The spectator., 1921-03-25
FORMER OFFICE HOLDERS AND "ORlGiNAL HARDING MEN" IN
 SCRAMBLE FOR PLACE.
LIGHT WORK ATTRACTS THEM
Each One Knows What He Wants but Believes Himself Fitted for Any One of the Thousands of Positions to Be Fiked
By EDWARD B. CLARK.

 humOrists since the days of the pro- nouncement of the cynical doctrine that ITO the victor belongs the spoils.'
 Already the hamorists are at it. One of them, Mir. Lardner, has applied for best mind" position, in which he can attend to the presidential correspond ence, answer the telephone and press the presidential pants. This office seeking matter, however. is no joke for the office seekers. or at least it Is no joke for d ma iority of them. If they come here well heeled and well soled. the heeling pertaining to the shoe and not the pocket, they car walk nome, but many of them, even in the face of daily mods of negation, elect to stay on here until some friend succeeds In get ting them 10 yield to more or less gen tie persuasion and to turn their faces homeward.
 Today in Washington looking for work are some scores of men. and women, too, who held office under for-s ner Republican admins .rations but ost out when Democracy came into power. "Once an office holder, always an office holder or an office seeker" Is the way that the old Washngtonians put it. Government salaries are not big, but the work in most instances Is not very taxing, either to brain or to body. Perhaps it is the latter end of this sentence of information which acts at times as the bait of allurement.
 It would be interesting to tabulate the original Harding men who now are in the Capital city. or who soon will be here The original Harding man is a multitude: in fact. to put it the usual way. he Is host in himself. He knew Harding when the President-elec was struggling boy. and he always was convinced that there was the making of q great man in him.
 Each Fitted for Any Job.
 There are. or soon vii be. in the city applicants for every kind of job from grave digger at Arlington to that of keeper of the conscience of the Presi- dent of the United States. Every ap- plicant is entirely fitted. however, for any kind of job that the kindly au- thorities are willing to give unto him. He can. if the necessity arises. be as well adapted to untangling the inter- twined threads of our foreign relations as he is to humping typewriter In the office Of the bureau of economic in vestigations in the biological survey of the Department of Agriculture of the United States of America.
 Charles Reade, who always was writing about ambidextrous people and jacks -all-trades. never had personal acquaintance with the average Wash ington office seeker. If he had known this particular specimen lie could have gone farther than he did in all his writings knowing that fact would stand forth stanchly as being stranger than any fiction.
 Does anybody think that this Is an absolutely unworthy attack on the patriots who are seeking to serve their country under the incoming Republican administration? Not at all, not at all.
  the capital and pitches its tents in the more or less balmy days of late Febru- ary every four or eight years. and 1t matters not whit which political par ty has succeeded in naming the com mander-in-chief who is to open head quarters in the big White House.
 The office seekers have mad good many years now to get over the stun ming disappointment which came when the federal civil service laws and regli- lations went into effect. There was time when every job, from doorkeeper of the district morgue to that of secre- tary of state, was open to the faithful who had political strong armed friends to lift them into It. Not so today: many. many thousands of the minor places are in the grip of men and wom- en who will hold on until death compels the parting. However, there are some thousands of jobs sthl open to the faithful.
 White Remains as Chairman.
 The members of the executive com
  mittee have met In Washington, com pleted their work and gone home, and Chairman George White still holds his place with no immediate prospect that he Is to yacate 1t for another.
 The full membership of the Repub- lican national committee win meet ip Washingt n shortly, on March 8 to be exact. Is Win Fl. Hays, the chairman of the committee. to announce his re- tirement at that time? It is within the range Of po.sipili- ties, if not probabilities, that on the day of this meeting of the Republican national committee the announcement will be made that Mir Hays has been chosen by President-elec. Harding for the place of postmaster general in the next cabinet. Will Mir. Hays be will Ing to act as political chieftain of his party and post office chieftain of the government at the same time2