Omaha daily bee., 1915-09-05

letters from home regularly
Before sunset Monday evening there are TO
be perhaps no less than 1900 letter carriers in
Omaha, representing all the states in the union.
This is the week OF the convention of the National
Association of Letter Carriers.
A convention, yes for these brave, smiling
men that breeze up to the door, drop a letter with
q cheerful good morning." and are gone, have
! some interests Of their own to thresh out. They
have problems OF life that they must solve for
themselves.
A given number Of hours each day they de-
liver letters postcards and magazines in the serv
ice of Uncle Sam. After that they are just men
with families at home. After they deliver your
letter they hoe potatoes the garden squirt city
water on the lawn, set hens and raise chickens,
read the daily paper by the fire, bounce the
babies their knees
They are not perfect walking machines in
neat gray uniforms. They are human beings with
big, human souls and big. human problems to meet,
For twenty years these men have had
ISOLATION, which has solved problem after
another and which still has many problems to
solve. Every year the association gains in
bership, for every year more and more of the men
see the Importance of being member of the
citation, and each year there are more and more
carriers.
Now, while Uncle Sam has a reputation of
paying his help pretty well, of paying pretty
promptly and giving no bad checks, still the cost
OF living has advanced rapidly that Uncle
Sam has perhaps not always kept informed to
the immediate price OF steak If he should
become grossly delinquent in his lack of such in
formation, this association will appoint
mittee to educate him most respectfully.
Again this cheerful man in the gray uniform,
does not live forever. He cannot be repaired
a machine can. He becomes old in time, and must
be discarded.
-sau-- Discarded-ah, there is another problem II
he has not been able to save from his wages
enough to keep him in his old age when he shall
no longer be Of use to the service what shall he
and his family dor
The association knows what 1t wants its mem
hers to do in these cases.
1t wants them to be able to draw a regular
check from Uncle Sam from retirement fund for
superannuated carriers
The association believes and has long be-
ueved that after a man has given all the years or
his life to the carrying OF letters for Uncle Sam,
Unole Sam should take of him in his last years
So important does the association consider
this matter that 1t is the first Of the topics men
toned to be taken up at the Omaha convention.
They point to the fact that many large corpora
tons providing funds for such annuities
for the superannuated employees.
Again. this man who smiles and hands you
your letter is always strictly confined to certain
rules. If he be sick IN the hospital 100 days he
is out Of Job.
Nor is 1t necessary that he be in the hospital
If, for any reason. he is not working at his Job
for q period of $50 consecutive days, he Is fired"
in plain English.
mo excuses CO." is what the department says
when a carrier attempts to explain that he was laid
up with typhoid fever, appendicitis, broken leg
or any possible complication Of ailments
An old veteran of the civil war few years
ago, after carrying mail for almost quarter OF
a century, began to suffer from an old wound. He
vas compelled to be off duty $50 days. He
notified that he must return to work at
be discharged from the service.
He was unable to return He sent word
planning the facts.
mo excuses CO." came the stern reply from
Washington.
Surely" said the aged wife of the veteran
surely they will not discharge you. How
they do 1t? You fought through the civil war;
gave those years to the service of your country
and have given the years since that time in the
employ of the government. Not cannot be-
There is some mistake. Surely, surely. a great
government like this will not discharge you
and leave US unprovided for"
But the red tape of Washington is a machine
not with soul that can be touched.
Discharged" came the order.
1t were idle to follow this sad further
1t is enough to know that cases like these have
aroused the carriers to seek the institution of
better system in this respect.
SO they are asking to have the 15O-day rule
modified They feel that in case of sickness or
other good for absence from duty for
period of $50 days a man should not necessarily
be dropped from the service. They feel that the
figure is set at $50 days arbitrarily and without
good reason. They feel, in other words, that cir
cumstances should influence the case.
Then the carriers want compensation bill
that will provide more liberal benefits TO the en-
ployes than those contained in the Reilly compen-
sation law.
They want the sanitary conditions of the post
offices throughout the country improved. They
want better lighting facilities in the offices be-