| Show wrom written for thu this pap paper or UNCLE SAWS SAMS CLERKS PA lo 10 you want a government job the hours are easy the work is light the pay is good uncle sam never scales his wages and you get your money for the aski asking ng every fifteen days these big government factories never shut down the tariff and the hard times do not affect them and the man who works government can laugh at fate and finances the thousands whoa who are out of employment throughout the united states ought to look into the matter right here in washington millions upon millions of dollars are paid out every year in salaries and there are lots of fat easy places I 1 have been looking over the report which the committee of congress have just made on the subject and I 1 find that the patronage is by no means equally divided there are more than clerks in washington but nearly one third of this number are related to one another think of it there are fifty six hundred people in the departments whose blood flows more or less in the same channels and there are more than one thousand who have two relatives in uncle sams employ most of these government clerks get at least 1000 a year and at this average are paid out annually to parties related to each other think ot of the millions of uncle sams nephews and nieces scattered over this land who cannot get near enough the public crib to have a smell for themselves or their families and look at these figures there are cases in which clerks have three relatives e employed in the departments here nine ninety six in which the number of relatives are four ten in which they number six and two in which there are nine clerks related to one another in the government service there are lots of husbands and wives employed in the departments and there are more than goo brothers who work for uncle sam the number of sisters is not quite so large but it runs between six and seven hundred and there are sons and daughters fathers and mothers uncles and nephews and cousins and aunts galore in the interior department alone nearly fifteen hundred of the clerks have relatives in the government service here and there are almost thirteen hundreds hundred treasury clerks who have blood relations in that or other government departments it is a tradition of the service that no relatives should be employed in the different offices and that there should be only one of a family but this one third of the service has gotten in and it is here to stay I 1 now and then hear the clerks objecting to their hard work take a look at the job and see what you think of itt it f the office hours are you know from 9 until 4 no one comes to the department before 9 and from that time until 12 you are supposed to put in three hours of clerical labor at 12 you have a half hour for lunch and you are a very good clerk if you get to doing hard work before i at 4 you go out with the rest of the army on to the streets t ind and do not bother yourself again abou work until 9 the next morning one month out of the year you have to yourself and can go where you please and do what you please and your pay goes on just the same if you are sick dick your wages are not docked and I 1 know of clerks who get from thirty to sixty days now and then as sick leave As to wages there is no question about the salary that is fixed by the government and as long as you are in in uncle sams employ it cannot be raised or lowered by the officials just above you every two weeks you gp go to the pay office ot of the department in in which you are working and your money is is handed over to you in in crisp new greenbacks green backs or sometimes in gold if you ate are a good man your job is pretty sure to continue and a great number of these clerks have been in the service for years some in indeed have spent a lifetime there and there is one old clerk here who has been drawing a salary for sixty years from uncle sam there are others who have worked from forty to fifty years and the number who have been in from one to four years runs well up into the thousands the number who have been just ten years in the service is more than seven hundred and there are hundreds more who have been in from twelve to fifteen years A great many clerks have been twenty years or more in the service and the tenure of government office is by no means as uncertain as is generally generally supposed the surety of holding a position increases every year and the civil service rules are being so extended that only the chiefs will finally be dismissed at the close of an administration As to salaries in proportion to the amount of work done and its character they are as high as those of any laborers ot of the world uncle sams factories are run on a big salary basis and the classified service get as a rule from goo to 1800 a year the chiefs get 2000 2000 and upward and there are tat lat places in nearly every department which command and the department ot justice for instance has three offices which bring between and and the assistant attorney generals genet als each receive as much as a congressman in the department of agriculture there are a number of good 2000 places and the government of the district has about twenty offices which run from 2000 to in salary the rhe officials who govern washington on city are all appointed by the president ent and the salaries salaries received are good the post office department has many high salaried places and there are a number of soft spots connected with the white house whose possessors have neither crows feet at their eyes nor wrinkles in their bellies the best bast positions in point of certainty of tenure are those connected with the state war and navy departments the clerks of the state department are rather aristocrats than otherwise they generally speak one or two languages and when it is necessary to shelve them they are sometimes sent to consulships consul ships on the other side of the world the treasury has numerous changes it contains over employed emp loyes and of these 1600 are women and just here I 1 want to say a word about these women clerks of washington they are the brightest and ablest people in the service they do their work continuously and some of the most efficient of uncle sams em aloyes are females it I 1 had my way I 1 would give the women the preference reference as to all classes of work chice which they can possible do reserving only the harder places for the men As it is is however there are two men to every woman in the departments and the number of women all told amounts to less than these women are of all ages from eighteen to eighty and there is is by the way one clerk in the treasury department who has now reached ninety years there are many women over sixty and hundreds of sweet young maidens of twenty five these women do all sorts of work starting in as counters in the treasury about a generation ago they have exten extended did their work to all sorts of clerkship and they now pass upon questions of law examine patents translate foreign languages and do everything under the sun some of the most expert counters of the government are women and several of the very best bookkeepers ot of the treasury wear petticoats women are fast making their way as typewriters and steno grap hers and the chief trouble to the outside employer of labor here at washington is that as soon as he trains a women thoroughly into his work as typewriter or stenographer she makes an application to uncle sam and gets a place at a higher salary in one of the departments I 1 have had this experience happen to me half a dozen times and I 1 have come to look upon my office here as a kind ot of a training school for the government service in the dead letter office the most expert translators of bad writing are women and it would surprise you to know that the treasury department has a woman lawyer who prepares the briefs for internal revenue matters and who could probably make more outside of the department by practicing law than she gets by acting as a law clerk within it there are a number of women editors in the service here at washinton iton the offic official iad records of the war of the rebellion are to a certain extent gotten up by women and in the navy department you find women who are making maps and tracing charts for our ships in in different parts of th the e world and in the government printing g office there are women typesetters switchers chers press feeders and compositors everyone has heard of the pretty girls of the treasury but you find beautiful maidens in all of these government departments hoke smith directs the handiwork of 1500 girls and dan lamont lament has a company of in his department of war postmaster general bissell has hundreds ot of maidens under him and in the government printing office there are more than a 1000 women many of these come of the best families of the country not a few are the daughters of noted generals governors ot of states senators and representatives presenta tives and now and then you find a relative of a president or a cabinet minister the majority of them are women of good education and with but few exceptions they are educated i and refined ladies they receive salaries ranging from to 1800 a year and a large number of them support families many of them are widows not a few are old maids and thousands are sweet marriageable young women who have too much sense to change a sure living under uncle sam to a prospective one in company with some good for nothing man the best of them are open to engagements and not a few of the most noted marriages of Washing tion in the past have been in connection with the government clerks attorney general brewster who has the ugliest face which ever entered a government deda department rt ment at washington got his wife whose features were venus like in their beauty in a government department here she was the daughter of robert J walker a former secretary of the treasury and as she s A t at her desk one day in the treasury department the future attorney general walked through the room she made some remarks about his homeliness I 1 do not know whether brewster overheard it or not but he saw her and with him it was a case of love at first sight he sought an introduction tro and shortly afterward offered her his hand and his wealth and his name for herself and her children it is said that he proposed to her in worda something like this my dear you are beautiful and I 1 am hideous but if you will marry me it will not be the first instance of mating the beauty and the heastand bea stand I 1 assure you that you will levei never regret marrying nie me his proposition was accepted and the next time mrs brewster came to washington it was a ai the wife of the attorney general of the tha united states stephen A doublas got his hirv wife in in one of the departments at washington and you all remember what a talk there was about secretary bayard and miss markoe during durine the time that bayard was at the head of the state department it is a wonder to me that there are am s not more marriages among the clerks young men and young women of marriageable age work side by side in W thi departments they come in contact with each other hourly and sometimes fall in love with one another but not not often in the bureau of engraving en gravine and printing where the 11 oney is made there is one man and one woman at every printing press and there is ia no IM separation of the sexes there are believe more platonic friends friendships bips hert amon among g yo young u men ai and id young bome komeh than y you 0 u w will find anywhere else in ahk country and cases have been known knowah where couples have married and kep their marri marriages agis a secret for years JIL order to to avoid the rule thata that a h husband and wife shall not be employed oyed a the same time in the c ivil civil service 41 t washington many such cases haw hav been found out and the recent investigation of the congressional commit committee will probably lead to some chang chamre sM this respect according to i its t s r report e p there were last fall twenty four aitu hate bands and wives drawing salaries r uncle sam which the husband an a wives who are out of work and ha bv no job at all think is decidedly unfair i does uncle sam really pay 9 sr wages to hear some of the clerks talk abak the matter you would think he does nw nt and perhaps in in proportion to t tm amount of responsibility involved taif receive small salaries one clerk few tew me that the big men of the depart department meno have the softest places and most bouey while the poorly paid clerks do ape I 1 work there is no doubt that boada man 1000 clerk does the same work which another clerk is paid 1200 and 1400 4 oc D and many a woman woman at vo is doing d ng thoroughly work which a ft man is is halt half doing at her side still SIM 1000 1000 is a pretty good pay and the chief objection of these government positions that the employed emp loyes have little chance to rise they may get up to 1400 1600 and perhaps isoo 1800 a year tut ut their chances are small and the limit is fixed it is seldom that a clerk becomes a cabinet minister though cases of this kind have been known in the past horatio king went into the post office department as a clerk at 1000 a year and he acted as postmaster general under buchanan there are assistant secretaries in the departments who have been clerks but the majority of the men who go into the grea great t mi mills ills of uncle sam are ground between the upper and nether mill stone and soon become as far as energy push and ambitious work is concerned inanimate power you have all heard the story of how salmon P chase once came to his uncle who was then in the united p states state senate and asked tor for a government job his uncle told him he would give him a dollar to buy an ax or a spade ade but that he would not aid him in digging his own grave in in one of uncle sams official cemeteries postmaster general bissell told me not long ago that he did not consider the govern I 1 ment departments a good place for young men and there is no doubt but that an enterprising energetic young fellow had better keep away from the government service the hours are short and all the tendencies are to laziness i and good for nothingness aman has to have very positive qualities in in order not to be turned into a machine and all the tendencies are to anches in hying iVing washington is a city of rich young men and a place in which i nearly every ma man n lives up to his income it is a city containing many in installment houses and I 1 know of society women as well as government clerks who buy the dresses which they wear at all fashionable receptions on installments and who ho have not always paid for then by the time they are worn out the business houses ot of washington expect people to run bills and they have their settlements just atter alter the government ment say days at the irth or the government Covern fast t of the month comparatively few ot oi the government clerks save money and only the fewest try to make any oney money out of that which they do save washington is a great place for people to go into debt and there is a small class of the government clerks who are in the habit of borrowing money at io 10 per cent a month there are about the Cap capitol and the different departments brokers who lend money at this rate and they turn up about pay day in order to catch the clerks who owe them they know their money is good and they lose but little instances have been known of clerks who have paid daid io 10 a month for ten years for the use of and the majority of those who borrow at this rate do not appreciate how much interest they are paying it used to be that such brokers broker when they could not get the money on time would make complains to the chiefs of the departments and through them would collect ats their r |
