Northern Wisconsin advertiser. [volume] (Wabeno, Wis.) 1898-1925, 1903-06-11

NOtSS. NSSuy uSpS0uSnIS, 100, cOuiu
find employment somewhere at liv-
ing salary. Is it wonderful that, by
degrees, the Difference which senators
and representatives used to show, for
patronage reasons, TO the first as
sistant postmaster general, they came
to pay to his subordinate, the super.
intendent of free delivery? Machen
could give them A rural route, or
change a carrier on one already es-
tablished. He could draw up an order
making new regulation or abolishing
an old one: and the postmaster gen.
eral, seeing his initials in the corner
of the sheet, would not think of Ques-
tioning it-usually not of reading it
but would sign it, as matter of
course. A uniform device for letter.
adopted by the government in self
defence, to prevent the farmers from
using insecure old soap boxes, and the
like. The postmaster general appoint
ed committee TO pass upon designs;
Machen was on the committee. Natur-
power to be conciliated.
BY and by. after all the salaried
places worth having in the rural de-
livery system had been filed by the
favorites of congressman and other
magnates, it was decided to put it
under the civil service rules. When
the civil service commission undertook
to frame regulations for the examina-
ton and selection of employees, it was
not the postmaster general, or the
first assistant, but Machen, who was
called into consultation as the practi-
cal expert. He therefore knew the
civil service rules covering this sys-
tenn as we'll as he knew the statutes
and regulations covering free delivery
in cities.
Rise of the Delivery System.
Meanwhile, the city delivery sys-
tenn had been expanding. A larger
carrier service, a greater number of
Offices enjoying it, new designs for
lletter-boxes, new ideas in collection
all these came in for Machen's atten-
ton. In every aspiring town his
name became a watchword. Post
masters opened his official letters with
respect, and recognized him as a per-
sonage to be reckoued with at each
new turn in their affairs. The in
ventors of patent locks, the manu-
facturers of paints especially suited to
the surface of boxes, the designers of
collection wagons, all saluted him
with hat in hand. AS the one man
who knew all about it," he was the
ultimate authority to sit in judgment
on everything connected with free de-
livery. His 20. X" could not have
been more valuable if written in gold,
and his hostility was proportionally to
be dreaded; for, though he might be
only one member of board of three
or five or seven to make an award, his
expert knowledge usually turned the
scale for or against project
| Machen Believed by Some to be In
nocent
In view of all this, it is not difficult
to see how Machen was presently in a
position where favors poured in upon
| him from all sides, even including a
large, but unsolicited, increase Of his
own salary. This was the con-
gressmen's way of returning him many
kindnesses. Rumors of his corrup-
ton were rife now and then, but he
met every charge squarely. 1t was
reported at one time, for instance,
that he had forced upon the patrons of
the rural routes a style of letter-box
which was manufactured by his
brother: but he promptly brought out
the papers to show, not only that he
was merely one of bench of arbi-
tiers in the disposal of the box con-
tracts, but that their sessions were
open, that they approved fourteen al
Tentative styles so as to give every
patron a wide range of choice as to
size and price, and that no relative of
his, as far as he knew, had any inter-
est in any of these boxes. At the
stirred up by local newspaper he
simply shrugged his shoulders, refer
ring questioners to the higher authori-
ties of the department, who in their
turn admitted that the situation was
not pleasant, but declared that they
could not draw nice distinctions in the
midst of fuel famine, and that they
were thankful to Mr. Machen, as they
would be to anyone else, who could
and would help them to keep warm
story was set afioat that Machen
was a promoter of a mining company
and that he had unloaded hundreds of
worthless shares upon clerks who had
to look to him for their bread and but
ter. He met this with the assertion
that it was true that he was president
of copper mining company and that
some of the clerks had asked him to
sell them a little stock, but lie to
say that he had ever requested or ad-
vised any of them to buy; that, on the
contrary, he had warned several of
the perils of investing their small saw
ings in an enterprise of such uncer-
tainty. Indeed, so successfully has he