The Portland daily press., 1882-09-28
Good Management


peace. Upon it depend social and business
relations of incalculabe advantage to the
people. The circulation of newspapers edu-
Gates as. The interchange of letters binds
us together. Mail facilities render life on
the distant border endurable and contribute
In thousand ways to spread the confines of
our empire. We have for years acted upon
the sound principle that the Post Office De-
partment benefited us in too many ways to
be calculated in dollars and cents. The first
thought has always been to afford suitable
facilities to all the people. Where the coun-
try was fully settled, swift trains and fire.
quent mails were matters of course. In the
far West and the remote regions of the
South, in the sparsely settled districts of
New England, the people have had privileges
vastly greater than they could pay for, or
were expected TO pay for. Social and bust
ness ties were too valuable to be denied.
Hence for tie last fifty years there have
been very great deficits in the Department.
It has cost millions more than it returned to
the Treasury. We had almost got to regard
q deficiency as proper and suitable thing
Of itself There have not been wanting
those, however, who believed that if the
Post Office business could be done as men
do their private business, the deficit might
disappear. But Government always has to
pay more than any one else for its work if it
has it well done. No government machinery
has ever been invented, or ever will be,
which will prove substitute for the inter
ested eye of the owner. Most Departments,
however, can be SO systematized that no
stealing can take place, but no scope is left
for individual character.
The Post Office Department is more near
iy a business place than any other in Wash
ington, and the very centre of business there
10 the Second Assistants Office The Office
Of Second Assistant Postmaster-General
cannot be limited as to its powers and du
lies. 1t has charge of all the contracts with
steamboats, and stages and of all mail trans
psrtation except that by rail. All the stage
and steamboat routes are under its control.
If community wishes route established
or changed or modified, it has to apply to
the Second Assistant. In so vast territory
40 we have, with the ceaseless bust
ness changes going on, with fields of
endeaysr opening every day, there has to
be some ons entrusted with powers entirely
discretionary to meet the constant changes
demanded. It can be easily seen that this
place needs not only an honest man but a
man of great business faculty, such man
an 0raat oorpnrotioua nov funntu apd thirty
Thousand dollars year to. Under our
system we try to get man for thirty five
hundred or four Thousand. Hence we very
rarely get the man we ought to have. But
when President Garfield appointed Richard
A. Elmer of New York to the place he did a
service to the country which men who know
affairs in Washington appreciate. Mr.. El-
mer does not seem to have any great faculty
for advertising himself, but sooner or later
the world will know who does work and who
Sleeps scrap books"
A little comparison of the figures will re-
veal important facts. In 1889 Congress
gave Mr.. Brady $5,9O0,OO0 for Star Service
and he demanded 100000 more which
were given him. 1t SO happens that the
very routes in regard to which Brady has
been on trial, now cost only fifty and twenty
three hundredths per cent of what they
did under him. For about one half the
sum the same work has been done. Mr.. Ell
mer's first years work show ed a saving at
the rate of one million seven hundred and
seventy-eight thousand dollars. His second
Oh f1k 70 ha txuo mil oiuh
teen thousand six hundred and thirty-iye
dollars against four million nineteen thou
sand eight hundred and twenty-four dollars
expended 10 Brady's last year-being only
little more than one-half. These savings
will make the Post Office Department fol-
the first time in fifty years self-sustaining.
1t is to be regretted that the article quoted
80 widely of late from the New York Times
gives the credit of this reduction Of expenses
70 Mr.. James. Mr.. James would undoubtedly
make the correction himself were his atten-
ton called to it. He would be too magnani-
nous to take praise which could not from
the very nature of things belong to him.
The real truth about the Post Office Depart
ment is that it has become self-sustaining,
not by any directions from Mr.. James, not
by any change of principles, but by the APP
plication day by day of business methods by
an able business man. The Second Assistant
Postmaster General has about the only place
In our administrative system where individ-
nal power and control has to be unlimited.
Anyone can see, that with all the steam
boat and stage routes and the contracts
arising therefrom under the control of one
man, there must be fine field for genuine
man of business. He has unlimited power
not because such power is desirable thing
to lodge in anybody's hands, but simply be-
cause there is no other way. No general
rules can be made to govern because very
little can be anticipated. Mr.. Elmer
brought to this work large experience, an
honest ambition and untiring watchfulness.
His success has probably exceeded his oW N
hopes. To make the Post Office Depart
ment self-sustaining has been the dream OF
great many administrations, whose reports
have been obliged to confess failures. When
TO. the fact that the Department has become
self-sustaining is added the other facts that
there has been no decrease of facilities, that
all proper attention has been paid to newly
settled regions, that people in the remotest
sections have been duly accommodated, that
no complaints of deficient service are any
where made, the full extent of the achieve
ment can be appreciated. The fact that Mr..
Klmer is not making wide proclamation of
his doings is as much to his credit as what
he has done.
THE Washington Republican says: 1.-THE
Bourbon party is one of impression, sup
preston and repression" All of which is
true. In this State it had the impression