Part 5

The Chief Justice rose, and staggered, rather than walked, to the front, and fell on his knees at the altar railing. After giving to the kneeling man the bread and wine, the Doctor, seeing the strong face of the penitent drawn with grief, with the Justice still kneeling, pronounced the benediction and dismissed the congregation.

The next day, in the robing-room of the justices, Chief Justice Chase said to Justice Miller: “Oh, I want to tell you to-day what the Lord has done for my soul! He came very near me yesterday.”

Justice Miller replied: “Well, we will talk of that some other time; now we have the wages of sin and not righteousness before us.”

After court adjourned that afternoon, the Chief Justice went down to Alexandria to see an old servant who had sent for him. He said to her: “Oh, Auntie, I received a great blessing yesterday; all life is different. I want to have a closer walk with God.”

Within a few days he went to New York to transact some business. The morning after his arrival he did not come down to breakfast. The clerk waited till eleven o’clock, and receiving no answer to his frequent knocks, the door was forced, and there was found the dead body of the Chief Justice. He had entered on his closer walk with God.

It was well known throughout the country that Lincoln was not in harmony with Chase, even when the latter was Secretary of the Treasury, but Carpenter, in his “Six Months in the White House,” says: “Notwithstanding his apparent hesitation in the appointment of a successor to Judge Taney, it is well known to his intimate friends that there had never been a time during his Presidency, when in the event of the death of Judge Taney, Mr. Lincoln had not fully intended and expected to nominate Salmon P. Chase for Chief Justice.”

The appointment must have come to Chase with a little of the effects of “coals of fire,” for he had not been very loyal to Lincoln. He had the Presidential bee in his own bonnet.

From 1874 to 1888 Morrison R. Waite, of Ohio, was Chief Justice. Our present Chief Justice, Melville W. Fuller, of Illinois, was called to the highest judicial position in the country in 1888.

XII TEACHING PATRIOTISM IN THE CAPITOL

One can fancy a patriotic Englishman taking his son to Westminster Abbey, and there telling him the story of liberty, in the history of the renowned dead who sleep about him, until the youth is inspired with a patriotism deeper than the love of kindred, and second only to the love of God.

So an American father who desires his children to assume their proper place among the great force of American youth who are to perpetuate American institutions, might well bring them to the Capitol of the nation, and there in glowing words, and amid reminders of every decade of the nineteenth century and the latter part of the eighteenth, tell the story of liberty as shown in republican institutions.

He could also take his children to Mount Vernon for a day; there they might read together the history of that serene, majestic character whose eminence has carried him beyond national lines and made him belong to the world as well as to us—a citizen of all lands and of all ages.

History is best told by biography. Around Washington would be grouped John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and Alexander Hamilton. These men, without a precedent to follow, launched a new government, establishing all the departments of its great machinery with such wisdom, justice, and patriotism that what they did, what they thought and planned, but were not able to complete, is to-day the standard of patriotism and national achievement.

Then would follow that man whose life grows radiant in the strong search-light of history—John Quincy Adams; that Adams, who could truthfully say at the close of a long, brilliant, and useful life, in the words of an old Roman: “I have rendered to my country all the great service she was willing to receive at my hand, and I have never harbored a thought concerning her which was not divine.” With him would be his compeers, Madison, Monroe, Burr, Clay, Webster, Jackson, John Randolph, the elder Bayard, and Calhoun.

That father would not fail to make plain the stern patriotism of Andrew Jackson and Daniel Webster against the insidious treason of Calhoun and his coterie.

During the early days of President Jackson’s administration he gave a state dinner in honor of Jefferson’s birthday. On his right sat Calhoun, Vice-President of the United States, and up to this time the intimate friend and confidential adviser of the Executive. On Jackson’s left sat Webster, with the black brows of Jove.

The toasts of the evening had been ambiguous. Mr. Calhoun gave this toast: “Our union, next to our liberties the most dear; it can only be preserved by respecting the rights of States, and by distributing its burdens and its benefits equally.”

Webster nudged the President. Old Hickory sprang to his feet and gave the toast: “Our federal union; it must be preserved.” Every man drank it standing, Calhoun among the rest.

How near our country came to open rebellion is shown in the last hours of Jackson. A friend at his bedside said: “What would you have done with Calhoun and his friends had they persisted in nullification?” “Hanged them, sir, as high as Haman. They should have been a terror to traitors for all time,” said the dying statesman.

That father could tell part of the story of liberty in the life of the younger Adams. At the age of eleven Adams decided that he would be a Christian. He said: “Of this one thing I must make sure: I shall humbly serve God. If He makes me a great man, I shall rejoice; but this He surely will do: if I trust Him, He will make me a useful man.”

God took Adams at his word. He sought the Kingdom first. God added place. Adams was diplomat, Senator, Secretary of State, President, Congressman. He might well say with his dying breath, as he was carried from his place in the old House of Representatives to the Rotunda, “This is the last of earth, but I am content.”

Well he might be content. He had been a faithful, honest, upright Christian man, who had received at the hands of his fellow citizens the highest honors they could confer, and in his death he passed to a home among the redeemed, there with enlarged intelligence and clearer vision to continue his work for God in the beyond.

In this day, when writers are striving to make black appear white, the father who would mingle Christianity with patriotism would not fail to sketch the life of Aaron Burr in contrast with the young Adams.

Burr tells us that at the age of eighteen the Spirit of God came upon him with such power that he fled to the woods to settle that great question which faces every human being—“Shall I be a Christian?” He said to himself: “I purpose as a lawyer to succeed by the tricks of the trade. There is many a short cut in business which a Christian could not take, therefore I shall not be a Christian.”

He tells us that the Spirit of God never again troubled him. He sinned against the Spirit, that unpardonable sin. Left to himself, his destiny led him to a high place only to make his fall more terrible. Socially he was the most charming man of his day, but he entered no home which he did not defile. No woman loved him but to her sorrow.

Burr was holding the position of Vice-President as a Republican when he was nominated by the Federalists for Governor of New York. Some of the leading men of that party refused to support him, among them Hamilton. This led to the duel in which Hamilton was killed, July 11, 1804.

Burr was disfranchised and banished by the laws of New York, and was indicted for murder by the authorities of New Jersey for having killed Hamilton on the soil of that State. He could not enter either New York or New Jersey to settle his business. He was bankrupted, and more than $5,000 in debt when all his property had been sold and the results paid over.

The day before the duel Burr had a right to suppose himself a more important man than Hamilton. Was he not Vice-President? Had he not just received a majority of the votes of the City of New York for Governor of that State, in spite of Hamilton’s greatest exertions? Yet the day after the duel the dying Hamilton had the sympathy of every human being, and Burr was a fugitive from justice, not knowing friend from foe. Never was there a greater revulsion of feeling.

Southern men tried to console him by their more courteous demeanor. Between the time of the duel and the convening of Congress, Burr had kept himself south of Mason and Dixon’s line, for in any Northern State he would have been arrested on a requisition on the Governor.

He went back to Washington and again presided over the Senate, but was simply scorched by the open, daily manifestations of the scorn of Northern Senators. The Southern men were more courteous in their demeanor. On Saturday, March 2d, he took leave of the Senate. That body was in executive session, therefore no spectators were present. Mr. Burr, one of the most eloquent as well as one of the handsomest men of his day, rose in his place after the galleries had been cleared. He began his address by saying that he had intended to remain during his constitutional time, but he felt an indisposition coming upon him and he now desired to take leave of them.

The silence could be felt. There was no shorthand reporter present, and exactly what he said is not now known—perhaps nothing very different from what other retiring Vice-Presidents have said. No reference was made to the duel, none to the scorn he had merited, unless it were in his words, “For injuries received, thank God, I have no memory.”

He thanked the Senators for kindness and courtesy. He prophesied that if ever political liberty in this country died its expiring agonies would be witnessed on the floor of the United States Senate. As he walked out no man rose, no man shook hands with him; when the door closed on him it shut him out forever from position, usefulness, home, country, the love of women, and the friendship of men.

At the President’s reception on the following Morning two Senators were relating the circumstances to a group which had gathered round them. On being asked, “How long did Mr. Burr speak?” one of them answered, “I can form no idea; it may have been a moment and it may have been an hour; when I came to my senses I seemed to have awakened from a kind of trance.”

Burr, hurled from power and honor, wandered a fugitive from justice, and at last would have been laid in a pauper’s grave but for the care of a woman who had loved him in his better days.

Surely the Psalmist was right when, speaking of the righteous and the unrighteous, he said: “And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. The ungodly are not so: but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away.”

XIII PEOPLE IN THE DEPARTMENTS

About one-third of all the employees in the government departments at Washington are women. Several receive over $2,500 per annum, about fifty receive $1,600 per annum, one hundred receive $1,400 per annum, four hundred and fifty receive $1,200, three hundred receive $1,000, and the remainder receive from $600 to $900 per annum.

The Civil Service Commission records for last year show that 3,083 women were examined for the various positions opened for them under the civil service. Of these, 2,476 passed and 444 were appointed. Of the applicants examined, 1,351 came under the head of “skilled labor.”

The most popular examination for women is that of stenographers and typewriters. “Good stenographers” is the ceaseless demand of the department official—not mediocre, but good par excellence.

Government work is well paid only when well done. Promotions are at least sometimes the reward of merit. A very striking illustration of this occurred last winter, when a young woman was made chief of one of the divisions in the Post-Office Department because she knew more about the work of that particular division than any other employee in it. She receives a salary of $2,240—among the highest paid to any woman in the service.

In the States a position at Washington is looked upon as most desirable, but except for the highest positions, and for the name of it, no ambitious man or woman who desires to secure a competence by middle life should consider a place in the departments.

There are nearly six thousand classified clerkships in the departments, and many thousands of ungraded positions. Clerks of the first class receive $1,200 per year; of the second, $1,400; of the third, $1,600; of the fourth class, $1,800. In ungraded positions, salaries range from $700 to $1,000.

Chief clerks receive from $1,800 to $2,700; stenographers and translators of languages from $1,200 to $2,000; copyists from $60 to $75 per month. Thirty days’ vacation, without loss of salary, is allowed each year, and in case of violent illness no pay is deducted.

Hundreds of fine young men, well educated, who ought to be in the manufacturing businesses of our country where they could develop, tamely accept from $700 to $1,000 a year for mechanical work. In the last few years there has been wonderful improvement in the work done by department people. In 1885 I was impressed by the flirtations in corners, the half hours which were wasted in visiting by people receiving government money. But few are idle now—at least, where a visitor can see. They are all at their desks promptly at 9 A.M.; they work till 4 P.M., with half an hour at noon for luncheon. No bank records as to punctuality, regularity, and diligence can be more closely kept than those of the departments. There are so many who are eager to take an idler’s place that no one dares to fritter away his or her time.

It is said that if a woman banks on her femininity with chiefs of divisions, or has unusual Senatorial backing, she may dare to take some liberties—she may be idle or incompetent, and not be reported; but these cases grow fewer in number.

Now, as to civil service examination. No one can get into the classified service without it; but in most places, when one has passed the highest examination, it takes Congressional influence to get a position. Whatever may be the conditions in the future, there never has been a time when influence was more used than in the session of Congress ending July 1, 1902. In making up the Bureau of Permanent Census, it was not merit but influence which secured a place. Merit, of course, helps everywhere, but in the session referred to three-fourths influence to one-fourth merit were necessary to secure any position.

There were twenty places to fill in the Congressional Library, where it is claimed influence counts least. Eighteen hundred people applied for the twenty places, and of course those with Senatorial influence were appointed. No doubt their qualifications also entered into the account.

Seven hours, frequently spent in close, confined rooms, doing work which brings no mental improvement, often with a fretful, over-critical chief, anxious to get an incumbent out in order to put in his own friend, does not look to me like a desirable position.

It is evidently intended to give places more and more to men who can go home and help manage elections. It will not be until woman suffrage prevails in the States that women will have an equal opportunity with men, even in the work world. Then department people are ever anxious about their places. At each change of Congress new people _must_ be taken care of, and much more is this true when the Executive is changed. The Washington _Post_ of July 15, 1902, has this editorial:

The latest civil service order of President Roosevelt is addressed to this evil. One can not avoid wishing that it had been issued early in December, 1901, instead of in July, 1902—before, instead of after, a long session of Congress, during which the “pull” was industriously plied with the usual results. But “better late than never.” It is a good order, and its influence should be seen and felt in the improvement of the service. Altho it was printed in the _Post_ as soon as it was made public, it will bear reproduction. Here it is:

No recommendation for the promotion of any employee in the classified service shall be considered by any officer concerned in making promotions except it be made by the officer or officers under whose supervision or control such employee is serving; and such recommendation by any other person with the knowledge and consent of the employee shall be sufficient cause for debarring him from the promotion proposed, and a repetition of the offense shall be sufficient cause for removing him from the service.

When we speak of that order or rule as good, we mean to say that it will prove so if faithfully and impartially enforced; otherwise, it may only aggravate existing wrongs. For example, suppose three clerks, A, B, and C, in the same division are aspirants for promotion to fill a vacancy in a higher grade. Suppose each of them to have very influential friends, whose recommendation, were it proper to use it, might be the controlling factor in the disposal of the prize. But A and B obey that rule, relying on their respective records, while C quietly hints to his friend or friends that a little boosting would do him a great service. A personal call on the official “under whose supervision or control such employee is serving”—a personal call by Senator X or some other statesman of weight—ensues, and C is promoted as a result of that call. That is what has happened in almost numberless cases. Will it stop now? If “yes,” the President’s order will prove a great promoter of reform in the civil service; if “no,” it will work in the opposite direction.

I took this editorial to a number of leading people in the departments. “Yes,” they said, “something like that usually comes out about this time of the year when Congress has adjourned. Even if President Roosevelt means what he says, it can scarcely be executed. The system is so complex, with so many wheels within wheels, that patronage can hardly be stopped. If a chief fails to promote a Senator’s niece, Mr. Chief will be apt to lose his own place, and this consideration brings wisdom.”

When a man or a woman has been four or five years in a clerical government office, he or she is scarcely fit for any other kind of place. In that time has been lost ingenuity, resourcefulness, adaptation, how to placate or please the public, and, above all, confidence to fight in the great battle of industries; consequently, when dismissed, the former place-holder hangs about Washington, hoping for another situation. One can see more forlorn, vanquished soldiers of fortune in the national capital than in any other city of its size in the world.

If one desires to make a living only, and not lay up for a rainy day, or if one has clerical talent only, then a Washington position might be desirable; but when one sees great, able-bodied men opening and shutting doors for a salary, or a man capable of running a foundry operating an elevator in a government building, it disgusts him with the strife for place. Government clerkships may be desirable for women, but few of them should claim the ability of first-class men. It is commercial death to become once established in a department at Washington.

The government has many first-class scientists in its employ, people with technical knowledge. These are the rare souls who, while they know more than their fellow men, care less for money, and have neither time nor ability to make it. For such men a good position in the Agricultural, Geological, Smithsonian, Educational, Indian, or other scientific departments is desirable, but for no other class.

In no other place than Washington can one better see the fact illustrated that once in each generation the wheel of fortune makes a complete revolution, turning down those at the top and turning up those who are down. In the departments are now many widows and daughters of men who were prominent in Civil War times. One woman eighty-two years of age was during the war the wife of a great general. She now sits at a department desk from nine to four daily, and no one does better work.

The old charge of immorality among the women of departments is now seldom heard in Washington. Among the thousands there must be a few black sheep, but women have ways of making life so uncomfortable for a derelict that she prefers to resign and occupy a less public position. No Congressional influence can shelter her head from the scorn of other women.

Corruption is more likely to originate with chiefs of subdivisions, as in the recent case of young Ayres of the Census Bureau, who was killed, and Mrs. Bonine, who was acquitted of his murder. The trial was a mere farce, for society felt that whoever killed the vile libertine who had used his place to seduce or browbeat young girls had served society. Justifiable homicide would doubtless be the verdict should death strike a few others. Such cases are, however, rarer than in commercial communities. The people of the departments largely constitute the membership of the churches of Washington. Senators and Congressmen, with their wives, do not bring letters from their home churches, but the department people do. The latter practically support the churches and the religious institutions and religious work of the district.

XIV INCIDENTS IN AND OUT OF THE DEPARTMENTS

“I must go down to the Census Office to hold a scrub-woman in her place,” said a Western Congressman to me. He added: “Let me tell you about her. She does not belong to my State, but you will not be surprised that I propose to hold her in her poor place, which brings $40 per month, when I explain her case. She is the widow of a regular army officer. Her husband in the Civil War was twice promoted for personal bravery. His native town presented him with a sword as a tribute of his courage. His widow scrubs floors along with colored people, and his only daughter does menial service twelve hours a day in the printing-office. Of course the widow is too old for a Civil Service place, and that is the best I can do for her. She has no G. A. R. influence, her husband was so long a regular that she has no State back of her. I am glad to do what I can.”

Not long ago the beauty of a country town, let us say of Texas, was brought to Washington for a place. Her Congressman’s quota of positions was full; he knew, however, of one place which was ably filled by a Southern woman who came here with President Johnson’s family as instructor for his grandchildren. President Johnson had, before leaving, secured her a place in a department, and now the Texan asked her official head in the interest of the beauty. The girl was bright, flippant, and loud. She used her first month’s wages to obtain a red velvet dress cut square in the neck to show her white, firm skin. She did her work fairly well, but one day people in her department heard a scream, and they also heard some one getting a severe slapping of the face amid cries of “I have a big brother in Texas, and it will take him only two days to get here, and he’ll beat the life out of you!” etc.