The Somerset herald. [volume] (Somerset, Pa.) 1870-1936, 1895-11-13
Postmasters to be Placed Under the Civil
Service

Service.
President Cleveland has signed the
most important civil service reform order
he has ever made, under which all post
offices which are not near enough to a
free-delivery office can be brought within
the classified service, and which, in its
practical operation, viii enable the Post
master General to divide tine country into
large postal districts, so that the post
master at the metropolitan centre will
be the only official, high or low, in the
post offices of the district who will be
outside the protection of civil service
law bringing seventy-five per cent. Of all
offices OF all classes into the classified
service.
The civil service commissioners sug-
gestei this plan of extending civil ser
vice reform TO post oilioes, and it wIs
cordially adopted 10y the Postmaster
General and the President, who were
very deSirous - reach this result with
our waiting for the legislation which
Congress seemed unwilling to give to-
ward that end.
The order will work a revolution in
the postal service, but Postmaster Gen
eral Wilson proposes to apply it gradual
ly and cautiously. This idea has been
already successfully tried on a small scale
at Philadelphia as wei as elsewhere by
means Of sub-stations, but the offices To
be annexed to the metropolitan post Of
Zee under the new plan will not be sim
ply sub-stations and will not lose their
name, and the only outward sign Of
change except the improvement of the
service will be that the local postmaster
Will lose his title and viii become a
superintendent, when he and all his en-
ployes are taken into the classified ser
vice.
If if works well in Massachusetts it
will be tried in Philadelphia, when all
the surrounding post offices, large and
small, viii he brought within the direc-
tIon Of Postmaster Carr, 10y being
brough, into the classified service n sta
tions in the Philadelphia district. All
classes ofpost offices. whether filed by
Presidential appointment. and now with
in the classified service, aud having free
deliveries or not, viii be comprehended
in the annexation.
TO GET THEM OFT OF POLITICS.
The object is to take all the Offices
thus brought within 4 metropolitan dis
trict ont of pOlilics-the men at the
head of them ceasing to be political
postmasters-and gaining the tenure for
good behavior like all other subordinates
in the classified service, while losing
their old titles, and, with a view TO
the better organization Of all the postal
business of the country, promoting ef-
hcisncy and economy, a. in the clnsoii-
dation Of all business enterprises,
Indirectly, 10y Increasing the respon-
sibilities Of the postinasters Of the metro
politan cities, it will make Il necessary
for the President to appoint men Of 4
high order, and, possibly, TO retain men
ofpeculiar fitness. Postmaster General
Wilson will do all that he can to set
up this new system throughout the
United States in the fifteen months of
this Administration remaining. If uni
verSally applied, IL would comprehend -
per cent. of the post oil :es ofthe country,
of all four classes.
As 10 the remaining post Offices, chiefly
in the sparsely-seitled sections of the
country and remote from any large post
Offices which could be made the head
Of metropolitan district, President
Proctor, of the Commission, thinks that
civil service reform principles can be
applied by an Executive order abolishing
the Iour-year tenure custom. which is
nothing but custom, having no statu-
tory authority, leaving the postmasters
to serve during good behavior, and pro-
yiding that when vacancies occur they
shall be filed Oh the recommendation
of the majority OF those having the largest
business dealing with the Office in ques-
ton, the facts 20 be ascertained by post
Office inspectors.