Los Angeles herald., 1909-07-16
POSTAL CLERKS
OFFER FEATURES
EVOLUTION OF MAIL SERVICE
WILL BE SHOWN
PARADE WILL INCLUDE NOVEL
THREE-PART EXHIBIT
Men Who Handle Railway Postoffce
Work Will Give Practical Demon
stration of Progress Made in
Past Sixty Years

Evolution in the transportation o
Uncle Sans mail, portrayed on hug
scale by the local members of the rail
way postal clerks organization will b.
seen this morning in the parade. Th'
three celebrated methods of transpor
tation for mall adopted by the fedora
government during the last sixty year.
will be shown with carefully sustained
realism by the postal employees.
The pony express will be the mrs
! figure in the series. pony ridden by
J. Boatright, who carried the mail II
1855 from st. Louis to San Francisco
will be presented. The next figure VIII
be a stage coach pulled by six horses
and driven by M. J. Callan, imperson
ating Hank Monk, the celebrated driV
err who carried Horace Greeley on hi
trip in 1865. From this coach fac-simile
copies of the New York Tribune as 1
was when Horace Greeley was man
ager will be distributed. In the vehicle
will be seen Chinese, miners and armed
guards, typical of the day in which
Greeley took his western trip.
The last and final development o
postofIice transportation will be seer
in modern mail car of the regulation
forty feet length, built by the Sal
Lake Railroad company. Six mail clerks
in charge of H. e. Pearsons will per
form their duties for the edifcation OF
the crowd. The Los Angeles Herald
will be worked" by the mail clerks
and distributed from the various sacks
In the car under Pearsons will be j
G. Frazier, Adolph Wentland, G. M
Kite, W. F. Brashear and S. r. Bur
ford.
Organization Extensive
The display was engineered and pre-
pared through the instrumentality OF
p. E. Vestal, F. E. Walker, H. e. Pear
son and w. r. Kelly, who compose the
executive committee of the Los An
geles branch of the Railway Posta
Clerks association.
The organization represented is g
big one. There are about $4,000 clerks
and officers, $4,000 assigned to duty
in railway mail cars and 1000 as trans
fer clerks, Office clerks and in super
visory capacities. The occupation is
included in the civil service, and to
enter it is necessary to pass an eX-
animation requiring at least an aca-
demic education there is also strict
physical examination, and the stan
dard in this is higher than that re-
quired to enter our army or navy.
When the appointment is received
clerk is given a scheme of distribu-
ton of all the post offices in some
state, meaning that he is to learn and
remember the location of each post
office, be it on a railroad or stage
route, and at regular intervals he is
called for examination on that state
until he is able to give exactly such
location of all offices. Then he is
given another state to learn, and this
process is continued until he acquires
perfect knowledge of the location of
from 5000 to $4,000 post offices in diff
ferent states. the knowledge of num-
ber of offices varying on account of To-
cation of his run or line of railroad
upon which his assignment places him.
He has to know, also, the railroad
time tables or schedules of the states
he distributes mail for; and as these
are constantly changing, 1t is neces-
sary to be eternally vigilant. There
are frequent changes In his schemes
of distribution which he receives
weekly, new post offices established,
others discontinued and still others
have changes of supply, requiring the
unlearning of things once learned as
we'll as constant acquisition of new
information.