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." 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.

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.