Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 161, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 July 1911 — Rural Carriers and Clerks in Indiana to Get Increase. [ARTICLE]

Rural Carriers and Clerks in Indiana to Get Increase.

It has been announced at the Postoffice Department at Washington that a new scale of salaries, carrying large increases, will be issued shortly, affecting the rural letter carriers and postoffice clerks in Indiana. No definite statement was made as to the amounts of the increases or the names of those who will receive them, the last being at present in the hands of the postmaster general pending approval.

In the postoffice department appropriation bill passed at the last session of congress a clause was inserted setting the maximum salaries to be paid to a rural carrier at SI,OOO a year. In adopting the clause it was the intention of congress to raise the salaries of all rural carriers. Rumors to the effect that Postmaster General Hitchcock would (arbitrarily overrule the spirit of the law by increasing the salaries only of certain classes of the carriers have been numerous.

The announcement that the Indiana rural carriers will get an increase in salary tends to belie the reports, however. The new scale of wages will be announced during the present week, but all the increases will be effective from July 1.

This order, it is understood, applies only to all rural routes twenty-five miles or more in length. All the routes leading out of Rensselaer exceed that distance, which will mean on increase from S9OO to SI,OOO per year for the four carriers.