Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-09-19
WAR ON A POSTMASTER
VICTIM OF CONSPIRACY BY HIS
NEIGHBoRS.
They May Send All Their Mail From
Another Office and Thus Cut
Down His Salary.

Forgetting a post Office may seem a
strange way of revenge and retaliation
said postal official to a Star reporter, but
1t Is frequently done, and II often causes
the department considerable trouble to say
nothing of the particular postmaster who
may have become the object of the attack
and incurred the enmity of his fellow
townsmen to that extent.
Fights over posmasterships are some
times intensely bitter among the rival can
didates. and this is especially true in the
smaller cities and towns where the possess
sion of the post Office in store or in one
portion of a town to the exclusion of the
other. means trade and patronage 1t often
happens that the larger portion Of the town
will be some distance from the railroad
station, and the post Office will be trans
ferred by change in incumbents from the
former section to the latter. This causes a
surprisingly large amount of hard feeling
In the community. so the uisgrunted ones
decide to withdraw their patronage to the
end that the revenues of the office will so
fall off that the department may be induced
TO restore the office TO more convenient
location.
The antagonistic faction then proceed to
deliberately boycott the office. They resort
TO various measures to accomplish their
purpose, some OF which are ingenious and
all are to the discontinue of the postmas-
ter. They will collect each others outgoing
mail and deposit it in the trains, If at the
station, where II will be handled by the
railway mail service crews, or will employ
or delegate one of their number to carry the
outgoing mail to adjacent Offices for mall
ing In this manner, in the fourth-class
offices they diminish the receipts of their
own Office, and swell those OF the office they
select for patronage.
How the Boycott Works.
In this manner in many instances thew
have been known to practically nut the
home postmaster out of business though
the postmaster that gets all Of this outgoing
mail Is, OF course delighted. Meantime the
home postmaster must receive and handle
the incoming mail addressed to his patrons
for which he derives no fees, his office ex-
penses go on Just the same. and there is
a fine old row all around
In the larger and the presidential post
OFFICES the disgruntled patrons buy Iner
postage stamps at other Offices Organized
plans of this kind interfere with the postal
service very much, and the department
views them with great disfavor though fire.
quently powerless to stop them. Sometimes
they result in a compromise. and the local
tension is relieved, though the hard feeling
usually remains. The most provoking in
stances occur in long and struggling towns
where the office is shifted from one end to
the other. In the case of storekeepers
physical encounters have happened and
mysterious fires have resulted where the
oince has been shifted from one country or
village store to another.
Very often a successful candidate for
the postmastership will have the good will
of the referee of the department in states
and congressional districts where the po-
litical complexion is opposite TO that of
the party in power referees recommended
tons being accepted in these instances,
CT will have the recommendation of the
senator or representative in districts which