The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-12-01

civilized nations believe IL best to conduct
large business undertakings. like the dis
tribution of the mail in the local communi-
ties, by q force which is changed every
four years with almost unbroken regular
t. ftX. The first year of a new administration
is looked upon with dismay by the clerks In
the sixth auditors office. but the hundred
dollar-a-year Podunk postmaster gradual
IS learns something as his term of office
continues. and by the time he is ready for
decapitation by the next administration he
is in condition TO conduct his Office with
Sufnctent intelligence to give the auditing
department of the treasury little trouble.
But the addition of the banking business TO
the present duties of the postmaster would
give the system a severe strain. Per-
haps il may result in compelling the adop-
ton of civil service reform methods, and
If so, postal savings banks will be OF inesti-
able value. But the public is yet far from
realizing that intelligent government work
requires trained men.
So badly rendered are the postmasters
accounts in certain cases that ii is not
unusual for the department clerks here TO
make out the reports in advance for the
postmasters, who are asked to run over in
ink the hypothetical figures which the
Washington clerks put in for them with a
lead pencil. The department also requests
many of its incorrigibe postmasters to call
to their assistance some intelligent man in
the neighborhood who is able TO compre-
bend directions in making out quarterly re-
ports. Even then the bookkeeping that
comes in to the department is often amaz-
ing. Not only are the dollars and cents
columns generally ignored entirely, but the
separation between the auditors column
and the ''postmaster's column is disre-
garded as we'll, and nothing but the COM
mon sense of the clerk in washington en-
ables him to unravel the mystery. Accord
ing to the testimony of the CHIEF clerk,
20 per cent of the rural pOStmaSters are
unable to comprehend the distinction be-
tween sales and cancellations, or to believe
that there can be any necessity for keeping
Vyn re-
looks over these reports as they now come
into the department would become con-
WINGED that to teach their authors the prln-
ciples of banking will be no holiday task.
1t is quite true that it is not proposed to
make every poStOffice q depository for saw
ings, and that the least intelligent grade OF
postmasters would not be compelled to do
banking work. But in SO far as rural sec
tionS are unSupplied with postal savings
banks will the project fall short in the very
places for which 1t is particularly intended.
No one is urging the postal savings bank
for the benefit of people who live in East
ern cities; but there is where the postmaS-
tiers could best keep the accounts. 1t is in
the mountains of North Carolina, where
other banking facilities are slight. that the
postal project will be most helpful, and 1T
is there that it will be most difficult to Sc
cure and educate postmasters who are COM
petent to attend TO it, Mr.. Garys present
plan, in so far as he has gone into details,
is to make the offices which do a money
order business branches of the savings
bank system. OF these there are over
twenty tnOuSanu, OF tWO-SeNeHthS Oh tne
whole. But this number includes a very
considerable body of postmasters who are
just staggering under the perpleXities of
the money order system. and, on the. other
hand it does not very fully cover the re-
mote rural districts. This is one of the
considerations with which Congress will
have to reckon. If the quadrennial shake
up in the postoffices is to continue and the
department is to go into the savings bank
business it will be necessary to establish
in Washington a very large force of in
structors, who will, of course, be known as
auditors, and their tasks will not be simple.