The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1888-04-16
THE pEMoRALIzEn POSTAL SERVICE.


The Sentinel prints with editorial approval
communication signed Democrat" which
charges the Decentralization OF the postal serv-
ice entirely on the Republican employees who
are still retained. The charge is absurd on
its face and VIGOROUSLY false There are not
enough Republicans in the postal service in
Indiana to demoralize it If they wanted to,
and the few who still remain are too anxious
to retain their positions and their bread and
butter to neglect or trife with their duties.
They are all under espionage, and they know
the moment case can be made against them
they will have to 60. They will have to go
anyhow, but they are not going to furnish a
pretext for their removal If they can help it.
If they really wanted to embarrass the admin
istration and bring cyclone of public CEN
sure the Democratic party they could do
so by resigning in body. That would very
soon show where the brains and backbone of
the present postal service are But
these Republicans ara only too
anxious to retain their places. Not 90 per
cent. of the railway mail clerks at present are
Republicans, and in Indiana not 10 per cent.
These are old clerks. skilled in the business,
while the other 80 or 80 per cent are green
hands, many of them VIGOROUSLY unfit and in
competent. To try to lay the Generalization
of the service, caused by this large per cent
age of new and incompetent men, on the small
surviving remnant of trained Republican
clerks is the height of absllrdity. Demo
Graf says: When Mr.. Cleveland assumed
the reins of the government did he find thou
sands of his own political brethren there in ad-
vance of himf No, not a solitary one from
Cabinet to spittoon-cleaner. A hundred
thousand positions and not fan Insignificant
place contained Democrat" This is grossly
false. After the Republicans had been in
power twenty-five years there were as many
Democrats in places not covered by the civil
service law as there are Republicans to-day.
There were scores of them holding clerkships
at Washington, hundreds in the railway mail
service and thousands of Democratic fourth
class postmasters. In the campaign of 1876
Col. w. w. Dudley compiled list of the
fourth-class postmasters in Indiana, with
their politics. To the amazement of every
body it showed that more than one-fourth
were Democrats. The large offices, ofcourse,
were filed by Republicans, but twenty-five
per cent of the fourth-class offices were
filed by Democrats. The same was true, in
large degree, in the railway mail service.
It was always the policy of Republican ad-
ministrations to keep fair minority of Demo
Gratis in that branch of the service. The edi-
torial assertion of the Sentinel that when
the Republicans were in power no Democrat,
however competent, honest or efficient, could
obtain employment in the railway mail de-
partment," is utterly untrue, as hundreds of
Democratic members and ex-members of
Congress can testify. 1t is part Of an attempt
TO excuse the general Generalization of the
postal service by the wholesale removal of ex-
perienced and competent men and the ap-
pointment of inexperienced and incompetent
ones.