highest bureau chief, clear down to the maid who scrubs Department halls,

the night watchmen of the public buildings and the darkey boy who

purifies the Department spittoons--represents Political Influence.

Unless you can get the ear of a Senator, or a Congressman, or a Chief of

a Bureau or Department, and persuade him to use his "influence" in your

behalf, you cannot get an employment of the most trivial nature in

Washington. Mere merit, fitness and capability, are useless baggage to

you without "influence." The population of Washington consists pretty

much entirely of government employee and the people who board them.

There are thousands of these employees, and they have gathered there from

every corner of the Union and got their berths through the intercession

(command is nearer the word) of the Senators and Representatives of their

respective States. It would be an odd circumstance to see a girl get

employment at three or four dollars a week in one of the great public

cribs without any political grandee to back her, but merely because she

was worthy, and competent, and a good citizen of a free country that

"treats all persons alike." Washington would be mildly thunderstruck at

such a thing as that. If you are a member of Congress, (no offence,) and

one of your constituents who doesn't know anything, and does not want to

go into the bother of learning something, and has no money, and no

employment, and can't earn a living, comes besieging you for help, do you

say, "Come, my friend, if your services were valuable you could get

employment elsewhere--don't want you here?" Oh, no: You take him to a

Department and say, "Here, give this person something to pass away the

time at--and a salary"--and the thing is done. You throw him on his

country. He is his country's child, let his country support him. There

253

The Gilded Age