“The average loading of the postoffice car, according to the testimony before the Commission is 2 tons. It must be admitted, in view of the great weight of these cars, that such loadingpays little regard to the requirements of economy. It is doubtful if, on the basis of such loading, the railways could afford to carry mail at a rate much cheaper than it is now carried. On the other hand, if cars were loaded with 3½ tons, which Mr. Davis says is an easy load, or should the average load go as high as 6 tons, which, according to testimony, is accomplished on the Pennsylvania Railroad by a special train, I am confident thatrailways operate upon a margin of profit in carrying mail that warrants a reduction in pay.“For the purpose of emphasizing the importance of loading as essential to the determination of railway mail compensation, as well as to suggest the line of desired improvement in the present railway mail service, it may be added that were it possible to load 5 tons in a car, the expense would be reduced to $1,766 per mile of line; that is to say, a sum less than one-half the amount actually paid.”
“The average loading of the postoffice car, according to the testimony before the Commission is 2 tons. It must be admitted, in view of the great weight of these cars, that such loadingpays little regard to the requirements of economy. It is doubtful if, on the basis of such loading, the railways could afford to carry mail at a rate much cheaper than it is now carried. On the other hand, if cars were loaded with 3½ tons, which Mr. Davis says is an easy load, or should the average load go as high as 6 tons, which, according to testimony, is accomplished on the Pennsylvania Railroad by a special train, I am confident thatrailways operate upon a margin of profit in carrying mail that warrants a reduction in pay.
“For the purpose of emphasizing the importance of loading as essential to the determination of railway mail compensation, as well as to suggest the line of desired improvement in the present railway mail service, it may be added that were it possible to load 5 tons in a car, the expense would be reduced to $1,766 per mile of line; that is to say, a sum less than one-half the amount actually paid.”
Dr. Adams in the foregoing was presenting a judgmentalsummary, or digest, of the testimony before the Wolcott Commission on this “railway-mail-pay” question. His opinion, or conclusion, as to the dominant factors involved, has been recognized as authority—if not final authority—on the points to which he spoke.
Now, let us figure a little more. I’m not much at “ciferin.” Maybe the reader can help me along. Let’s get properly started.
Those rail “postoffice cars,” of which Dr. Adams spoke, are from 40 to 55 feet or more in length. They must weigh, empty, or “stripped,” figuring running trucks, body, etc.,forty to one-hundred or more thousand pounds. So, according to Dr. Adams, this twenty to fifty ton vehicle is sent hurtling over a hundred or a five-hundred mile run on a steel track with finest and most modern engine or motive power, baggage and express cars ahead, and sleepers, buffet, diner and observation cars trailing,to carry two tons of United States mailin each mail car in the train.
Oh yes, I know that Dr. Adams spoke some years ago (1901, I believe), and spoke of the “average load” of mail carried by mail cars then. I also know that our present Postmaster General has “gone after” this railway mail car raiding—has made them carry more load. All praise to him for doing so. It was an action whichanyof his predecessors had the power to have taken, and which should save millions of postal revenues.
The department report for 1910 (P157), states, there were 1,114 full and 3,208 apartment postal cars in service—rentedcars—while there were 206 of the former and 559 of the latter (a total of 765), kept in “reserve.” That makes a total of 5,087 postal cars for which the government pays rent.
There is, however, another strong presumption—with some very robust facts which investigation has uncovered—that a considerable number of the so-called “reserve” cars are in the hospitals about railroad shops, where such patients receive little but “open air treatment.” In “emergencies” it is legitimate, of course, to presume that the division traffic manager may order out or put on the rails any of these hospital cars, “full” or “apartment,” as first aids to the injured. And it is right that he does so.
But why, in the name of George Washington, should all these hospital cars be charged up to the Postoffice Department? Yes, why?
Oh, yes, I know that they are all in “service” or “reserve”—all subject to department orders. But when one looks down from the ladder top into these shop-hospital yards for car patients, he not unfrequently sees, unless he is freakishly nearsighted or a victim of a new brand of strabismus, an old “flat-wheeler” which bears a marked resemblance to one that he used to, in days agone (long agone), pause, while husking the “down-row,” and gaze at in admiration as well as wonderment. Of course, it did not wear “flat wheels” then. It also carries some mars and scars of time, just as The Man on the Ladder carries marks which did not stand out so conspicuously then as now. But there, on its sides, appears, somewhat dimmed by age, that patriotic, stirring designation:U. S. Mail Car.
This is not intended as a criticism. It is merely a suggestion as to where the present or some future Second Assistant Postmaster General may find additionalraidinginto the postal revenues.
A few years since, Professor Parsons asserted, (so the public press declared—I have not the document by me and am writing hurriedly—the Professor will, therefore, excuse me if I mis-spell or misquote. Corrections will be made in later editions) that the railway mail pay and car rental raid amounted to something like $24,000,000 a year.
Speaking again from press reports, Mr. Hitchcock seems to have been going after those raiders. At any rate he appears to have stopped that graft sluiceway to the extent—reports vary—of fromnine to fourteen millions of dollars a year.
Again, Mr. Hitchcock, we say, may your tribe increase—on this line of action.
Now let us return and do a little “red-school-house” figuring on this railroad pay raid. Some pages back, we reprinted Mr. Kirkman’s tables of weight and car rental pay to the railways. You can glance back and verify the figures when you deem necessary. Here “orders” force me to hurry. But in spite of orders a few generalizations in “cipherin,” have to be made.
Many pages back, the Postoffice Department’sowndistribution of mail weights for 1907 (the last preceding “weighing period”), was printed. For ready reference, we will here reprint it.
A few pages back we figured out how a 200-pound mail weight haul stacks against, around and up-to a 200-poundhuman avoirdupoishaul, assuming, of course, that the aforesaid avoirdupois is not casketed with the mail, express or baggage in front. Well, with that understanding, the reader may take my previous statements anent those 200 pounds of U. S. mail matter and human avoirdupois—whether citizen or imported—as made. He should also understand that what was then said fits, of course with a varying application, to the wheatfield, cornfield, oilfield, cottonfield, timber, tobacco and other “feeder” fields, which carry our mails at varying rates of pay for varying weights up to 5,000 pounds.
Now, at the weight of 5,000 pounds (2½ tons), is about where the “postoffice car” enters, and it is to the mail-carriage-pay the railways get for this postoffice car service we wish here to “cipher” on a little. As a start, however, the “example” must be “set.” To do that a little preliminary figuring must be done.
The quadrennial weighing of the mails is now in progress. The last preceding weighing was in 1907. In the interim, however, Mr. Hitchcock, has made some special or test weighing—a good and commendable business movement—of second-class mail.
From these weighings the department, I take it, has arrived at estimated results more or less satisfactory—to itself at least. The 1910 report presents a tabulated tonnage of second-class matter on page 329. A prolix discussion of the cost of handling second-class mail appears on immediately associated pages. The discussion is a masterly, a forensic, production, and, outside of Indiana, the habitat of experts, it may stand out in fair form as a literary production. Our Third Assistant Postmaster General must, though, have got the wires crossed or the gear jammed on his comptometer to have reached those two “answers.”
Sixty-two and a fraction per cent of the total mail is second class.
To haul and handle a pound of second-class mail costs the government nine and a fraction cents.
Now, let us sit down on the veranda, bring out the little red school house slates and do some figuring on this railway pay problem, question, proposition, or whatever the “experts” may choose to call it.
First, there, on page 329 of the 1910 report, it states, “estimated” on the basis of those 1907 “special weighings,” that there were 873,412,077 pounds of second-class mail carried and handled.
Let’s see! Yes, of course, how simple it is. There’s that 1907 table of percentages, a page or so back.
As it was “figured out” in 1907by the people who did the weighing, or who bossed it, we may consider it as dependable as the Third Assistant Postmaster General’s figures on page 329 of the department’s 1910 report.
The reader will please understand me. I do not mean to say that either the 1907 or 1910 reports are dependable.
I wish the reader to understand that I understand, or believe, them both to be merelyguesses—guesses more or less mis-stitched in the knitting and more or less frazzled and threadbare by reason of long service.
But they are what we have to “figger” from.
Page 329 of the 1910 report says:
Total mailings (second-class), 873,412,077 pounds.
The 1907 tabulation of distributed mail weights (see table a few pages back) says that second-class mail, in carriage, is 36.39per centof thetotal mail weight.
Here’s where we put our slates into service.
We’ll first divide (look back at that 1907 table), 873,412,077 pounds by .3638—that being the percentage ofsecond-classto thetotalof mail carried, as reported in the “special weighing” of 1907.
Well, .3638 into 873,412,077 gives us 2,400,802,850poundsas thegross mail weightcarriage in 1910.
That does not look near so large, nor soquestionablypeculiar, as does some other “answers” we are figuring out on our little red school-house slates.
Looking back to that 1907 tabulated estimate, we find that, of the total weight carried—and paid for as mail—.4308 of that total for which we patriotic, likewise confiding, kitchen-garden citizens pay is not mail at all.
A glance at that 1907 tabulation will show us that 43.08 per cent. of thetotal mail weightfor which the government pays is for “equipment” and “empty equipment dispatched.”
Now let’s take our slates again and multiply that total weight 2,400,802,850 pounds by .4308. “Well, what’s your answer?”
One billion, thirty-four million, two hundred forty-five thousand, eight hundred and sixty-eight pounds!
Well, that’s some tonnage, is it not? Of course, as the reader will readily grab hold of, that tonnage is not, in itself, staged as a “feature” in this “ciphering.” This is a big country and its tonnages are big, whether of wheat, corn, pigs, fools, or mail. It is a “curtain” comparison we desire to have noticed and studied. Look at it, study it prayerfully, then put your thinker to work for about thirty seconds.
According to the Postoffice Department’s own figures and estimates, it appears that a total tonnage of 2,400,000,000 pounds (omitting the tail figures), were handled, and the cost of allpaid forby this grand old government of ours.
Next, let us notice that 1,034,000,000 pounds (tail figures again omitted), was not mail at all—sacks, fixtures, etc., etc.
Now, look at it—the result.
Railroads werepaidfor carrying 2,400,000,000 pounds of mail.
Of that total weight1,034,000,000 (nearly half) was“equipment” and “empty” equipment “dispatched.”
Beyond the showing of these figures, comment is scarcely necessary for anyone at all familiar with railway traffic methods and costs—whether the haulage is by slow or fast freight or by express—anyone will see theraidin it.
Look at that haulage of “equipment,” which the postoffice revenues pay for! Pay for as mail. Look it over, and over again and then sit up and do a littlehard thinking.
Waters Pearse, of Pearseville, Texas, ships, say ten or twenty coops of chickens to Chicago. He may ship by express or by fast freight—the latter of course, if “Wat” and his friends have been able to make up a carload. “Wat” consigns his chickens to some Commissionhouse in Kansas City, St. Louis, Chicago or elsewhere. Wherever our friend “Wat” of Pearceville, Texas, ships, or whether he ships by express or by fast freight, his empty coops will be returned to himwithout charge.
If Steve Gingham, in Southern Illinois—“Egypt”—has a hen range and his hens have been busy, Steve will have several cases of eggs to ship every week or ten days. Well, all Steve has to do is to take his cases of eggs over to the railroad station. Some express company will pick them up and take them to Chicago, to St. Louis, to Cincinnati, or other market. In a few days, about the time Steve gets the check for his eggs, he’ll find the cases on the station platform returned to him,without charge.
What we’ve said about our friends, Wat down in Texas, and Steve in “Egypt,” is equally true of any shipment of any sort of specially crated fruit or vegetables, of boxed, bucketed or canned fish, milk, etc., etc. The shipping cases, buckets, boxes or cans are returned to the shipperwithout charge. Yet here is this great government of ours paying the railways for nearly one ton of fixtures and equipment for every ton of mail (all classes), carried. Fixtures, equipment, etc., aggregated, in the weighing of 1907 (see tabulation a page or two back), 43.08 per cent of the total weight for which the government has paid mail-weight rates for four years—paid for hauling those racks, frames, sacks, etc., etc., back and forth over the rail-line haulevery day of the four years.
Railroad people and their representatives have written voluminously, likewisefetchingly, to prove to an easily “bubbled” public that the government has been paying toolittlerather than too much for the rail carriage of its mails. I have read numerous such vestibuled productions. They were all good; top-branch verbiage and rhetoric, so smooth, noiseless and jarless in coupling that the uncritical reader’s sympathies are often aroused, and his conviction or belief enlisted by the sheer massive grandeur of the terminology used. Try almost any of thesepromotionrailway mail-pay talkers and throw the belt on your own thought-mill while you read. Four times in five the ulterior-motive writer or speaker will have you rolling into the roundhouse or repair shop before you know you have even been coupled onto the train. When you emerge, if your thinker is still off its belt, you will find yourself about ready to “argue” that the railroads are very muchunderpaid, if, indeed, not grossly wronged by the government. I would like to quote some of the picture arguments from several of these railway studios but cannot. As illustrative of the generalensembleof these forensic art productions, I will, however, reproduce here a gem from one of them—a bit of verbal canvas so generic and homelike as to class as a bit of realgenre.
The reader will find it in Pearson’s Magazine for June, 1911. Who personally perpetrated it, I know not, and the magazine sayeth not. The editor of Pearson’s, however, assures us that the article from which the following excerpt is made, was “prepared” by the authority and under the direction of the Committee on Railway Mail Pay, and as prominent members of said committee the editor gives the names ofJulius Kruttschnitt, Director of Maintenance and Operation, Union and Southern Pacific Systems;Ralph Peters, President and General Manager, Long Island Railroad;Charles A. Wickersham, President and General Manager, Western Railway of Alabama;W. W. Baldwin, Vice-President, C. B. & Q. Railroad;Frank Barr, Third Vice-President and General Manager of the Boston and Maine Railroad.
That is certainly a representative quintette of railway artists and generally recognized as qualified to produce—verbally—almost anything in railway art, from a freehand tariff to a “car shortage” done in oil while the crops ought to be moving. Am sorry I cannot quote more extendedly. The following, however, will give the reader a sample of the “style” and also of the “argument” common to most of theprotective and promotive railway word pictures:
If, as has been reported, a certain railroad president ever did utter the famous phrase attributed to him, “the public be damned,” the public has more than gotten even. It does the damning itself nowadays instead, and so effective is its verdict that we are even confronted with the spectacle of the government itself bowing to the popular prejudice irrespective of the facts in the case. Undoubtedly we have become a nation of stone-throwers. To a certain extent this has worked for the public benefit. Every deserved stone has worked for the correction of admitted evils. But so rapidly has the public taken to the lately discovered pastime of stone-throwing that it not infrequently uses its strength like a giant, and that, we have been told, is tyrannous. Let a corporation raise its head nowadays and it is greeted by a shower of stones of which perhaps not ten per cent. are intelligently cast. The only thing to do in such a case is to “duck;” argument becomes futile in the heat of battle.…
If, as has been reported, a certain railroad president ever did utter the famous phrase attributed to him, “the public be damned,” the public has more than gotten even. It does the damning itself nowadays instead, and so effective is its verdict that we are even confronted with the spectacle of the government itself bowing to the popular prejudice irrespective of the facts in the case. Undoubtedly we have become a nation of stone-throwers. To a certain extent this has worked for the public benefit. Every deserved stone has worked for the correction of admitted evils. But so rapidly has the public taken to the lately discovered pastime of stone-throwing that it not infrequently uses its strength like a giant, and that, we have been told, is tyrannous. Let a corporation raise its head nowadays and it is greeted by a shower of stones of which perhaps not ten per cent. are intelligently cast. The only thing to do in such a case is to “duck;” argument becomes futile in the heat of battle.…
That is sufficient to show the “style.” The article then proceeds to give some mail-service history and to cite a few points wherein by “arbitrary” rulings the government is grievously wronging the railroads in under-paying them for the carrying of the mails. The following is one of thestrongpoints or arguments presented:
Furthermore, the railroads hold that an additional injustice was done in this connection in the adoption of the present methods of determining the weights. In addition to the several reductions from the act of 1873 above mentioned, and in spite of the fact that various government committees admitted their injustice, a singular order amounting practically to ajuggling of weights in favor of the governmentwas issued under the date of June 7, 1907.Under the date of March 2, 1907, the following order was issued:“When the weight of mail is taken on the railway routes, the whole number of days the mails are weighed shall be used as a divisor for obtaining the weight per day.”But under date of June 7, 1907, a surprising order was issued reading as follows:“When the weight of mail is taken on railway routes, the whole number of daysincludedin the weighing period should be used as a divisor for obtaining the average weight per day.”Certainly this is a startling change of methods on the part of a government which has been attempting to establish a high standard of integrity in the conduct of all business. Slight as the difference in the wording of the two orders may seem upon a casual reading, the actual effect is drastic. Under the order of March 2, 1907, the total amount of mail weighed to obtain the average daily weight was to be divided by the total number of days on which it was handled.Surely there could be no other fairer basis of determining the average weight.But under date of June 7, 1907, the system of weighing was changed, so that to determine the daily average weight of mail the total weight should be divided, not by the number of days on which it was weighed, but by the whole number of days included in the weighing period irrespective of whether mails were handled daily during the whole period or not.As a matter of fact in many cases they were not, and this arbitrary “change of divisor,” as it is called, further reduced the pay of the railroads for the transportation of mails by about 12 per cent in addition to the reductions above mentioned whichcongressional committeeshad previously characterized as unfair.
Furthermore, the railroads hold that an additional injustice was done in this connection in the adoption of the present methods of determining the weights. In addition to the several reductions from the act of 1873 above mentioned, and in spite of the fact that various government committees admitted their injustice, a singular order amounting practically to ajuggling of weights in favor of the governmentwas issued under the date of June 7, 1907.
Under the date of March 2, 1907, the following order was issued:
“When the weight of mail is taken on the railway routes, the whole number of days the mails are weighed shall be used as a divisor for obtaining the weight per day.”
“When the weight of mail is taken on the railway routes, the whole number of days the mails are weighed shall be used as a divisor for obtaining the weight per day.”
But under date of June 7, 1907, a surprising order was issued reading as follows:
“When the weight of mail is taken on railway routes, the whole number of daysincludedin the weighing period should be used as a divisor for obtaining the average weight per day.”
“When the weight of mail is taken on railway routes, the whole number of daysincludedin the weighing period should be used as a divisor for obtaining the average weight per day.”
Certainly this is a startling change of methods on the part of a government which has been attempting to establish a high standard of integrity in the conduct of all business. Slight as the difference in the wording of the two orders may seem upon a casual reading, the actual effect is drastic. Under the order of March 2, 1907, the total amount of mail weighed to obtain the average daily weight was to be divided by the total number of days on which it was handled.Surely there could be no other fairer basis of determining the average weight.But under date of June 7, 1907, the system of weighing was changed, so that to determine the daily average weight of mail the total weight should be divided, not by the number of days on which it was weighed, but by the whole number of days included in the weighing period irrespective of whether mails were handled daily during the whole period or not.As a matter of fact in many cases they were not, and this arbitrary “change of divisor,” as it is called, further reduced the pay of the railroads for the transportation of mails by about 12 per cent in addition to the reductions above mentioned whichcongressional committeeshad previously characterized as unfair.
There, now. Is not that profoundly and beautifully conclusive? The strictures, hard and unjust regulations and arbitrary impositions of the government in the matter of railway mail weights is working great wrong to the roads; is, in fact, so cutting into their earnings as to jeopardize their solvency or to force them to raise freight and passenger rates in order to continue business.
Very sad, very sad, indeed! And how unjust it is for the Postmaster General so to cut down railway mail pay as possibly to cutdown the dividends the railroads have been paying the “widows and orphans” who own stock in the roads—stocks and bonds aggregating two or three times their tangible value. Especially wrong was it for the Postmaster General to issue and enforce such drastic orders after “congressional committees” had declared any reduction of the weight-pay rate “unfair.”
I shall not impose on the reader any extended discussion or consideration of the quoted bubble talk. A few comments I will make—comments which it is hoped will peel off sufficient of the rhetorical coloring to let the reader see at least enough of the real subject (the points involved), as will enable him to make a robust and correct guess at the “ground-plan” of both the sub and the superstructure the railway talkers and speakers are trying to erect.
First: Every right-minded citizen should—and when he rightly understands the matter, I believe, will—give the Postmaster General unstinted praise and commendation for the issuance and enforcement of the two orders which the railway men quote and complain about.
Second: The rail people say the last order (see quotation), “reduced the pay of the railroads by about 12 per cent.”
Without questioning the veracity of the gentlemen under whose “authority” that statement is made, The Man on the Ladder, as a judgmental precaution, shall line up with the folks “from Missouri” until that 12 per cent is set forth in fuller relief—until he is shown. The reader will observe that the railroad authorities quoted merely say that the “arbitrary change of divisor further reduced the pay of the railroads.” Whether or not the pay received by the roadsbeforethat order was issued was too low, low enough or too high is not directly stated by the writer or writers. That it is designed to have the reader draw the conclusion that the rate was low enough or too low before that second order was issued is made evident by the reference to the expressed opinions of “congressional committees”—opinions to the effect that the “reductions” forced by the first order were “unfair.”
Third: The names of many men of both ability and of integrity have appeared upon the rosters of the Committees on Postoffices and Postroads of both the Senate and the House during the past forty years. In face of that fact stands forth in bold relief a fact so bare and bald—and sosuggestiveof wrongs done and doing by the railpeople—as to remove it from the field of serious debate. That fact is: For forty or more years the railroad men and allied interests have by lobbies, or otherpersuasivemeans, got the Congressional Committees (Senate, House and joint), to do about what they wanted done in the matter of rail carriage and pay for handling the mails, or to prevent the committees from doing things they did not want done.
Fourth: That “change of divisor,” covered in the order of June 27, 1907, and which these railroad men accuse of causing a shrinkage of 12 per cent in the mail-weight pay the roads were receiving under the order of March 2, 1907, and prior, possibly was based on some valid reasons or grounds, or upon grounds the then Postmaster General believed to be valid. I have not before me, at the moment, any written data or information as to the reasons assigned by the postal authorities for that “change of divisor”, or whether they assigned any reasons for the order making the change. I know, however, of one very good reason there was for making such a change on several railroads or divisions of roads.
The weighing of the mails was formerly made during a period of 90 to 105 days, or fifteen weeks, once every four years. The law now permits the Postoffice Department to make special weighings, I believe. On the average daily mail weight for those 105 days the postal department based its contract with the roads for carrying the mails for four years.
Now notice this: The terms of such contracts not only implied but specifically required adailycarriage of the mail weight for the number of days designated, allowing, of course, for wrecks, washouts and other unavoidable interruptions in the movements of trains.
Keeping that in mind, suppose the Postmaster General discovered that on a good many mail runs—“lines” or “half-lines”—suppose that the chief of the department discovered a condition on many mail runs similar to that I personally know to have existed on a few, in years 1907 and prior. That was, briefly stated, this:
The contract called for adailycarriage of so much mail weight and the governmentpaidfor that per diem carriage, the days of unavoidable interferences and interruptions included. Suppose that the postoffice authorities discovered that, by reason of the diversion of the mails to other lines, thedailymail service was not rendered;or discovered, as in at least one instance I discovered, that the contracting road (or roads) gave little consideration to thedailyservice clause save during theweighing period, dropping the mail from train—skipping a day’s service—whenever it was to their interests to do so, and often assigning the most flimsy reasons for so doing or assigning no reasons at all?
That order of June 7, 1907, would have a tendency to stop that sort of disrespect and abuse of contract stipulations, would it not?
Fifth: The writer of the article from which we have quoted appears to have got himself somewhat twisted in his consideration of that order of March 2, 1907. It seems that (see first paragraph of quotation) he would have the reader class it among those several forced reductions which “various government committees” had called unjust. But, further along, it is stated that “surely there could be no other fairer basis of determining the average weight” than that furnished in that order of March 2.
I wonder why the railroad lobby so strenuously opposed that order of March, 1907—connived and schemed for its rescinding, until the order of June 7, 1907, gave the gang of corruptionists something still more objectionable to the interests they served? Yes, I wonder why they so hotly opposed that order of March 2? If there could be “no other fairer basis of determining the average weight” in June, 1911 (the publication date of the article from which we have quoted), why was it not fair in March, 1907? And why was it not a fair and just basis for arriving at the average daily mail weights for many weighing periods prior to 1907? Did anyone ever hear any railway man advocating the “fair basis” provided in that order of March? Most certainly The Man on the Ladder never heard of such advocacy. The railway people did not advocate such a “fair” method of ascertaining the average daily mail weight their roads carried during a period of fifteen weeks—or during any other period—because they were beneficiaries of some very unfair methods and practices which gave them pay for mail weights their roads did not carry.
As I refer later to some of the practices indulged in the weighing periods, I will here mention only a method used for years prior to the issuance of that order in March, 1907—a method of arriving at the “average daily weight” for the carriage of which the railroad was to be paid for a period of four years. That method was, though I have beenunable to learn that it was ever officially authorized by the Postoffice Department, to find the daily average for each week covered in the weighing period and then arrive at the average for the whole period by dividing the sum of the weekly averages by the number of weeks in which the mail was weighed.
Nothing wrong with that is there? Should work out fair and square, should it not? Well, it did not. The method was all right in theory and in letter, but a crooked practice was worked into its application—worked into it by collusion between crooked railway and public officials. And the crookedness of the practice was very plain and bold and bald. It was what in street parlance would be called “raw.” Here it is in figures:
Take a “heavy” mail line. Say the total mail weight for a week was, using a round figure, 840,000 pounds or 420 tons. Now dividing that total by 7, the number of days in a week and the number of days also on which the mail was weighed, would give a dailyaverageof 120,000 pounds, or 60 tons. That is all clear and straight, is it not? Most certainly it is.
But the crooked application of the method divided the week’s total by 6 instead of by 7—divided the total of seven days’ weights by six. The railway people, you see, were great respecters of the Sabbath. They would run trains on Sunday to accommodate the public and to meet the necessities of their business, which was, and is, perfectly proper. They would also carry the mails for your Uncle Sam, which was also right and proper. But their lofty respect for the Holy Sabbath, or the high esteem in which they held our much loved and much abused Uncle, was such as induced them to hold up said Uncle as a respecter of the Sabbath, or seventh day, while they “held him up” in averaging his mail weights.
In the illustrative example we have put on the slate, the “hold up” would amount to—let’s see: 840,000 pounds, or 420 tons, divided by 6 gives us 70 tons as the daily average for the week, instead of 60 tons, as the actual average was. That is a “hold up” for pay for ten tons a day—for 10 tons not carried.
“What did the hold-up amount to in cash?”
Yes, it might be well to follow our hypothetical or illustrative example to itscashterminal. Well, that is easily and quickly done.
The rate of pay per ton mile per year on daily weights above2½ tons is $21.37.[16]That ten tons added to the daily average would give to the railroads, then, just $213.70 inunearnedcash each day.
If the contract stood for full four years on such false average, the railroad would pull down just 1,460 times $213.70 of unearned money or a total of $312,002 in the four years.
I would, of course, not have the reader understand that our hypothetical example would fit all railroads. Many, in fact most, of the mail-carrying roads average in mail weight much below sixty tons per day—even below ten tons per day. Some roads were and are paid for an average above sixty tons. Nor would I have the reader understand that the crooked practice just mentioned was common to all mail-carrying roads. There were possibly—yes, probably, some exceptions—some roads that carried so little mail as not to make a steal of a sixth of its weight-pay worth while.
I would, however, have the reader understand that I mean to assert thatmostof the mail-carrying roads were parties to the crooked method here described and that the hypothetical figures here given applied, proportionally, to any average per diem weight of mail covered in the carriage contract, whether it was one ton or a hundred tons.
I would also have the reader understand me to assert that, so far as information has reached me, no railroad man, or man representing the rail mail-carrying interests, ever questioned the “fairness” of the crooked practice just described—a practice which looted the government of millions of dollars.
As araiderinto postal revenues, this thieving practice, it must be admitted, deserves conspicuous mention—more extended notice than I have given it.
FOOTNOTES[9]5,000 to 48,000 pounds, $20.30 per ton. Above 48,000 pounds, $19.24 per ton.[10]Land grant roads receive but 80 per cent of these rates.[11]This is the rate received for carrying each ton handled 1 mile, and is obtained by dividing the yearly compensation by 365 and then dividing the daily compensation thus obtained by the number of tons carried 1 mile each day.[12]This rate was obtained in the same manner as the ton-mile rate.[13]By full-sized cars is meant cars 40 feet or more in length and wholly devoted to mail.[14]Car and mile-run rates corrected for 1908 and since.[15]Tables corrected for 1908.[16]The rate 1907 and prior. Now the rate is $20.30 for tonnages between 2½ and 24 tons and $19.24 for each ton above 24 tons.
[9]5,000 to 48,000 pounds, $20.30 per ton. Above 48,000 pounds, $19.24 per ton.
[9]5,000 to 48,000 pounds, $20.30 per ton. Above 48,000 pounds, $19.24 per ton.
[10]Land grant roads receive but 80 per cent of these rates.
[10]Land grant roads receive but 80 per cent of these rates.
[11]This is the rate received for carrying each ton handled 1 mile, and is obtained by dividing the yearly compensation by 365 and then dividing the daily compensation thus obtained by the number of tons carried 1 mile each day.
[11]This is the rate received for carrying each ton handled 1 mile, and is obtained by dividing the yearly compensation by 365 and then dividing the daily compensation thus obtained by the number of tons carried 1 mile each day.
[12]This rate was obtained in the same manner as the ton-mile rate.
[12]This rate was obtained in the same manner as the ton-mile rate.
[13]By full-sized cars is meant cars 40 feet or more in length and wholly devoted to mail.
[13]By full-sized cars is meant cars 40 feet or more in length and wholly devoted to mail.
[14]Car and mile-run rates corrected for 1908 and since.
[14]Car and mile-run rates corrected for 1908 and since.
[15]Tables corrected for 1908.
[15]Tables corrected for 1908.
[16]The rate 1907 and prior. Now the rate is $20.30 for tonnages between 2½ and 24 tons and $19.24 for each ton above 24 tons.
[16]The rate 1907 and prior. Now the rate is $20.30 for tonnages between 2½ and 24 tons and $19.24 for each ton above 24 tons.
One other raid into the postal revenues I must notice before passing to a consideration of the parcels post question, in which consideration of other raids and raiders will be mentioned.
Here I desire to refer to that band of raiders—thousands in number—who are carried on the payrolls of the Postoffice Department—carried at salaries ranging into the thousands in many cases—and who do little or nothing of service value for the money paid them.
The Postoffice Department is a large institution and does a big business—a huge business which has much detail and extends over a vast territory. To handle such a business properly, necessarily requires the service of a large force of operatives. Most of the work of the department is of that sort which human brain and muscle alone can do. The machine can touch but a few of the minor details of the vast amount of work our Postoffice Department handles. It may cancel stamps, perforate documents, etc., but it cannot collect, sort, distribute, carry and deliver mail. It requires human muscle and brains to do such work. Much of it requires skill—the trained eye and hand as well as academic knowledge.
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.
Whether that is too large or too small a force for theproperhandling of our postal service is beyond my purpose here to discuss. That the business now handled by the department could be far better handled by 330,000 employes than it now is, and that such a service force could, if properly directed and disciplined, handle a business much larger than that now transacted by the department, I do not hesitate to assert. I base that assertion chiefly on the following observed conditions:
First: There are frills and innovations in handling the businesswhich take up the time of employes and which have little or no service value.
Second: There is, not too much “politics,” as Mr. Hitchcock and his immediate predecessors have modestly but wrongfully called it, but too much political partisanship—dirty, grafting, thieving, partisanship—not only in the appointment of people to the service, but also in making partisan, often grafting, crooked use of them after appointment.
Third: There are too many non-producers—non-service producers—among that army of 330,000.
It is the last, or third, condition named that I shall here briefly consider, or such observed phases of it as, in my judgment, so trench into the postal revenues as not only amounts to a raid in itself, but which also encourages others to graft and loot.
First, I desire to say that there are many thousands in that postal service, many who are honest, faithful andcompetentworkers. There are about seventy thousand (69,712 according to the department’s report for 1910) carriers, city and rural, most of whom work industriously and efficiently and who are underpaid for the service they render.
There are about 50,000 clerks employed. Of these, the 1909-10 report says, 16,795 are railway clerks. Quoting the same report, there were 33,047 postoffice clerks in the service. All or nearly all of these are employed in the “Presidential” postoffice—offices of the first, second and third classes. Of the total number of clerks, 31,825, are employed in offices of the first and second classes. There were 424 offices of the first class and 1,828 of the second. That placed the service of 31,825 clerks in 2,252 offices. The report (1909-10), from which these figures are taken states 5,373 as the number of third-class offices. The remainder of the reported number of clerks (1,222) are, it is presumed, distributed among those 5,373 third-class offices. At any rate, in the statement of expenditures for the fiscal year ended June 30, 1910, the Second Assistant Postmaster General, Mr. Stewart, presents the following showing of expenditures as compensation to clerks:
The lower grade of third-class postoffices comprise those which yield the postmasters an annual income ranging from $1,000 to $1,500 and the higher grades are those with a compensation of $1,600 to $1,900 to the postmasters. In this connection, it should be noted that for the fiscal year there was paid, in addition to the amounts above named, the sum of $325,953.44 for what are called “temporary” and “substitute” clerks.
Adding these various sums gives a total of $33,114,064.32 paid for clerk hire for clerks in first, second and third-class offices—in the “Presidential postoffice,” or offices to which the President has, by law or otherwise, been granted or permitted the right to appoint the postmasters.
As previously stated, there is a total of 7,625 Presidential postoffices on the payrolls of which are carried the names of 33,047 clerks. In addition to these are 16,795 railway postal clerks. Beyond saying that the appointment and advancement of these last-mentioned clerks have been in the past—and yet are—largely influenced by assistant postmaster generals, superintendents and other chiefs of division in the Washington or department office and by Senators, Congressmen andpostmastersin offices of the first and second-classes, I shall not consider them further here, nor do I include them in the adverse criticisms I shall make of the clerical force and service of the department.
It should, however, be noted in this connection that in addition to the 31,825 clerks employed in the 2,252 offices of the first and second classes, there are 2,237 assistant postmasters. These were paid $2,536,997.24 for the year ended June 30th, 1910. There were in offices of the first and second-classes 2,252 postmasters. To these was paid the sum of $5,814,300. That makes the service personnel of the first and second class offices, not counting carriers, messengers, etc., 36,314, and gives a total of annual expenditures for this service amounting to $40,465,361.56.
The reader will please keep in mind the fact that the foregoing figures apply only to postoffices of the first and second-classes. There may be a few clerks and also assistant postmasters in offices of the third-class. If so, there are so few of them that the department did not deem it worth while to account for them in that position in any of its fiscal statements, so far as I have been able to find. Iwould ask the reader also to bear in mind that while the following strictures are intended to apply to all three classes of Presidential postoffices, their application is less general and less forceful in offices of the second than in offices of the first class, and less in offices of the third-class than in either of the two higher class offices.
There has been much talk by Postmaster Generals in recent years about efforts made and making to get the employes of the Postoffice Department into the classified service—getting them under civil service protection. Not only has this been made subject of urgent advocacy in almost every annual department report of recent years, but Postmaster Generals have made prolix and voluble reference to and favorable comment upon the progress that has been made in “taking the department out of politics.” Mr. Hitchcock in the 1909-10 report commends highly the progress made in that direction. See pages 13, 14, 24, 85, 86 and others of the report. The party stump and banquet oratory of the past twelve or more years has sparkled—fairly scintillated it might be said—with rhetorical coruscations about what “the administration has done” to remove the federal service from the “baleful clutch and influence of politics.”
Now do not misunderstand me. I am not saying this because the Republicans have been in control of things. Had Democrats been at the helm of the national craft, they would have done the same. The Democratic politicians might have done more or less than the Republicans have done to get the civil service of the government away from corrupt and corrupting partisan influences. The Republicans have done only what they have been compelled to do—compelled by general public demand. So the Democrats would have done, had they been in power. Politicians do not want a civil service free from party control. The “jobs” have been andarea source both of spoils and of continued power to the so-called “practical” politician of either party—of any political party. That is why the party leaders—“bosses”—fight so persistently and craftily to retain control of the civil jobs. That is why almost every civil service law or “executive order” for placing civil employes under a merit or efficiency classification carries a “joker” somewhere about its clothes. That is true of most all such laws and orders so far enacted or issued, whatever be their field of application—city, county, state or nation.
So I desire the reader to understand that there is no politicalor party animus in what I may say in adverse criticism of the jokes and jokers which so conspicuously decorate the Republican display of effort to place federal postal employes under classified civil service and which, it is said, “has taken them out of politics and will keep them out.” The Man on the Ladder believes in civil service, but he does not believe in either legislative or executive “jokers” which, under the guise and pretense of establishing aprotectedmerit classification of public servants, makes stealthy crooks and turns to keep their own partisans on the jobs, regardless of either their ability, merit or fitness.
Now let us return to our subject—to the points which make much if not most of the alleged “progress” in the postal department toward the institution of ameritclassification of its office employes but little more than a move on lines to keep administration partisans on postal service jobs, and which makes this much-talked of progress toward efficiency conserve party more than service interests.
But some readers may urge that this is mere assertion. Well, let me present a few facts and conditions which support the assertions, or which, to me, seem to make the statements assertions of fact.
Mr. Hitchcock rightly asserts (page 13 of 1909-10 report) “that the highest degree of effectiveness in the conduct of this tremendous business establishment cannot be attained while the thousands of postmasters, on whose faithfulness so much depends, continue to be political appointees. The entire postal service should be taken out of politics.”
Well and good. Following the foregoing, he mentions the fact that all assistant postmasters have been placed in the classified service by order of the President. Mr. Hitchcock, “as a still more important reform,” recommends that “Presidential postmasters of all grades, from the first class to the third, should be placed in the classified service.” He also speaks of efforts made and making to place the fourth-class postmasters under its laws and regulations. He points out some valid difficulties to be surmounted if such desired result is attained without impairment rather than betterment of the service. The First Assistant Postmaster General, C. P. Granfield, states in his report, that, under an executive order dated November 30, 1908, all fourth-class postmasters infourteen stateshave been put into the classified service. He also explains briefly the method of procedure in filling vacancies—when they occur.
That is probably sufficient preliminary. Now for a few of the observed and observable conditions which govern in civil service as thus far applied in the Postoffice Department. Taking the fourth-class postmasters first, it may be said the method of appointing such postmasters by civil service examination scarcely rises to a dignity entitling it to serious consideration. While the method itselfreadswell, its application, in many instances, is but a joke—a tame joke at that. Postmaster General Hitchcock substantially admits, as previously stated, that conditions are met with which make its application extremely difficult if not quite impossible.
Certain it is that, so far as applied, the results have given a vast majority, if not all, of the certifications to persons of administration party affiliation.
Then, too, it might be asked by a person addicted to the habit of doing his own thinking—a habit very obnoxious to party “leaders” and to politicians of the so-called “practical” breed—it might be asked by any capable, independent thinker, if it was mere chance that selected twelve administration and two “doubtful”—chronically doubtful—states in which first to make application of a civil service method to the selection and appointment of fourth-class postmasters?
While there are, according to the last published department report, about 52,000 fourth-class postmasters in the country, a great majority of them are persons of little or no local political influence. Beyond their own votes, then, they are of little service to the administration party, save as distributing or disbursing agents of the party in power for its campaign literature and other promotion matter. They are used also to keep the county and state “bosses” of the party advised of local political conditions as they view them—flurries in the party atmosphere, as indicated by hitching-post and whittling discussions of party legislation and proposed legislation or of party policies, as set forth by the published utterances of state and national “leaders.”
In such and other minor ways, then, the fourth-class postmaster may be a helpful instrument in the retention of power by the political party in power—the party from which he has received appointment. So it is good “practical” politics to keep such a party agent on the job. To that end, then, the party in power—the administration—places the fourth-class postmaster in the classified civil service, thusmaking his removal more difficult, if not impossible, in case an opposing party should win out at the polls and take charge of the government.
The foregoing is said, of course, on the presupposition that every reader knows that a vast majority of the postmasters and other personnel of the postal service today is of the political party in power. In saying that the party from which these postmasters and other postal service employes received their appointments has been and is using a civil service classification largely, if not wholly, for partisan ends. I say only—in fact have already said—that the Democratic party or any other party would, if in national control, make similar use of the civil classification. And such partisan manipulation of a merit service classification will continueso long as we fool people will stand for or permit it.
The chief “jokers” woven into most all civil service laws and executive orders are these:
First: The law or “order” directing the application of a classification of a service into certain grades, places those holding positions at the time of the enforcement of such law or order, into the various gradeswithout any examination as to their merit or efficiency.
Second: Such laws and orders almost universally provide a promotion or advancement credit for “experience,” and the only factor or element recognized in the make-up of experience istime. The number of years an employe has been on his job or in the service is his “experience.”
Third: Such civil service laws or orders always provide for examinations—usually an “entrance” and “promotional”—and for “examiners.” Seldom is anything said as to the qualifications of the persons selected as examiners. Their selection is invariably left to a “Civil Service Commission,” and the membership of such commission is as invariably left topartisan appointment. There is usually a pretense of making such commissions “non-partisan,” that is, one of three or two of five of the appointed commissioners are to be of the minority party. Nevertheless, they areallappointed by the majority party—the party in power.
All three of these “jokers” are in the government civil service laws and the extension of those laws to the various divisions of the federal civil service is left largely or wholly subject to the orders of thePresident. I object to a classified merit service under such statutory “jokers.” They provide a service more partisan than efficient. They permit a payroll raid upon the revenues from which employes are paid. They retain incompetent, inefficient persons in graded positions for partisan purposes—often “grafting” purposes—rather than for service reasons. They leave the promotion or advancement of honest, industrious and competent employes largely, if not wholly, subject to the will, wish and whim of a partisan appointed or elected superior or to a partisan civil service commission. They provide for advancement on an “experience”—a time service—which may not, and which in many cases does not, constitute an experience of any value whatsoever to the service.
I have said that the office personnel of the government’s postal service embraces a large number—thousands—of raiders on the postal revenues. I repeat that assertion here.
Most of these raiders occupy the higher salaried positions—postmasters of the “Presidential” classes, assistant postmasters, chief clerks and others who secured their positions through partisan “pull” or “drag.” These do little work of service value for the salaries paid them. Many of them are so occupied with affairs of their party that they have little time for service work even if they were inclined to do it. Most of them are not so inclined. Many of these raiders know of—some of them have been parties to—railway mail-weight, contract and other raids upon the department they are supposed to serve.
But this is only generalization, some one may say. In answer I say kick off your blanket of apathy. Go do a little investigating and then do a little—just a little—hard thinking. See what you shall see in even such a modest effort to put two and two together. Visit a “Presidential” postoffice in your county, preferably the one at the county seat or the one at the capital or at the metropolis of your state. These cities are the storm centers of partisan activity, likewise of partisan manipulations, bubble and crookedness. If you know the postmaster, so much the better. If you are of the same party affiliation as the postmaster, still better. If you are not, do not let that deter you. You visit him to see things for yourself, and an investigator is not only warranted but fully justified in appearing to be what he is not. Fix upon some subject of inquiry before you reach the“presence” on that particular “Presidential” P. O. throne. Then, with ears spread and eyes shrewdly as well as interestedly open, go to it.
The postmaster will be glad to see you if he knows you. If he does not know you, he will be assumedly glad to see you anyway, after he learns where you are from and that you have an ingrown habit of voting the ticket of his party. He may even warm up to the extent of tendering a box of his favorite brand with an invitation to smoke up. Then he will probably want to know “how things look up your way.” It does not make much difference how or what you answer, so long as it is favorable to “the party.” He is handing you a case-hardened jolly. You must be gentleman enough to return the courtesy. “I know you are a very busy man, Mr. Jones, and I must not take up your time. I want a little information and decided I would come to the right place to get it,” etc., or something along such lines will do.
Then ask your question or questions. Preferably let them be about some detail or details in the handling of “the large business” of his office. Now you will begin to see things.
The postmaster will press a buzzer button. In response a well groomed gentleman appears whom, by introduction, you learn is his assistant. “Fred,” says the postmaster, “Mr. Smith here desires some information. He is from Brainville and—well, he is a friend of ours. Now, Mr. Smith,” with a real “glad-hand” shake, “you go with Fred. He’ll dig up any information you want, and, now, don’t forget to call on me the next time you are in town.”
Then you go off with Fred. He sluices a lot of kiln-dried small talk at you and rounds out with “How are things up at Brainville, Mr. Smith?” Of course you assure him that things “look good” to you, or that, in your opinion “there will be nothing to it but counting our majority.” By this time Fred has steered you to the chief clerk. To the latter he says, “Here, Baker, shake hands with Mr. Smith. Mr. Smith lives up at Brainville and is one of our friends. He wants some information. You see that he gets it will you?”
Fred, then, with another ingratiating hand shake, leaves you in Mr. Baker’s care. To him you state the points on which you wish enlightenment. “Oh, I see,” says Mr. Baker. “You just come with me and I’ll have you fixed out.” Then, if it be a postoffice of fairly large business, he will take you over to some chief or foreman ofdivision, tells him what you desire to know and instructs him to inform you. The division boss next takes you in tow and with much pleased and pleasing talk steers you down the line to some $900 or $1,200 a year clerk to whom he turns you over. This shirt-sleeved clerk knows the answer or answers and gives you the desired information in about three minutes.
Incidentally in your round of the postoffice, you have asked some conventional questions and have learned, among other things, that the assistant postmaster, chief clerk, division chief and other top-notchers in the service are all men of “experience”—have each been in the service five to ten years and “know the business from garret to basement.”
Once outside or on your way home, some questions will begin swimming a marathon in your think-tank. Such as these for instance:
“Did those top-notchers really know the business of their office?”
“If they did know, why did they troll you around for an hour to get information which a shirt-sleevedworkergave you in three minutes?”
“If they did not know, then what have they been doing during their five or ten years of service?”
“If they know so much, how many years would it take “Boob” Sikes of Boobtown to learn as little as they appeared to know?”
By the time the questions begin to take on this sort of “How old is Ann” character, you will have reached the conclusion that you have discovered something and have seen things to prove it.
Just here it may be pertinently asked, why those top-notchers in that postoffice should be blanketed by the stipulations of a civil service law which gives them merit credits and grades for the years they have been in the service? If you and I have been loafing on a job for five, ten or more years—been foozling with the duties of that job while heeling and fanning for a political party—why should the law credit those years to us as service “experience?”
In placing any service or a division of any service under a merit classification, the law should require that every position in such service be filled by examination, and such examination should be open alike to the shirt-sleeved employe already holding a position in such service and to outsiders. Such a requirement would show what ofservice value there really was as a result of the years an employe had been in the service.
Do you ever go to Washington, D. C.? If so, the next time you go, take in one or more of the main divisions of the Postoffice Department. Some guide or clerk will probably be detailed to steer you through. Your pilot will talk considerable and his talk will listen well. You need not, however, hear all nor even much of what he says. As advised in your visit to the Presidential postoffice, keep both your ears and your eyes open to hear and see what the service employes say and do.
You will observe that a considerable number of the clerical force are doing something—are really trying to work. You will also discover before going far that a number of employes are industriously engaged in talking. The smiles and quiet laughter which embellish their conversation may lead you to believe that they are talking about some of the humorous incidents and features of the postal service. Do not, however, be hasty in arriving at such conclusion. If you get near enough to hear an occasional word, you may discover that their conversation is evidently about something which a humoresque writer has described as “the recently distant elsewhere,” and not about the department service at all. It may be about some feature or phase of Washington’s social flux or about some social function which is to stake a temporary claim in the circle in which the talkers circulate. In short, you will discover that the conversation is but commercially pasteurized small-talk and not business.
Moving on, you will observe other little groups in animated conversation. A glance at the anæmic appearance of some of the talkers will lead you to the immediate and sound conclusion that the subject of conversation cannot be weighty. Politics, even party politics, either practical or progressive, you will readily see would be some sizes too large for them. Getting within hearing range, you will learn that these industrious servants of the people are discussing the telling points in some prize fight “pulled off” the night before or of the ball game which some one or more of the coterie had seen the day before. Maybe some one of the group is turning loose his stem-winding, automatic bloviate ejector in telling his interested auditors about what a “ripping time” he had with Rose at some dance or other party last night. What you hear will be sufficient to convince youthat these “classified civil service employes” must put in considerable time in mental and physical exertion to work out of their systems the lessons they were taught at mother’s knee, and much more of their time trying to keep several laps behind their jobs. You will also see that some of the service men are workers—realworkers—who earn more than the salaries paid them. So, too, are there many of them whose industry should make a more or less conspicuous service trench into four or five dollars a day. But when you get outside or get home, you will remember having seen numerous supervising and directing heads and many clerks who appeared to be actually tiring themselves out in exertions to keep away from work.
Yes, I repeat, the Postoffice Department carries upon its payrolls too many non-producers of service values—too many mere payroll-raiders on the postal revenues. Putting all these into graded classified service and under the protection of a “joker”-ridden law will not improve the actual service—will not stop the raid of which I have been writing.
The civil service of the government and subordinate division of it—city, county and state—should be controlled by law, not by political partisanship. Mr. Hitchcock is forcefully right in what he says on this very important subject. But laws providing rules and regulations for the betterment of a public service should not provide blind alleys and trenches through which dominating party officials and “bosses” may so easily obstruct or balk accomplishment of the purpose, or the alleged purpose, of the law. I have mentioned three objectionable features common to nearly all civil service laws—to all that I have read. There are other objectionable provisions in some of the laws. I am not, however, intending to discuss here the desirability or the objections to civil service, either as it is or as it should be, save in so far as the present federal law has applied, is applied and may be applied, to the postal service.
I have tried to show how three of its joker provisions—onlythreeof them, mind you—have worked, have been and may be “worked,” to keep party henchmen on the jobs rather than to secure to the people industrious, capable and efficient servants. Of the three wire-tapping provisions of the law mentioned, I have suggested how two of them might, in my opinion at least, be remedied. The third is that of leaving it an easy possibility to victimize employes through theagencies of partisan commissions selected to enforce or administer the law and of incompetent, biased and prejudiced persons such commissions may select to conduct examinations for entrance or promotions in the service. How remedy that?
Having civil service commissionerselected, instead of being selected by a temporary official over-lord would, in my judgment, go far toward correcting the abuses which now flourish so luxuriously under that third “joker” provision of the law.
Any service embracing a considerable number of persons in its execution, must be closely supervised if anything approaching efficiency is attained and maintained. An old German saying reads thus: “The eye of a master will do more work than both his hands.” If value is secured either in public or in private service, the people paid for delivering it must be kept under close supervision—must be kept under “the eye of the master.” A consciousness of having earned his pay should enable any service man, whatever his position, to shake hands with himself without blushing at the close of his day’s work. But if his superiors set him an example in loafing, of hitting the nail slack while on duty, most men will soon learn not only how to loaf but how to accept any amount of pay for services not rendered, and accept it, too, without a flicker of blush or jar of conscientious scruple.
So in closing our consideration of this phase of our subject, permit me to say that efficient civil service will never be attained—can never be attained—if department, division and other supervising and directing heads sit at their desks most of the time, approving documents and requisitions, reading reports and talking politics. If they expect men under them to work, they must get out on the job where they expect the work to be done, and that, too, whether the job be in the office or in the field.