Freeland tribune. (Freeland, Pa.) 1888-1921, 1901-06-07
THE "R. M. S." BOYS.
Interesting Facts Concerning Some Of
Uncle Sans Employees

Uncle Sans Employees,
"It is a singular fact in the makeup
of the human mind that a man when
dead counts for so little. while an in
jured man comes high in law suits and
even has a value in government en-
ploy." said bright young member of
one of Uncle Sans branch armies of
civil employees. known as the railway
mail service force. as he swung out of
his car at one of the railroad stations
this morning.
IF railway mail service clerk is
killed in the line of his duty his fam
lily mourn. his friends are sympathetic
and the department regretful for two
reasons, first to lose an experienced
man, for in our business experience
and merit alone count, and second, be-
cause it cannot aid the faithful fellows
family or widow.
Under the law and the rule of the
department if a railway mail service
employe is seriously injured if the
disability continues even up to a full
year, leave of absence. with pay, is
considerably allowed him. If he is
killed his pay stops from the day of
his death. and the government can
not make an allowance even for his
funeral expenses much less aid his
family, who may be in dire distress.
If Congress would authorize it such
an allowance would be possible, but in
the absence of an express law govern
ing the point there is nothing for the
department to do but to express re-
gret, though the dead man may have
given the best years of his life to the
service of the government.
Shut up day and night in their
mail cars, which are often their coffins,
the general public has little opportun-
ity of seeing class of men who are
indispensable and of the greatest pub
lie service. Last year four of our force
were killed, 81 seriously injured and
1877 slightly injured in the performance
OF their duty. In collisions. especially
head-on collisions. the mail car is gen.
orally wrecked or badly splintered.
Their skill and accuracy in handling
and separating mail matter and in
memorizlng postoffice names and loca-
tions is marvellous.
There are 1894 of these men, and
last year they handled the bewildering
number of 1868, 800 letters and g.
429 Al $500 pieces of other classes Of
mail MATER, making a total of 1892,
COZ, 100 pieces. This amount in figures
makes the public debt look like 80
cents. In addition they handled 49,
$4,000 other pieces, consisting of reg
istered matter. In spite of the total
running high into the billions. there
were but 1,355.000 errors reported as
made by the clerks in handling this
stupendous aggregate, or ratio of one
error to 10.175.
"All of this is done in rapidly mov-
ing, swaying express trains, going at
a speed of from 40 to rs miles an hour,
and all under unfavorable conditions
as compared with work upon large
floor as the Washington city postoffice,
for instance. and mostly under artifi-
cial light. In fact, no less than SO per-
cent of all the mail matter originating
in the United States is sent direct to
the railway mail service cars to be
handled by these clerks. In addition
to all this S45OO.OOO pieces were
thrown out because they were ad-
dressed so illegibly that they could not
be delivered, though over 100000
of these pieces were returned to the
writer's or forwarded to destination on
corrected addresses. No less than
305, 400, 900 miles are covered annually
by these men in crews in 363S postal
cars.
Naturally after reading these as
tonishing facts and figures it is not
to be wondered at that skill and eXpe-
rience and not political influence is
desired by these clerks. The civil SER
vice rules are strictly enforced in this
branch of the service. which largely
accounts for it's splendid record of
efficiency. New and inexperienced
men are without practical value, and
but for the maintenance of the civil
service it would go to pie very quick
ly. There are over 10000 postoffices
and thousands of routes on the differ
ent railroads and steamboats,. and |
nearly every experienced postal clerk |
has this enormous mass of names and |
locations well in hand. Their capacity |
to master and to remember names is |
truly remarkable. e."-Washington Star. |