“What’s your hurry?” he would ask, on seeing you returning to your work after lunch, or at any time. “No need for you to rush around and kill yourself. When you cheat the government you are only cheating yourself—taking what really belongs to you, your own property.”
He certainly lived up to his own preaching. In the whole six weeks that I was on that job I never saw him do so much as an hour’s work. When he was not lolling back, his chair on its two hind legs, smoking an expensive cigar, he was strolling along the corridors smoking or talking with anybody he could buttonhole. He was a great man for “ordering” supplies for the department—pencils, paper, printed blanks of every known variety, in short anything that he could think of, or that was suggested to him. Because my eyes were giving me trouble I borrowed an eye-shade and wore it while at work. This man caught a glimpse of me and at once sent in a written order for eye-shades for every worker in the department, including himself. When the shades came and were distributed everybody, excepting myself and the man, tossed them aside with scorn. Up to the very day of his discharge this man made a point of wearing his eye-shade when strolling along the corridors smoking. To-day among my “exhibits” I treasure a green celluloid eye-shade, paid for by the United States.
In this federal job my work at first was winnowing out and getting together the papers of drafted men whose claim for exemption had to be passed on by the District Board. And such claims as many of them did set forth!—reasons why they should not be called on to fight for their country. They called themselves men!
It was from these papers that I learned a new use for a wife—to help her husband evade draft duty. The variety of these dependent ones was almost as great as their number. One was dependent because her husband paid fifteen thousand a year for an apartment in which to keep her. The husband of this expensive dependent was a composer of popular music, who described himself as a “creative artist,” and he gave his yearly income at such a very low figure that the greatest of the many surprises in his paper was that he was able to pay his rent. That man’s papers were so absurd, for, while pleading his inability to support his wife if he was forced to go to the front, he boasted of the huge sums he had received in royalties, so that I always had a suspicion that they were prepared by his publicity agent with his tongue in his cheek.
Another proud possessor of a dependent wife was the son of a millionaire bread-maker. His application proved him to be in such dire poverty that we all decided he had made a mistake—instead of being the son of a bread-maker, he must have been the son of a bread-line.
Unfortunately for the evaders their wives were not always so complacent. One man made out a very good case—his wife was delicate, their baby less than two years old, and his salary small. Alas for his hopes! His father-in-law also sent an affidavit with the necessary number of witnesses. He proved that this dearly beloved dependent wife had been deserted by her now affectionate husband six months after marriage—the father-in-law had supported both mother and child. This old man stated plainly that he would be very grateful to get his son-in-law sent out of the country, and kept out—he did not specify on which battle-field.
When Alice left me I felt sure that never again would I meet a person with such an exalted opinion of a college education. That was an error. I was yet to meet two more. The first of these two appealed to me the day that our department was moved up-stairs—the top floor of the old Post-Office Building. In appearance he was an unusually fine-looking man of about twenty-five—a blond, and slightly under six feet in height. He was the picture of health, well fed and exceptionally well groomed.
Stopping in the door he glanced around and chanced to catch my eyes. Smiling he walked across and greeted me with great cordiality. He wished very much to know just how his case stood, he explained, and was sure that I could assist him materially. I had not read his papers, so I asked him for an outline of his case, as well as his name and address. On learning these particulars my face must have expressed a lack of enthusiasm in his cause, for he hastened to add:
“It’s like this—if I’d thought I was going to be drafted, I would have enlisted. Now all I ask ’em is to let me enlist.”
“Now that you are drafted why do you wish to enlist?” I asked, for this was a new type of an evader to me.