Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1895-11-13
,orts schedule time instead of the

at once. The daily trip reports and
carriers time record must show the
exact time consumed by them in the
performance of their duties.
".You will forward TO this office as
soon as practicable a statement show
ing the actual time consumed by
each of your carriers on each day
during a period of ten days follow
ing the date of the receipt of this
letter. Yours very respectfully,
"F. H. JONES,
First Assist. Postmaster General.
The suspicious Of the department
were fully confirmed, for the Today
statement contained overtime at
some stations and large amount of
under time at many others. Care
full computations show that the de-
partment was losing at the rate of
$500, 900 per annum in under time
and superfluous carriers. Add to
this the amount of annual overtime
and 100000 may safely be esti-
mated as the annual unnecessary
cost to which the department has
been subjected.
1.-The saving of this enormous an
nual loss could be effected only BY
properly enforcing the S-hour law
and so reorganizing the service as to
equalize the force of letter carriers,
reducing here, increasing there, and
in that manner obtaining for the de-
partment more nearly full return
for the immense sum annually ex-
pended for free delivery.
Mr.. Jones then goes on to say that
on Jan. 1, 1895, to aid postmasters
to effectually enforce the postmaster
generals order. he issued letter of
special instructions to postmasters.
In these instructions he directed the
postmasters to post in conspicuous
place in carrier working rooms spe-
cial orders governing their hours of
work, forbidding their reporting
prior to schedule time either for
morning arrival or fos the beginning
of any subsequent trip during the
day, and forbidding their remaining
about the office when not in the act
ual performance of duty and requiring
them to record the exact time con-
sumed by them each day. In these
instructions Mr.. Jones said: Gar
riers will continue to make their
daily trip reports. making their en-
tries at the beginning and end OF
each trip. The practice of filling
out the entire report at the close OF
the day must be discontinued, and
any carrier found continuing such
practice will be promptly removed.
| "Under no circumstances must
carriers or superintendent conceal
the fact that over time-even to the
least extent-is being made. ANY
attempt to do this will result in the
removal of the offender, regardless
Of his rank. 1t will be equally con-
trary to this order for any carrier
whose route requires less than eight
hours to expand the actual working
time thereon. or attempt to record
unnecessary time in order to have
his trip reports show eight or ap-
proximately eight hours work per
day."
| In order to ascertain il these
orders were understood and properly
enforced, and TO obtain exact infor-
nation relative to the condition OF
the service at each office, that the
assistant postmaster general might
proceed intelligently in the work OF
reorganization and readjustment,
MIR. Jones required each postmaster
to answer fully certain questions in
a letter of Jan. 1, 1895. These ques-
tons related solely to the population,
area and general conditions of the
cities served by free delivery. and
the minute duties of the carriers a,
each place. The results of these
inquiries MS. Jones speaks of this
way:
1.-The replies to these searching in.
quiries enabled me to compile very
exhaustive data (such as had never
before been securely relative to the
entire service. namely, to compare
the service Of one office with that OF
another; to point out to postmasters
irregularities disclosed by their own
statements; to suggest to them
methods by which the service could
be improved and made to conform
more closely to the postal laws and
regulations and in that way t.
establish n more uniform system
Throughout the service in so far as
the typographical and other condi-
tons of the various offices would
permit"
| After going further into detail Of
the result of this correspondence and
feeling satisfied that the work Of
attaining a uniform system could
only be accomplished by the depart.
ment direct. Mr.. Jones speaks OF the
sending out OF special agents with
this result stated by him:
"A letter carriers efficiency record
is now being prepared from the dat:
supplied by these agents as we'll as
postmasters. When completed i,
will contain the individual record O.
each letter carrier in the service.
The benefits derived from these
Investigations may be summed up a:
follows: