Omaha daily bee., 1919-01-14
washington Offieialdom
H. ]. l. n the New RepubIle.

H. ]. l. in the New Republic.
No man knows what freedom means who
has not analysed the spirit Of Washington, d.
{. 1t is an unpalpabe and elusive thing, rather
felt in hundred battling experiences than easily
to be expressed in the stiff framework of deh-
milton You come to it, perhaps, as univer-
sity professor anxious TO add little Of the stuff
Of fact to the simple structure of the common
text books. Or you are a business man. irr-
tated by fruitiess correspondence with men
who are anxious less TO understand than to tra-
verse your point of view. In either case, WASH
ington takes you in its myriad arms and de-
stroys you by its many-sided and abyrinthine
TEXTURE
You come at first upon the departments,
housed in every sort of building, from the vast
graynesS of the treasury to the crumbling
plaster OF the war labor policies board. But
each is dominated by the eager determination to
assert its own personality. Ii will have its own
rules, its own filing systems, its own special
method of hierarchical control. Each will be-
leYe that il has its own information. too pri-
vate to be revealed to its fellows. Each will
insist that the road to anarchy lies through
frankness Each is convinced that every other
department has no place within the life con-
structed by its traditions You search in vain
for unity Of purpose: government nowhere
seeks nor displays il Somewhere in the White
House sits one whose business is to weave
these myriad and tangled threads into single
skein but what is called the process of admin
stration is the denial of the presidential pur-
pose Notbing in the world is easier than to
apply policy so that its content reverses the
effort towards which it moves
You have been doubtless taught that govern
ment exists for the benefit of the governed, and,
like every good citizen. you expect that every
effort will be made to give you understanding
Of its mechanisms. You are rapidly undeceived.
You go to see Capt. Blank, who you knew
as a professor at Harvard, kindly man much
given to talk and dinners, but he has been
captured by military intelligence and his soul
has been transformed. You wait for an hour
in reception room until your card can reach
him. messenger brings you hope just when
the engraving Of the Merrimac in action has
finally begun to lose its charm. But the cap
tain is not yet yours You have only attained
the second floor and a map of Europe. You
think of going; but the captain has your pass
and you are his helpless victim till he thinks
fit to secure your release. At last he comes;
and the easy warmth you knew has given place
to a stiff courtesy which only with difficulty
conceals his suspicion of the motives of your
visit You want to see the department, but
he explains the vital need of secrecy lest its
shape and size be communicated to the enemy.
Still you have noticed things. There are
many rooms and many young women there.
They have three difficult tasks according to
their kind. Some are making digests of ma
terial that lawyer or an ex-business man
temporarily LuFHtu pdtilOLJ Will TURN dC AblS~
ure into that mystery of mysteries, a govern
ment memorandum. Others are stenographers
perhaps today the most essential factor in
administration; for your official must do his
thinking through lady's delicate hands. The
third type is an infinitely superior being. She
is college girl who knew the temporary patriot
in his home town; and as he liked her father
(perhaps also the way the sun caught the CLINT
of her hair), she may write sub-under-nemor-
anda, that he will presently weave into the real
thing All Of them are infinitely busy, and
every moment a little group will form in a
corner TO settle some vital policy, such as
change in the position Of typewriters or the
need Of an extra stenographer.
You rapidly learn the rules of his new re-
lgion. Secretaries and chief clerks have ma
hogany desks; to the others is relegated the
humber walnut Secretaries alone have car
pets, and they answer the telephone only after
the stenographer has had speech. Each has
her allotted task, nor must you suggest its
diversifcation. A. stenographer will not tic
parcel, and to her who digests the end OF life
is brevity. Our lady OF the sub-vice-memor-
andum holds both in a high disdan.. She knows
that she plants the tiny acorn Of the policy
which may one day be mighty oak.
But the highest of all-perhaps because the
humblest-is the stenographer She opens the
letters Of the mighty one She keeps his
checkbook and tells him how much money
he may spend. She tells him whom he may see
and finds the telephone numbers Of the friends
who want to tell him the latest gossip. She
hears the interviews when they who come to
weep remain to curse She arches her eye
brows when he stumbles over fact and chains
him to her by rendering his brain inactive by
her own energy.
There are men. of course, in Washington
but they are Of minor importance. they
merely organize the Offices; for women in gov
eminent are democratic and will not suffer the
servility of subordnation. The men are there
only to dictate, to suggest analyses for digest
ing and subjects for memoranda. There are
other men, sometimes on boards sometimes in
private interviews in order that reports OF their
conversation may be geographically retained
Some day a great psychologist will tell us
the secret Of oficiaIism and why it stunts the
soul. He will tell of the pain Of routine and
point out the roads that lie to freshness of
thought He will explain why, in every de-
partfnent, in some large back room, there sits
head official who has to wait until the last
clerk has gone home before he can press his
hands to his eyes and beg of his mind that care
free speculation that he lost on the attainment
of power He will analyze the poison OF Sc
crecy and dissolve the vast bubbles OF tradition
He will teach us that truth is in the crowd and
not in the filed clippings of an Office; He will
deny the rightness OF a system which makes
of girlhood a man in skirts and Of the sales
man an annexation upon the margins OF menu
oranda
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