Evening Republican, Volume 23, Number 155, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 June 1920 — BLIND WOMAN VETERAN U. S. MAIL BAG FIXER [ARTICLE]

BLIND WOMAN VETERAN U. S. MAIL BAG FIXER

Miss Pattie Maddux Sets New Record for Work at Washington. Although blind. Miss Pattie Maddux is the veteran member of Unele Sam’s force employed in repairing “bum” mail bags that have been incapacitated for service by the wear and tear in hauling letters and parcel post. Her job is replacing new cords in salvaged mail containers, for which she is paid $3.60 a day. Miss Maddux is sixty-two years old and has been in the employ of the government for 32 years. She is only one of an organization of 285 men and women assigned to the task of manufacturing, and repairing the mail bags and locks used in the postal service throughout the United States. The post office department is in the manufacturing business, as witnessed by the output of the mall equipment shops in 1919: Made 472,350 new sacks at a cost of SBO,OOO under the lowest bid received from commercial concerns ; produced 10,368 pieces of equipment and attachments for other government departments and for the postal service in the Philippine islands; repaired 2,532,632 bags at a cost of 7.4 cents apiece; and salvaged 13,900 old pouched by- fitting them with new heads. Then, too, Uncle Sam manufactures and repairs his own mail locks. The cost of repair has been reduced from 18 cents to less than 8 cents apiece. Approximately 1,000,000 locks of lighter weight have been placed in the service. Manufacturers formerly rented the post department various parts of machines, the rental amounting to $300,000 a year. Today, housed, in a new $200,000 fire-proof, concrete building, the mail equipment shop is a complete manufacturing establishment —from a carpenter shop to automatic, labor-saving machinery. And, finally, did you know this shop consumed 70 carloads, or 2,100,000 pounds of twine during the fiscal year?