Postal service

“ How the Post Office Department Helps the Farmer
Of all the great Executive Departments, the Post Office comes closest to the people and is of particular interest to the farmer living away from the great avenues of postal service supply. The Postmaster General, from his service in Congress, where the needs of the farmer are known, coupled with the opportunities of his present position, was able to render him a great service, and that he has done so, that his administration has shown his successful efforts in this direction cannot be questioned nor denied. ”

“ In any case, a postal service should be limited to parcels of moderate size and weight, because the Post Office, as at present organized, is for the most part adapted to the handling of packets which can be delivered by foot-messengers. In rural [Pg 332] districts this is almost universally the rule. [666] It is frequently necessary in the towns to separate entirely the parcel post traffic from the ordinary light letter post traffic (except in those parts of the service where the parcel post traffic is very restricted) , to provide a separate staff, and to furnish different equipment. ”

“ The Postal Service shall have as its basic function the obligation to provide postal services to bind the Nation together through the personal, educational, literary, and business correspondence of the people. It shall provide prompt, reliable, and efficient services to patrons in all areas and shall render postal services to all communities. The costs of establishing and maintaining the Postal Service shall not be apportioned to impair the overall value of such service to the people. ”

“ To-day many thousands of letters and postal packets are being sent to and received from the troops of the British Expeditionary Force in France, yet it is a simple fact that [Pg 8] but a small percentage of the civilian population in this country knows anything of the existence, far less of the workings, of the Army Postal Service as an organisation separate and distinct from the postal department of the home Government. ”

“ Under the growing differentiation of industry there is a steadily growing demand for a door-to-door express service of parcels ordered by telephone, telegram, or by mail. The business can not be done by private express companies to the public satisfaction. Their machinery does not reach the rural districts. An extended postal service is the only public choice. ”

“ The fourth-class postmaster could, however, greatly benefit himself, even under present methods, by making an earnest and industrious effort to develop the parcel post idea in his community, embracing the opportunities of his official relation to the service by encouraging and taking an active part in every detail of postal management, of which, just now, the parcel post is so conspicuous a feature and whose more extended use among the people would so greatly advance his official as well as his personal interest. ”

“ The great success of rural delivery is peculiarly the farmers triumph. He is now on a par with his neighbor in the cities in all that enterprising postal service can give. Taken both together, the widely admitted success of the Parcel Post as well as the rural delivery, a chapter of achievement has been written of which the Department is justly proud and against which criticism can find no ground for righteous complaint. ”

“ The efficiency of the postal service, it is believed, has also been much improved. The Postmaster-General has also opened a correspondence through the Department of State with foreign governments proposing a convention of postal representatives for the purpose of simplifying the rates of foreign postage and to expedite the foreign mails. This proposition, equally important to our adopted citizens and to the commercial interests of this country, has been favorably entertained and agreed to by all the governments from whom replies have been received. ”

“ In France, as the postmarks already illustrated denote, the British Army Postal Service has several grades of post offices. The chief is the Base Post Office, the principal sorting establishment for all mail matter passing between our British Post Office and the Army Postal Service. The Base Office is quite a large concern and has a vast amount of clerical work to perform. In it letters are sorted, letters taking precedence over all other mail matter, after which the newspapers, and lastly the parcels are dealt with. ”

“ In spite of the increase in the number of post offices there were still in 1880 as many as 19 million people, the greater half of the whole nation, and 17,000 localities, outside the limits of the postal service. ”

“ At places where railroad companies are required to take the mails from and deliver them into post offices or postal stations or to transfer them to connecting railroads, the persons employed to perform such service are agents of the companies and not employees of the postal service, and need not be sworn ”

“ This is only one way in which you can be independent of the ordinary mail service. I suspect that many persons who have not a Postal Guide in their possession are ignorant of the fact that a letter weighing 4 oz. may be handed in at a passenger station for immediate transmission by railway. This is a convenience to many people who have lost the post and are near a railway station. Then you can use the telephone to speed up your mail service. You can telephone a letter to a post office, and it will be taken down in writing there and despatched by express delivery. ”

“ The United States Postal Service shall be operated as a basic and fundamental service provided to the people by the Government of the United States, authorized by the Constitution, created by Act of Congress, and supported by the people. ”

“ The genius of the American Postal System is found in the harmonious cooperation of its several parts, in direction and in operation; wise policy and purpose as seen in the formulation of plans, with willing assistance in operation to render such plans effective. The Postmaster General directs the policy, the bureau heads execute what is determined upon and the benefit or failure is seen in practical administration. All alike share in achievement, the mind that conceives, the heads that direct, and the force upon whose faithful and intelligent effort the outcome depends. ”

“ The last and greatest need of the postal service is the total and complete elimination of partisan considerations as affecting appointments and removals in the working force. The spoils method invariably brings into the service a lot of do-nothings or a race of experimenters, whose performances never fail to breed disaster and to crush out substantial progress. ”

“ A great deal of loss and inconvenience could be avoided, and much labor and expense saved for the postal service, if every one would see that every piece of mail sent out is properly addressed and stamped, and has a return address in the upper left-hand corner. ”

“ Work who had direct supervision of the 52,000 post-offices and more than two-thirds of all postal workers. By persistent efforts to build up the spirit of the great army of postal workers and bring the public and the post-office into closer contact and more intimate relationship, the postal system has been placed at last on a footing of service to the public. ”

“ Great Britain, usually so quick to adopt reforms in the postal service, and to which Government we are indebted for various improvements in our service—the postage-stamp, money-order, postal-car, carrier-system, postal-card, etc.—was the last of the European countries to establish the system. ”

“ Well, the Postoffice Department employs a large force—a vast army of men, and some women, I believe. Counting the employes in its legal, purchasing and inspection divisions with the postmasters, assistant postmasters, railway and office clerks, city and rural carriers, messengers, etc., there must be somewhere around 330,000 people employed in our federal postal service. ”

“ From this blank agency has grown the Division of Supplies, which furnishes all supplies needed except mail bags, locks and keys, which come under the equipment branch, of which this division is a part. Supplies are sent to postmasters upon requisitions made out upon blank forms furnished for the purpose. These requisitions are carefully revised by clerks and allowances made conformably to practice and customs. Money order and postal note requisitions are also handled in this division. Supplies are required in enormous quantities for public use. ”

“ The Postoffice Department is a public service department—a department intended to serve all the people all the time.
2. The people are paying, have paid, and are willing to pay, for their postal service.
3. The people do not care—never have cared—whether the expenditures exceed the receipts by $6,000,000 or $100,000,000, if they get the service for the money expended. ”

“ The postal service of the nation should not be made a revenue-producing service, any more than the War, Navy, Interior, Justice or other departments of the federal service should be made revenue-producers. ”

“ Selection of persons for appointment as substitute letter carriers must be made by the postmaster from the carriers’ eligible register in the manner prescribed by the Civil Service Rules and the nominations submitted to the First Assistant Postmaster General (Division of Free Delivery) , on Form 1101, together with the certificate for original appointment, Postal Service, Form 145, issued by the local Civil Service Board. ”

“ The need for a more general understanding of the purpose of the postal establishment, its internal workings and the problems of operation, is paramount if it is to afford the ultimate service which it is prepared to render. ”

“ There are in France some 36,000 communes, but the parcel post service extends only to some 12,000 railway stations, and only at about one-half of these can parcels be delivered at the residence of the addressee. [432] To a limited extent a service is given in certain localities not directly served by railway. In these cases, which are arranged only with the concurrence of the companies, the service is conducted by the ordinary road carriers. [433] The extension of the service in the rural districts is one of the problems which face the postal administration. ”

“ Work is an exponent of a business administration of the postal service, and representatives of the larger business organizations and Chambers of Commerce, from time to time, are called into conference, in order that the benefit of their suggestions and their experience may be obtained and their fullest co-operation enlisted in the campaign for postal improvement. ”

“ The Postal Service shall provide a program for consultation with recognized organizations of supervisory and other managerial personnel who are not subject to collective-bargaining agreements under chapter 12 of this title. ”

“ The individual postal worker is now considered to be the unit, and the effort to maintain the service at a high standard of efficiency is based upon the betterment of his physical environment and the encouragement of the spirit of partnership by enlisting his intelligent interest in the problems of management and recognizing his real value to the postal organization. ”

“ Any person, when engaged in carrying mail under contract with the Postal Service, or employed by the Postal Service, is deemed a carrier or person entrusted with the mail and having custody thereof, within the meaning of sections 1701, 1708, and 2114 of title 18. ”

“ The third is where a letter or parcel is addressed to a patron at a post office giving the route number and the number of the patron’s box. The fourth system is where mail is addressed to the patron at an office giving the section and township where the patron lives. This latter system is used by the railroads relative to freight and express matter and definitely locates a person in any part of the United States. The addition of the rural route number and box makes the most complete designation possible. ”

“ It brought their interests and endeavors to a common meeting point. It brought the leading men and women to know and exchange ideas one with another. Printing presses were established about the same time that the postal service was begun in America. Postmasters enjoyed the privilege of sending their mail free of postage, so most postmasters became publishers. In this way the news of the doings of the various jealous colonists was disseminated and the opinions of these early postmaster-publishers were given wide circulation. It added an incentive to trade and intercourse. ”