The Colville examiner. [volume] (Colville, Wash.) 1907-1948, 1909-10-23
Notice to Subscribers

Notice to Subscribers
The second year of the Examiner closes this
month, and all persons who have not paid their
subscription for the last year are requested to do
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S>S
When Governor Johnson of Minnesota died he
left the very modest fortune of $37, 900. The
smallness Of the amount shows that he was in pol
itics, not to make money but to serve his fellow
men, When Hartman died he left, so it is said, a
fortune of 100000 900, but not one cent of that
vast amount so far be learned left to any
hospital, orphanage, ayslum or other similar nsti-
tuition.
In answer to the query when is a deficit not a
defcit?" it might be said that it is when the re-
ceipts do not equal the expenditures in the post
Office department.. The so-called deficit of $780,
600, 600 for the past year will be partly reduced by
the increase in the rate for registered mail and it
is rumored that the postmaster general has plan
in mind to further reduce the shortage by making
cut in the pay and in the number of employees in
the postal service. And all this in face of the
rank abuse Of the franking privilege, and absurd
contracts with the railroads and other private in
terests for hauling the mail. The mail service of
the country involves an enormous expenditure, but
it can not be successfully maintained that there
are too many employees, and that those who really
do the work of the department receive more pay
than they deserve AS was recently asserted in a
Hearst editorial
May the economy in the postofice be the right
kind of economy? There should be no cutting
down in the wages of the postoffice employees; on
the contrary, those wages should be increased.
The sort of economy that would take money away
from one citizen by paying unjustly small wages
could confer no benefit the other citizens. There
should be no reduction in service, and we believe
that Mr. Hitchcock contemplates no such reduction.
It ought not to be necessary to increase charges
registered letters or otherwise.
''Mr. Hitchcock will find his field of activity
wide enough in the realms of postoffice graft. Let
him expose and do away with the favoritsm that
congress, led by Speaker Cannon, has been show
ing to railroads and other corporations. Stop the
shameful abuse of the franking privilege by men,
bers of congress and other government employees
of whom some send their linen back and forth
through the mails to be cleaned. Stop above all,
the railroad thievery, that steals millions year
from the people through the postofice. Stop the
system by which the government, instead of own
ing it's own postal cars, strongly built rents those
postal cars from the railroads, puts its employees
into matchbox vehicles dangerous that the in
surance companies will not insure the employees
lives. Stop the dishonesty which impes railroads
to charge the government for light car on fast
train, carrying mail more than twice as much as they
charge an express company for another and heavier
car on the same train"
There can be no difference of opinion in the mat
ter of effecting reforms in administering the de-
partment in order to make it f-supporting. How
ever, the reforms should be laid to prodigaites in
other directions.
The first move in the fight against the ruling of
former President Roosevelt, which debars certain
government employees from taking such political
action as they believe they are entitled to- has
been made by the postal clerks union of Seattle
A weekly paper has been started to further the
cause and, from the tenor of the first issue, it is
evident that the postal employees are going to have
q vigorous supporter. Another reform demanded
is relief from the ruling which debars them from
appealing to those 'higher up against wrongs
which they insist exist.
When the Payne tariff bill was finally enacted,
the statement was made at Washington that the