The Telegraph-courier. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1888-1946, 1917-12-13
SAY UNCLE SAN is STlNGY"
Men Who Have Served as Carriers on
Route With $50 Stops Say They Can
Not Live on Salary Paid by Gov
ernment-Others May Quit.

WE'VE hundred people l1Vlng IN the
big territory south and southwest of
the city mail delivery districts, were
without service from the post office
today. Their daily papers and their
post cards remained undelivered and
they were frantically calling in from
along Route No. out Of the Kenosha
post office asking, What happened
to the mail mangD
The man in question was G. B. Muir
ply. He was the third man who has
been assigned as carrier on Route No.
2 within week and he threw up his
hands and jumped his job on Monday
morning and announced that he did not
care to reconsider and go back to work
This route serve twelve hundred peo-
pie over twelve years of age. It starts
out on the west side of the city in the
Kenosha Heights neighborhood and
extends all the way south in Pleasant
Prairie to the Frank L. White Corn
ers. These people were today being
notified that they would have to go
to the central post office to get their
mail for an indefnie period.
The three men who have held down
the job of carrier on Route No. 2 dur
ing the past six days, declared that
Uncle Sam is stingy and that it is i'm
possible for any one to provide him
self with an automobile and cover this
route for the salary Of a hundred dol
lars a month. They insist that the
cost of operating the automobile runs
to fifty dollars a month and that brav-
ing below zero weather for thirty mile
drive six days week is worth consider
able more than 5000 day to them.
Men in charge of the rural carrier
service at the post office declared today
that they would not be surprised If
other designations from the carrier
force would be forthcoming today or
tomorrow. Tt was admitted that the
men who are working on Routes No.
] and No. 3 were both FEsick of the
job and ready to quit unless some
provision was made by the government
to aid them in paying the expenses of
operating the automobiles. Bad roads
have been destroying the tires and
cold weather has brought en- unusually
large consumption of gasoline and the
men declare that they prefer to give
up the service stripes of the carrier
and go to work in some warm factory
with the assurance that they will make
lot more out of it.
"The condition is very serious
one,' said one Of the civil service Of
fcials this morning. sfThere is not
man on the waiting list for the posi-
ton of rural carrier and none seem to
want to get on it. We have announced
civil service examinations galore but
nobody comes to take them. The men
who might be available for rural car
riers declare that they can not support
families on fifty dollars month and
that is about all the job will net them.
We are trying to keep the men at
work and the matter is being taken
up with the department. We have three
applications for examinations for rural
carriers, but we have no reason to be-
lieve that these men will appear and
none of them want to take up the work
on No Route now 1t is the same
kind of trouble that we have every
winter. It is possible that it will be a
month before carrier service can be re-
sumed to these people living on the
outskirts of the city and in the town
of Pleasant Prairie and the only thing
that they can do is to come to the Of
fee for their mail. Many of t EN- are
complaining bitterly but we can not
shanghai men into service as rural
mail carriers and no one seems to
be willing to lake this position and
hold on to it.
The wages being paid the rural car
riers here are practically the same as
are paid all over the country. No re-
ports of strikes among the carriers
have been received, but it is admitted
that the pay of the rural carriers has
been a matter of lot of discomfort.
The postmaster is bombarding Wash
ington in an effort to secure some
change in the rule IN order to have
carrier service on the Kenosha routes
maintained.