The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-09-08

1 of Battle Creek, chairman; Umstead Of l Los Angeles. Franciscus of New York 1 Canakan of Chicago, Peters of New Or l leans, Spllan of Philadelphia, Meokel or St. Louis, Cohn of Newark, Chapman or Buffalo, Stewart of Des Moines, Zander of Maritowoe, Dunham of Danbury, Conn.,. Harrison of Pine Bluff, Ark, and
 Rork of Brooklyn.
 After reading several communications | the convention adjourned until 10 o'clock | this morning.
 Reports of Officers. booklet containing the reports Of 1 the various officers of the national as-
 sociation was distributed among the | delegates. The report of President | Rogers heads the others. He states | that the entry of the 10th year of tE e 1 existence of the organization Is in tri- | umph flor enlisted under its banners we find an army of loyal subjects az gregating approximately 10000 men and women employed in the first and l second class postoffices of the United i States" Other important paragraph | from the report follows:
 "Effciency should be made the i'm . | portant factor in regulating the com | pensation of postoffice employees. All promotions should be based on merit and no favoritism Of any kind sh ould | be permitted. In order to insure abso- lute fairness in this regard a positive | method of recording the efficiency Of clerks and carriers will be required During the past few months the ques- | tion of introducing uniform system | of efficiency records has been given
 much study, and frequent conferences | between officers of the department and 1 postmasters have been held with the | object of devising a satisfactory solu- 1 tion of the problem. If the legislatio I
 suggested in this report regarding sal ] aries should be enacted it would be stiil
 more desirable to have a well-defined | system of efficiency rating. To avoid
 any injustice in reporting efficiency the ! records should be open to inspection 1 by the employees concerned, and should
 be as definite in nature as conditions will permit Owing to the wide varia- l ton in the duties required of employees 1 in the several branches of the postof- | flee organization the introduction of a 1 compreh ensive scheme of recording ef- 1 fciency is not an easy matter, but tn @ groundwork for such system has been 1 laid and it is hoped that before many
 months satisfactory plan can be put l into practical operation throughout the | service"
 "To avoid any injustice in reporting | efficiency the records should be open ! to inspection by the employees concerned and should be as definite In nature as 1 conditions will permit" That sentence | to my mind is the keynote of the whole | subject If that spirit is lived up to there could be none of the cases which | I have recited q am firmly convinced that the time has arrived to inaugurate in connection with our association a mortuary fea- | ture
 AS our membership realizes, our as l sociation has given much thought and | consideration to such a plan.
 About Death Benefit.
 I've progressed to the point of adopt | ing a constitution to govern the pro- posed features Objections that were ] raised against the establishment of a death benefit feature some few years ago
 I am now satisfied have been disspated.
 As we assemble in this convention we
 represent an approximate membership of 1 20, GOO.
 Statistics prove to us that the num- | Der of clerks in first and second class l offices double in numbers every ten years
 or less. Today there are approximat ely l 3o GOO clerks in first and second-class post | offices. Ten years from now at the low | est possible estimate there will be GO, GOO | clerks in this branch of the service. | It will be but a matter of a short time
 when the clerks employed in third-class | offices will be converted into the civil | service and then this great army of em- | ployes will also be eligible for member