Show DID CAPITAL DAYS CHANGES HAVE TAKEN PLACE IN METHODS AT WASHINGTON OldTime OffieeSeekers and Profes slonal Lobbyists ScarceCivil Service Law Does Away With Many Abuses Ofllcosockers no longer clutter Washington with each succeeding change of admlnla f7 tratlon a capita correspondent assorts as-sorts for Its not tho same old Washington that I It was in the days before tho Civil n war Tho office seeker as a typo Is as extinct In Washington Wash-ington as tho dodo Is said to bo everywhere every-where Net only Is Washington not cluttered with ofllceseekers at any tlmo any more but tho rising generation genera-tion of young people simply do not know what tho oldtime type of office seeker in Washington was like They used to swarm hero of course by the thou + tnds and go broke while waitIng wait-Ing fir the office that never came and and all camp out on the park benches that sort of thing but that Is all nn lent history The joke about the chnp who comes to Washington at a change of administration to get billeted to the court of St James and who after along a-long period of hope deferred and unproductive un-productive waiting finally accepts a Jub juggling wastepaper baskets In one of tho departments Is Just about as live a Joke in so far as it refers to this town as the sewlngabutton cnthoshlrt Joko Is in these days when nil men wear collar buttons and dont know what a shirt button looks like There are people coming here all the tlmo from all sections of the country coun-try to tako Jobs In tho government employ but theyre not ofllceseekers of the old timo typo that existed before tho civil service law Theyre office landers Theyve got their billets Theyve passed their examinations got their rating papers and most of them their appointments beforo ever setting foot In Washington Onco In awhile a-while when a man or woman has passed a particularly high examination examina-tion ho or she comes on to Washington Washing-ton before actually receiving an appointment ap-pointment having reason to feel pret will ty secure that tho appointment be forthcoming In duo time And most of these people too look around for something to do outside while waiting for their government appoint ments to materialize They uun i haunt tho corridors of the departments depart-ments nor clamor at tho doors of officials or sit around hotel lobbies telling their wrongs because they know Just where they stand have no wrongs and are altogether just as far apart from tho oldtime typical olllco seeker as I am from a Papuan Change of Administration Even when the administrations change there are no clamorous crowds here looking for tho higher appointive and unclassified positions professional placo hunters that is Men engaged in business or in the professions come here It is true at the request of their senators or representatives repre-sentatives ns often as not when administrations ad-ministrations change to bo Introduced to the new presidents and to have their claims considered for certain positions but after a visit or so at the White House these men unlike the old time brood of ollice seekers quickly go back to their homes Instead In-stead of hanging around the town glv Ing utterance to their walls over the delay In giving them the high paid work A Wnshlngtonlan doesnt have to be very old to recall the seedy hundreds hun-dreds and even thousands of professional profes-sional politicians who used to haunt the cheaper Washington hotels and boarding houses looking iur KUVWIU ment billets at all times whether the I administration was In process of changing or not Theyd get away In arrears in their board bills and after long months and often years of waitIng wait-Ing their few remaining friends would take them In hand and chip In to send them back to their homes They hung on around Washington as long as they could because they hated togo to-go back to their homo towns to acknowledge ac-knowledge that their big claims hadnt been recognized but that was what most of them wero forced to In tho long run People With Claims And In other striking respects the Washington of today Is far different even from the Washington of a dozen or twenty years ago For example there Is no longer any brood of pleas Iblo and eloquent people with claims before Congress In Washington as there wero for a good 30 years or more after the war Some of them wore noted characters usually of apathetic a-pathetic sort but many of them Including In-cluding the women of tho lot were grafters and cheerful workers of tho most pronounced description Some of them had actual claims with however how-ever little or no prospect of getting and little why them through as reason I they should bo put through but most of them had claims before Congress that wero as purely Imaginary as they possibly could be Some of these female claimants used to hypnotize confiding old boardIng board-Ing house mistresses by narrating tales of tho enormous wealth that was bound to come to them eventually from their claims beforo Congress and to promise the boarding hous women that they would not only pay thorn all of tho money they owed thorn but contribute generously toward to-ward the education of their daughters t j = and start their I when they grew and up all that sort of sons in business but theyd solemnly only that Not thing tho motions of assigning through emnly go their claims to tho In signing Interests trusted them and had people who long clutch with another thereby gain plenty ol Thero were of course tick claims wore claimants whose these least a show of going had at Just and In tho minor but these were through claimants who of ity Hut the brood capitol and nod haunt the used to and button and doze in tho galleries of incoming representatives hole generations strolled through as they sentatives have gone from tho capitol corridors Washington long long ago Lobbyists Are Scarce hordes of lobbyists There are no longer It has been so byists at tho capitol since I had a good square many years sureenough Wash genuine look at a Id Ington lobbyist that I dont believe pointed out to me know one If ho was Tho socalled lobbyist of Washlngtou none of the past and Is almost a thing methtds now lobbying of the otd time Thoso ancient stories about representatives prevail In Congress finding bundles of 1000 bills In their over leaving dinners coat pockets upon still occasionally lsts are by famous lobbyists given everybody who casionally revived but Pennsylvania ave which way knows runs knows that If ever those nue had a shadow of truth In them yarns Influen havent now The i are they Washington nil coining to men tlal when congress U the time of course Inter I In session to represent special run but there are ests ns the phrase few If any actually resident L lobbyists In Washington who devoto themselves They to lobbying as a steady graft wouldnt be endured around the cap minute nowadays whereas ltol for a mingle on used to In the old days they free and familiar terms with the national na-tional lawmakers although It was as perfectly well known that they were professional lobbyists as anything could be known And the blackhair lobby ed boldeyed sinuouslyformed adventuresses of esses the potential the capitol who used to be so much written about by the very new Wash tntgon correspondents and who always al-ways appeared In the pages of novels about Washington life where are they Well I never saw any of them at any time and I was hero long years beforo the grand army marched In review re-view on Pennsylvania avenue after tho close of tho gigantic conflict |