But at least we can
try to minimize the exhibition of these qualities. I once came across
a case in Washington which very keenly excited my sympathy. Under an
Administration prior to the one with which I was connected a lady had
been ousted from a Government position. She came to me to see if she
could be reinstated. (This was not possible, but by active work I did
get her put back in a somewhat lower position, and this only by an
appeal to the sympathy of a certain official.) She was so pallid and so
careworn that she excited my sympathy and I made inquiries about
her. She was a poor woman with two children, a widow. She and her two
children were in actual want. She could barely keep the two children
decently clad, and she could not give them the food growing children
need. Three years before she had been employed in a bureau in a
department of Washington, doing her work faithfully, at a salary of
about $800. It was enough to keep her and her two children in clothing,
food, and shelter. One day the chief of the bureau called her up and
told her he was very sorry that he had to dismiss her. In great
distress she asked him why; she thought that she had been doing her work
satisfactorily.
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