The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-01-19

they regarded 1t, and no class of people are better pleased that he is down and out of tho department than they.
 The Fourth Assistant Postmaster Generals place has long been regarded as next to that of the Postmaster Gen. eral in political importance. It was the chief headsman's place in the gov ernment. The thousands of fourth class postmasterships were within his grasp. The office was first created for Estes c. Rathbone, of Ohio, and grew from insignificance into the con- trol of more than 150,000 employees of the department. The first incumbent to prove the power of the office was Adlai Stevenson who held the office under Cleveland and swept Republicans out of the wholesale.
 Rathbone had been a vigorous chief of postoffice inspectors and when he became Fourth Assistant Postmaster General the inspection service natural ly fell to his charge.
 When Brtstow was appointed in 1897. the inspectors were practically all he had. For the next two or three years they were all he needed.
 Two years ago, when the Machen and Beavers scandals began to attract at- tentton and an investigation of the Postoffice Department was ordered, Mir. Bristow and Postmaster General Payne decided 1t would be we'll for the Fourth Assistant Postmaster General to ex- ercise control of the rural free delivery system, Mir Bristow himself asked for the transfer. which came from the do- main of Robert J. wynne, then First Assistant Postmaster General and now at the head of the department Mir. Wynne demurred, but had to asquiesce. That placed under the Jurisdiction of the Fourth Assistant Postmaster Gen. eral just 150.7SS men, including 50,O46 rural and free delivery carriers, 65,766 postmasters of the fourth class, 216 postoffice, and 160 route inspectors.
 It Is not hard to apprehend the pow CT and scope of such an influence as were involved in the control of all these government employees. Postmaster General Wynne found himself as to Bristow as he had seen himself with Machen and Beavers-rather ignored in the favors asked of the department by congressman. Through the potent and luminous machinery of his force or postoffice inspectors Bristow knew pretty much everything worth telling to congressman about the departments s vast and complicated government. It was the Fourth Assistant Postmaster General who, with his inspectors, fn- Vestigated the offices of the Second and Third Assistant POstmasters General MT. Wynne. as soon as f1e came into superior power as Postmaster General decided that 1t was time to draw unto himself all the corps of confidential agents of the department embraced in the inspection service. Mir. Bristow felt that he had done the State no small service and he resented the transfer as gross reflection upon his fidelity and an ungracious disregard of the ardous labors he had given to the cause of decent public service.
 Bristow had an lnkling that he would somtime have to go. Congress- men who had their names irreverent- ly used by him helpled to keep Wynne reminded that he ought to assume the powers which properly belonged to him and relegate Bristow to something like the station for which he was originally intended.
 As soon as Postmaster General Wynne issued the order to transfer the inspection service from Bristow, he got busy with his friends and went to the President to protest agalnst being in- confidently shorn of his power and inn portance. No man had more faithful ly served the administration in Its gos- pei of decency. President Roosevelt listened at least to the extent of as- surfing Mir. Bristow that he would find an honorable and lucrative place for him. So he was given the new post of special commissioner for the Isth- milan Canal Commission. There are many who believe that had not something of this sort been done the numerous things learned of public men, and men of eminence in his own party. which had been discov- cred by Bristow through the postof1ce inspectors, would have proved some time or other a very powerful and dam gerous weapon. All Tn all. then. 1t was best to get him as far removed as possible from the executive depart ments Tn Washington where congress- men most congregate.
 R. H. Watkins.