Speaking of clerks, it is to be regretted that the young men of this district should, early in life, accept of a clerkship, instead of setting out at once for themselves, whereby they can be more independent and have a better prospect of rising in the world as respectable men and useful ones too, than a clerkship can ever afford them. I was told that it was no very uncommon sight to see in a day one hundred such young men in office hours, walking the streets, standing in refectories, drinking spirits, or lounging about the lobbies of the two houses, or sauntering about the rotundo with an umbrella over their heads, leading about some female friend! I was told also, that while these loafers were thus engaged, the older clerks and older men with families to support, were over worked in their several offices. One hundred such clerks with high salaries, (often the highest ones) ought to be dismissed in a day, and substitutes found in the western states, who have almost nothing here in the departments. Such a state of things would sink any administration in the estimation of all the West.
I give this story for what it is worth, and for the sake of unity, in relation to the appointment of clerks, whose residence is in the District, we relate here another anecdote, which, in order of time belongs to a more recent era than the early part of our present visit. On the morning of the day when Messrs. Gilmer and Wilkins were nominated to the Senate, for the purpose of getting those nominations made that day, I called at the White House very early in the morning, and being the first on the spot by half an hour, the President, in accordance with his usual politeness towards me, directed the messenger to give to me, as the first one that morning whom he would see, the key of the door that led to the President’s room, up stairs. I took the key and opened the door, putting my hand against the door case to prevent an ugly old woman getting ahead of me, on my way to see the President; but the old lady stooping under my arm and running before me, cried out aloud, “W...... ought to be clerk, W...... ought to be clerk.” She kept before me, running a race, thus proclaiming, at the top of her voice, until she reached the President’s room, where seating herself without leave or licence, she continued her clamor for some minutes.--Finally, finding no opportunity to be alone with the Chief Magistrate, I opened to him my business, notwithstanding the presence of this old witch of Endor. She declared that “although they had lived in the District almost one whole year, yet during all that long period they had procured no office yet.” They had kept boarders, for which they had received only thirteen dollars a week for each boarder! They had been compelled, it seems, to hire a man at ten dollars a month, to wait on the boarders! yet neither her husband nor her son-in-law had received any office yet. Hearing that two Secretaries were to be nominated that day, she modestly insisted on “her husband’s being a clerk under one of them.” The President told her, “that he had nothing to do with such appointments, which he left to the Secretaries to make.” It seems, from the best information I could obtain, that women, belonging to this District, and parts of Maryland and Virginia near Washington, come here, constantly soliciting offices for their sons, husbands and other relatives. That they have often succeeded, is evident enough to the public injury, and to the injury of the public officers themselves. Were the same rules adopted now, that Jefferson and Madison adhered to formerly, a vast deal of personal inconvenience to the President would be avoided. The Presidents, to whom I have referred, required that all applications for offices should be made in writing. If the office was derived from the President and Senate, the application had to be made to the President; but if the office applied for came from a Secretary, then he only was addressed, but it must be in writing. A story has been for some time past running around the whole Union, during the last year, in relation to the appointment of a clerk. The tale itself is derived, we presume, from some officer here, yet is doubtless wholly untrue. Could that officer be believed, a woman, residing in or near the District, frequently called to see the President, in order to get her husband appointed a clerk. After many vain attempts to accomplish her wishes, she is represented as having succeeded at last by informing the Chief Magistrate, “that her husband was entirely helpless in his bed from sickness, and that she and her children must come to want unless her husband was appointed a clerk!”