Rensselaer Republican, Volume 25, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 December 1892 — POSTAL SERVICE. [ARTICLE]

POSTAL SERVICE.

Pastmaster-GeseralWaaaamak= er's Report. ~ Operation* of the Department and What li Needed to Bring It Cp to j—- ; > HU Ideal, -/ -t— ■ ■■-■■"■ The Postmaster-GeneTal’s annual report to the President was made public on the sth. At the beginning Mr. Wannamaker mcantions the chief devclopemeuta of the year as follows: Five million dollars added to the gross revenue, the Solicit reduepd nearly 11,000,000; money order offices increased twothirds, or from 10,070 to 16,689; eighty-two cities supplied with free delivery; 2,700 new offices established, 263 offices advanced to Presidential grade; 16,760,000 miles of additional service; 1,598 new mail routes of new mail service established, embracing 8, 0) miles of new service; Ocean mail servico exiended, and six pneumatic tuba, services introduced. It appears that in theJast four years 5,( 51 new mail routes have been established, traversing 29,660 miles that tho number of postodices has grown by over 8,6t.0; the number of money order offices over 8,200, aud the number of free delivery oltices has almost doubled The report discussed at length the foreign mail servico, tho CO per cent., increase iu money order offices, tho 50 per cent, increase in free delivery offices and various other advances that have been made. Oil theffree delivery tho Postmaster-General says; "Theexperiments have related to villages, but it lias been a daily service and it has cleared a pro lit. It is easy enough, therefore, to say that the free delivery should bo extended further and further; and it ought to be done whether it pays a profit to the department or not. Pboffeve fully that great advances could — ho made in tho direction of country free delivery by an evolution of the star-route service, and wo would see free delivery to” persons living along the highways traversed bjvho star-route contractors with litth) if any increased cost to the department in a very few years.” J In tho matter of the collection of mail from letterboxes at house doors, Mr. W unnaiuaker says; "In Washington City, where the test of one of thoso boxos was made fora mouth, an hour or more per day was saved to tho carrier, and in st. Louis, where tho test of another one of theso boxes was purposoly made as hard as possible, it was found that there was actually no loss of timo. and the postmastersof St. Louis and Washington promptly and unqualifiedly declared that the collection of mail from houses could he undertaken by tho present carrier forces. The work of introducing the house letter box The report closes with the following: "My ideal for the , nnrieati postal service is a system modoled upon a district plan, with fewer offices.and those grouped around central offices and under thorough supervision. B.y this moans at. least twenty thousand officos can bo abandoned that produce nothing to the department. In thojilaceof every abolished non-inonoy-order and non-registor office might bu put an automatic stamp selling much'no and a letter box to receive mail. With tho money saved should be instituted a system of colleetffin and delivery by mounted carriers, bicycles and star route and messenger contractors, and gradually spread the free delivery all over the country. Tho classes of postago should be reduced to Three, and the sale of postage to the world over to one cent Tor each half ounce, for ThfT "average weight of a loiter is now three-o ght.hs of an ounce. I would indemnify to the extent of $lO for every lost registered letter. “The organization of the department should bn permanent,, except In the cases of tho Postmaster General and the fourth assistant, and I would add three new offices-—a Deputy Postmaster General to lie stationed at New York 7 a deputy Postmaster General to lie stationed at, San Francisco, and a controller to be stationed at tho department in Washington. All postmasters, presidential and onrth class, and all employes in all branches of tho department should have a specific term of four vears, on good behavior, and thoir reappointment, should bo subject, to the controller of the department,, whoso.judgment, should he based on records. I would unify the work, hold It up by a strong controlling hand, reduce tho hours of almost all eunalize and advance the pay. ina+ie tho fifomofions in every branch for merit alone, and retire old or disahlod . jileKks^,oai'.liaps* provided bv an annual payment of onehalf of I per cent, out of each month’s -alary.— ' , "Postal telegraph and telephono service. postal savingsdeposilories..phmunatic tubes or some electrical dovico betwoon .■itv substations and main offices, ferrios. raili'oad stations and central offices in all large cities should he employed without delav. The erection of immense costly huildings for postoffices ought' t,o be stopped, and tho department, ought to he allowed to expend a flxel stun of from sl,<!oo,<X)o to $5,000 039 each year in the erection of buildings upon a lixed plan, such as Postmaster-General Vilas recommended. I would grant largor discretion to the head of the department to experiment witli postal inventions and tlx stated periods in the order of business of tho House and Senate postolfieo committees to call upon tho PoJtmastor-Goneral for Information and censuro alike, at which time too, he could have an opportunity. within right, limitation, to prosent postal snblects. It would modify the system of tines and deductions upon railroads, and establish a system of compensation based upon speed—twenty, thirty forty, fifty, sixty mile nit hour rates. By ♦ Ids means railroad compensation would pot, cost any more, and we should soon be running mall trains between New York* and Chicago In fifteen or sixteen hours, and hot ween New York and Boston In four hours. Mall trains may movo faster than anv other trains. The question or pay is all that is to bo considoroi.”