The mirror. (Stillwater, Minn.) 1894-1925, 1905-12-21
The Railway Mail Service.
Continued from first page. }

cluClouCy. put Ill SlXCe0n OF the D0SG
years of my life in this service. On the
line to which l was last assigned the
clerks kept up on Iowa with two
thousand offices, Wisconsin with two
thousand, Minnesota with one thousand
eight hundred, N orth and South Dakota
with one thousand seven hundred or
Whereabouts between them, a total of
seven thousand five hundred offices,
and they seldom failed to make ninety
nine per cent, frequently making it
clean and one hundred per cent correct.
Hundreds of men are keeping up on
more offices than I did, and few men
are taking courses in medicine, dem
tistry, law, the ministry and perhaps
other lines, but men spurred on by such
ambitious natures are far too rare,
more the pity.
Clerks remain in the service until
their efficiency is so greatly impaired
that they cannot hold even the lightest
side lines-then they are dropped from
the rolls. No approximation measure
can be devised which does not smack
of paternalism, or civil pension list,
and neither are consistent with the
theory OF government of republic.
One of the railway mail association
committees had the matter of drafting
such bill, in charge, for five or six
years. but after an exhausting study it
became evident that such plan had no
place in country like ours, and to my
disappointment and that of hundreds
of fine old men grown grey in the
service the committee felt it to be it's
duty to report against it. One of the
fraternal postal associations had
several plans up for consideration, but
the scheme was too big, so it was
dropped.
The department pays the heirs of a
clerk killed on duty one thousand dol
lars, and in the case of man injured
so as to be incapacitated for duty,
carries him on the rolls for one year at
full pay, but at the end of that period,
if still unable to work, he is dropped
from the rolls.
The clerks have two fraternal organ
izations, managed and differed by
themselves; the older one is known as
the U. s. R. M. S. M. B. A. 1t is a
mutual life insurance company and
pays two thousand dollars at the death
of clerk. The second is known as
the Railway Mail Association. This is
social and accident society. 1t pays
three thousand dollars for accidental
death and fifteen dollars per week for
injuries, up to fifty-two weeks. The
headquarters of the first are at Chicago,
of the second at Portsmouth, New
Hampshire. The r. M. A. has about
eight thousand members, and holds
annual conventions which are attended
by delegates from all over the United
States. Transportation for delegates
and their wives being furnished by the
department. This organization watches
all postal legislation, and maintains a
legislative committee of fourteen men,
bers headed by the associations presi-
dent, and members of this committee
are constantly in Washington in con-
sultation with the officials of the
department.
The committee used to deal with
Congress direct, but man named 4.
Roosevelt put large and heavy heel
squarely on the back of that proposition,
and it died quickly. It is q great SER
vice, and one grows attached to it, hard
work tho it be, and garnished by q
cast steel discipline which never re-
lakes for one moment. G. A. 7.