
field would now be life senator from
the Pueblo district instead of peren-
nial postmaster, for if the democrats
had had eight years longer in which
to establish "civil service" it would be
quite useless to hold any elections.
All that would be necessary would
be to adopt, thruout the United States,
the beautifully simple system of the
solid south, where, whenever va
cancy occurs thru the death or dis
ability of the democratic incumbent,
a primary is ordered by the democratic
committee. and, to use the accepted
formula, the nomination is equivalent
to an election.
The end of the fifth reel shows our
hero, no longer so very young, but
still handsome, seated at his desk in
the front room of the Federal build
ing downstairs, gazing fondly at a
photograph of President Wilson on
one side and at a photograph of Con-