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." Conditions have not changed in 1909.
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.