Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1894-11-26
SPOILS SYSTEM BAD
Postmaster General Bissell Speaks
Out on Civil Service.
REFORM SHOULD BE EXTENT ED
His Ideas of the Future Of the
Department.
AGAINST POSTAL TELEGRAPH

| AGAlNSI lPOSIAL IELEUIIA1 n
Postmaster General Bissell has transmit
ted his annual report to the President.
| The prevalent financial distress had been
| felt by the Post Office Department. In
stead Of the average annual increase In
postal revenues of 8 per cent. the receipts
| were one per cent less than for the pre-
| ceding year.
Speaking Of civil service Mr.. Bissell says:
| ''In order to fully protect the letter-car-
| riers and prevent their removal on frivol-
| Gus charges / issued an order on June Is,
| 1884, that no letter-carrier should be re-
| moved except for cause. and upon written
charges filed with the Post Office Depart
| ment, and Of which the carrier should have
| full notice and an opportunity to make de-
Tense This order not only has the effect
| of lettering postmasters from submitting
| frivolous charges, but, by giving the ac-
cused letter-carrier ample opportunity to
prepare his defense, accords him a right
| never before recognized"
Free Delivery Experiments.
The report recommends that expert
mental free delivery In towns and vii
lagos be discontinued at the end Of the
current fiscal year. Under the present re-
quirements of economy, Mr.. Bissell dis
courages the rural free delivery project.
He recommends that the systematic boy
cotting of a post office by two or more
persons be made a misdemeanor, punisha-
BILE by fine. The disproportionate growth
of the second-c1ass mail business has been
Investigated and found to be not so much
due to the increase in legitimate news
publications as to the shrewdness of mer-
chants I'm having their advertising publica-
tions admitted through the malls and the
gratuitous circulation Of bogus trade pa
pers On the question of postal telegraph
Mr.. Bisseil says that "the conditions of
| the postal service in this country are such
as to induce the belief that postal tele-
graph system in the United States would
add enormously to the already large de-
felt of the Post Office Department"
Lines to Follow.
1 believe it to be the true policy for this
government to continue for a number Of
years the development of the postal serv-
ice on present lines.
In general l would recommend that the
first and most important thing to be done
is to revise the law to second-class mail
matter, so as to place the Post Office De-
partnent Immediately upon self-sustain-
Ing basis.
Avoid expensive experiments, like the
postal telegraph. rural free delivery, etc.
Develop the postal service on existing
lines of rninistration, viz:
Extend free delivery in cities that now
enjoy 1t.
Accord it to towns already entitled to 1t
under the law.
Quicken railroad transportation.
Revise and reclassify organization of the
railway mail service and reclassify clerks
in pest offices.
postal affairs by appointment of expert pos
tai officials from classified service, as
recommended in my last annual report
Civil Service Extensions.
Under the caption of civil service. the
Postmaster General says that because Of
the recent extensions of the protection Of
the civil service the total number of post
Office folk within the classified service Is
80, SCI.
The report continues:
Another years experience has served
only to strengthen the convic ton expressed
in my last annual report as to the excellent
working of the civil service law in the
Post Office Department, and my desire to
see its operation extended to every branch
of the postal service to which such ex-
tension is practicable.
Stimulates Work.
wherever 1t has been possible to do so
without positive detriment to the service,
moreover, vacancies occurring in tho de-
partmental clerkships above the classified
grades have been filed by promotion; ana
this practice, together with an occasional
transfer of an exceptionally well-equipped
clerk from the field to the departmental
stimulus to the ambition of the employees
generally.
''If a system which relieves the appoint
ing officers of the department of great
burden, which protects the service by re-
curing a reasonable test of competency
before an appointment is made, and which
assures the apICintee that his tenure will
be undisturbed as long as his efficiency
and good behavior continue, has produced
such good results in the clerical force of
the department, it is reasonable to inquire
whether something like 1t could not be ap-
piled with advantage to the lower grades
of postmasters.
FaIIacy of Spells system.
For more than one generation the Amer
lean people have been trained 70 regard
the post offices as inseparable from the
varying fortunes of the two great political
parties, and in some Instances, even, as
Iegitimately following the vicissitudes of
mere factions within party. This falldcy
is to be deplored, whether we treat it
broadly as a theory of spoils or only as
rejecting some assumed relation between
the principles of a political organization
and the business capacity of it's member
ship. The intelligence of our people has
long outgrown the notion that any one
political party enjoys a monopoly OF ad-
minStrative talent.
but, brushing these considerations aside,
and regarding the redistribution OF the
post offices with every new administration
ns merely an incident 70 The change
which the PEOPLE at large have demanded
at the polls, is it fair to those corr'uni-
ties HIGH have not joined in the demand
to compel them to share the fruits of the
demand made by others? The local post Of
flee is closely connected with the every
day life of the people who patronize it.
and nothing is further from the prin-
ciples of home rule and majority rule than
to force a change of postmasters upon a
community which may have lately cast
more than half its votes against any
change whatever. Yet this is what hap
pens and Is bound to happen as long as
the post offices reriiain in the public mind,
and hence in the practice Of the govern
ment, associated with politics.
1T is scarcely necessary to add that, as
long as this association continues the
Postmaster General will be compelled to
give up the larger part~of his time and at
rention t. the settlement Of controversies