United labor bulletin., 1909-12-24

called the Harpoon and is published in
Denver, and it surely Goes harpoon the
department struts and bullies who af-
fiict the postal service.
Because the editor of one of the postal
clerks magazines mildly criticised the
lights in the work room of the Seattle
postoffice, voiced a kick at the clerks
being compelled to work longer hours
than ever by new rule, and published
a notice of the Harpoon-that hurt
the clerk has been suspended and will
probably be discharged for insubordina-
tion.
For years the railway mail cars have
been disgrace and fraud. The COM
panies build them and charge enough
rent to rebuild them every year. They
charge more mileage for hauling them
than they do private parties for private
cars. They charge eight times the prices
for carrying the mail in these cars than
they do in the express companies in ad-
dition to the mileage and rent. These
cars are the weakest, oldest, most
worthless cars in the yards made over
to be something between a hog car and
a smoker. The men are crushed to death
frequently because the heavy engines on
one end and the steel trussed Pullmans
on the other smash into them in every
collision and crush their rotten planks
like egg shells.
In many wrecks the only cars crushed
are the mail cars, and the only men
crippled or killed are the mail clerks.
AS risks the life insurance companies
consider mail clerks so per cent more
costly than ordinary train men. These
old cars are not provided with any mod
ern conveniences and the mail racks
and cases are not up-to-date, but the
charges are. For these death traps and
murder machines the railroads receive
annually enough to build a good car and
pay interest, repairs and sinking fund
on 1t every six weeks.
The postofice department gags the
mail clerks with a rule that forbids their
making public the facts. To violate it is
dismissal. To make a kick to the ue-
partment is to be marked man. and in
directly results in dismissal every time.
To write to congressman on the con-
ditions and to expose the railway graft
is instant dismissal. Some men do it,
and resign at the same time. And some
resign and say nothing because they be-
lieve that the congressman stand in with
the railway steal, anyhow.
The postal employees in Portland will
work for the Christmas holidays from
13 to IS hours day They will receive
no extra pay for overtime. They will do
this for as low as $50 a month. They
should have enough extra help to do this
work in eight hours. The railway mail
clerks will work S6 hours at a stretch
in rickety, unsanitary, ill-heated, rotten
cars. They should have help enough to
take up this extra work during The holi-
day season. They will receive no extra
pay and if there is anybody killed in a
collision it will be a mail clerk busy
over his letters and packages, or possi-
bly, trying to sleep on the piles of un-
worked mail around him.
This condition of affairs exists because
the watered stock of the railroads needs
dividends to keep it alive. The depart
ment officials dread publicity. and their
only recourse to prevent 1t is the dis
charge of whoever tells them anything
or tells the public anything.
One thing the railway mail clerks OBJ.
ject to is the vile condition in which the
railroads keep the water tanks in which
the drinking water Is stored. The tanks
are rarely cleaned cut. and dead rats
have been discovered in these tanks that
have been there for weeks. A kick from
some clerk on these occasions brings
dismissal. To publish them in the rec
ognized papers brings in discharge. The
writing to a congressman about rat soup
and pastboard cars brings in discharge.
The gags on free speech and free press
placed on the mouths of the employees
Of the postal service is what the same
officials are anxious to place on the
people.
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+ See that the Laundry Workers =