The Kootenai herald. [volume] (Kootenai, Idaho) 1891-1904, 1900-12-14
POSTAL DEPARTMENT REPORT
RECOMMENDATIONS ARE MADE.
The Chief Wants to Reach the Farm
Door-rbinls 1t VIII Make the
Farms More vaIunbIe-Posts and
Postal Frauds in Cuba.

Washington. - Postmaster General
Charles Emory Smith has submitted
his annual report to the president. The
financial operations of the department
for the last fiscal year are shows in
the following statement of revenues
and expenditures:
Ordinary postal revenues, $100,899,-
433; receipts from money order bust
ness, s1455,145. Total receipts from
all sources, $102,354,579.
Total expenditures for the year,
s107 ,740,267. Excess of expenditures
over receipts, s5,3S5,SSS
The deficit for the year 1S99-1900 is
shown to be s10,O0S,OS0 less than last
year. The estimated postal revenue
for the fiscal year ending June 80, 1902,
is s116,O33,042, and the estimated ex-
penditure 1921 ,276, $40, leaving a prob
able deficiency of $4,634,S07.
Rural free delivery, the report says.
has proved to be the most salient, sig
nifcant and far reaching feature of
postal development"
Besides swelling the postal receipts
the values of farms are enhanced,
through the necessity for good roads
and the opportunity afforded the farm
er to keep abreast of the times by be-
ing put in closer communication with
the outside world The isolation and
monotony which has been the bane Of
country life is sensibly mitigated
through the effects of free rural deliv-
cry in placing the farm within daily
range of the intellectual and CONNER
cial centers. The farmer is also given
cause to feel he shares the govern
mental advantages of the townsmen,
which stimulated his loyalty and pa
trlotism.
Rural free delivery is here plainly
to stay" 1t reaches millions of peo-
pie scattered over million acres OF
territory to whose doors it is the task
of the government to arrange to carry
the mails through rural free delivery,
Postmaster General Smith says. By
the end of the current fiscal year one
sixth of them shall have been served,
and 1900 routes in operation. The net
annual cost of complete rural free
delivery system is estimated at $13,-
7S2,224. On this point the report says:
at will hardly be disputed that the
great result of carrying the postoffice
to every home, if it can be accom-
plished at such comparatively small
cost is an object we'll worth undertake
in
The report says that the postal SER
vice in the new island possessions of
the United States has been very ma
terially advanced and strengthened.
Unfortunately" says the report,
speaking of Cuba, 'its administration
! was stained for time by frauds and
populations of the most shameful char
acter But this was the crime of the
agents and not any fault of the sys-
, tenn. The frauds and populations could
not have been committed by any one
. official however dishonest. They were
made possible only through the collu-
, sion of officers who should have been
a a check on each other and who entered
into a conspiracy by which the safe
: guards dependent upon a careful plan
> of checks were thrown down.
I when the facts were brought to
? light immediate action was taken to
, right the wrongs and arraign the
, wrongdoers. The offense of those i'm
plicated was more than infidelity to
the confidence reposed in them and
= more than ordinary malfeasance in Of
: flee. It's turpitude was enhanced by
the fact that it was the betrayal of a
? trust held for a people who were our
> wards, which carried peculiarly sacred
, obligations and it merits the severest
, condemnation. The cases have passed
q to the custody of the courts and early
+ trial is expected"
, The improvement of the last few
. years in the money order system has
! been continued and even enhanced,
Q saws the postmaster general, and free
Q delivery extended.
! The reports of the second assistant
\ postmaster general are cited to show
/. the increase in the number of routes
over which mail is transported and
e the good effects to the service of the
s order of last February prohibiting the
+ consideration of bids for star route con-
J. tracts where the bidder resided off the
n route he was bidding for.
A reasonably satisfactory mail SER
f vice is being furnished the people of
e Alaska and the number of complaints
e is surprisingly small. Arrangements
have been made for weekly service
: over the two overland routes.
The Rest Preparation for Malaria.