And State Papers n 



is caused by the entirely well-meaning people who 

 ask him to do what he can not possibly do. For 

 the first few weeks after the inauguration a new 

 President may receive on an average fifteen hundred 

 letters a day. His mail is so enormous that often 

 he can not read one letter in a hundred, and rarely 

 can he read one letter in ten. Even his private sec 

 retary can read only a small fraction of the mail. 

 Often there are letters which the President would 

 really be glad to see, but which are swamped in the 

 great mass of demands for office, demands for pen 

 sions, notes of warning or advice, demands for 

 charity, and requests of every conceivable character, 

 not to speak of the letters from "cranks," which are 

 always numerous in the President's mail. 



One President, who was very anxious to help 

 people whenever he could, made the statement that 

 the requests for pecuniary aid received in a single 

 fortnight would, if complied with, have eaten up con 

 siderably more than his entire year's salary. The 

 requests themselves are frequently such as the 

 President would like to comply with if there was any 

 way of making'a discrimination ; but there is none. 



One rather sad feature of the life of a President 

 is the difficulty of making friends, because almost 

 inevitably after a while the friend thinks there is 

 some office he would like, applies for it, and when 

 the President is obliged to refuse, feels that he has 

 been injured. Those who were closest to Abraham 

 Lincoln have said that this was one of the things 

 which concerned him most in connection with his 



