Evening star., 1913-11-21
The POSTAL SERVICE
1.-The Nations Mail.
BY Frederic J. Haskin.

BY Frederic J. Haskin. III
The biggest thing about the covers
Inent Of the United States is not the
President, nor Congress, nor the army
and navy. nor the Supreme Court 1t Is
the post office. The post Office is that
department of the federal government
that touches more people than any other
and touches them oftener. The letter
carrier in the city. the rural route car
rier i'm the country, the postmaster in
the village-they are our familiar friends,
and it is through them that we see
most of our governments workings.
The United States post office Is the
biggest business Institutions In the world.
II employs more men than any other
business enterprise on earth. 1t collects
and eNpends more money than any
other single organization known to man
kind Other nations are as big. and
some of them have postal systems that
are more thorough. but other people
uses the mails TO the extent that Amerl-
cans use them. Now that the postal saw
ings banks are organized, and the parcel
POST is being developed, the American
post office soon will be as thorough as it
is already extensive
The United States has one-eighteenth
Of the population OF the world. and about
the same proportion of the landed area
of the earth. Yet it handles one-thiTd
of all the mail matter OF all the postal
systems in the world. And this. mark
you. was the case before the parcel post
was established in the United States. al
though such systems prevailed in other
cocntries. and great proportion of the
mail of other countries consisted of par
GELS. When the parcel post is fully de-
veloped here IL is possible that the
American post office will handle nearly
one-half of all the mail matter of the
world
The public is so familiar with its mail
service that it seldom pauses to think of
it's extent.
Cost of Service 1t knows in
Reaches $3.50, 600, 900. a 1 n 'hat e a -
is a service that now demands one-fourth
Of all the annual expenditures of the
United States government. and that 1t
annually handles some 1900 100000
pieces OF mail. But the real meaning of
the expenditure of S250,OOOOOO is too diff
ficult TO grasp, and the handling of H.
600. 100000 pieces of mail too large task
to be pictured An American dollar bill
IS a little over six inches long, yet the
annual expenditures of the Post Office
Department would make nearly nine belts
of bills around the earth. A rapid count
er can count hundred in a minute At
this rate 1t would take an army OF l,jO0
people working twelve hours day and
Biz days a year. to count the pieces OF
mail handled annually by the postal serv-
ice. And when one recalls the number
OF landings that each piece of mail re-
quires, varying from three times to
Dozen the immensely of the task begins
to appear.
If there is any individual in any part
OF the world who has any better method
of collecting the postal revenues than
through the use of the postage stamp
that person would be received with open
arms by the Post Office Department. The
department is the recipient of many sug-
gestions as to substitutes for postage
stamps. but it reports that to date moth
ing has been developed which embodies
all of the very practical and direct adj
vantages of the stamp. 1t is admitted
that there is possibility that a success
ful substitute will yet be found. but the
department officials add that the tendency
now IS TO extend rather than 10 curtail
the stamp system. 1t requires approx
mately 1900. 100000 stamps and pieces
of stamped paper to accommodate the
postal needs of the people of the country.
and they come in Ia varieties and de-
nOnEndIOnS- ne one anu TWO cent
stamps represent ten out of every thir-
teen issued by the government, including
postal cards and newspaper wrappers.
One OF the striking developments in the
postal service of the United States has
been the increase
Salaries Have in the salaries
Greatly Increased pau pand's - thu muse s,,s so
They increased s2s. 100000 In four years.
while the number of employees increased
BY 1000. The average clerk In a post
office got e-hundred-and-fourtee
lar raise i'll his salary the average letter
carrier a seventy raise. the
average railway postal clerk a ninety
four-dollar raise. and the average rural
carrier a one-hundred- and ninety three
dollar raise.
There are approximately $1,000 post Of
fees in the United States where the ma
tionS mail is received and dispatched.
OF these. all but about 5000 are fourth
class post Offices. where the postmasters
receive a percentage of the face value of
the stamps they cancel as their compen-
safion in leu of salary. Where the can
collation. of stamps does not exceed $50
per quarter, the postmaster gets the full
lace value. ana IL is eStlfndte0 that nearly
II 900 postmasters make no returns OF the
revenues from the dispatch of mail from
their offices. From this ii viii be seen
that some 5000 postrnasters are working
for the government for 500 a year or
less. The average compensation OF the
fourth-class postmasters Of the United
States. OF whom there are nearly 10000
i less than S24 a month. and out of this
they must furnish their own quarters and
equipment 1t Is little wonder that one
OF the principal offenses against the post
laws is that of postmasters who pad their
receipts by claiming 10 have Cancelled
stamps that they did not cancel.
x
Tie postal service has been going for
ward AT a marvellous rate in recent years
In only twenty -five
Rapid Progress years the number
Modo Lu c. OF pieces OF mail
handled and the
number OF post offices have increased
i.Fefold. while the number OF stamps sold
has been multiplied by six. In nine years
the postal business OF the nation has
Coubled. and We handle as much mail in
twelve days now as was handled in a full
ear at the outbreak of the civil war
We spend more for mail service every day
in the year now than We spent for the