New-York tribune., 1919-04-25
Burleson, Wrecker
By William Hard
From "The Nea0 Republic'

But Wagner, by definition, is only ff-
teen miles away. This railway post must
now sort all its mails, all it's accumula-
tions of mails from Denison north. in ff-
teen miles. 1t is hard to do, and, when the
report of the Merchants Association was
made, was not getting done. Much mail
was remaining unsorted when Wagner was
reached. Much mail, therefore, which
ought to have been thrown off at Wagner
for large number of different points in
Oklahoma and in Kansas sand in Arkansas
was being carried straight through Wag-
oner on toward Kansas City. 1t could
come back later The addresses could
receive it day late
Unnecessary Frequency
The second was to buy all his postal
service accommodations from the railways
On system of space, instead of on
System of weight. The financial results, on
the books, are excellent, The results on
the service. again, are different,
In his last annual report he tells US tina,
IN the old days we used to have "frequent
and unnecessary dispatches OF mail" lie
implies that he has reduced them. He hsp.
Under the present syatem, as operated, he
cannot help 1t. With railway aeecmmoda.
tions being bought by space and with the
space coming in only on given trains the
reduction in the number of frequent" dis
patches ia inevitable. But mere those Ere
quent' dispatches unnecessary?
Mr.. Burleson struck at the main flowing
artery of the speed of the whole postal
service when he struck at the railway mail
car service and kept on striking at it. His
third idea hit it again, in its personnel
BY reducing the number of railway post
Offices Gas per idea one) Mr.. Burleson had
already reduced the number Of railway
postal clerks. He had already effected
reduction in his wage bill, as we'll as in
his railway pay bill His appetite was
whetted. He proceeded to make a special
examination of railway postal clerk routes
and crews.
He would find, for instance, that on
certain route there were six crews. They
worked, each of them, six days on. per
haps, and six days off. During their six
days they worked very long hours
During their six days off they rested and
studied their distribution schemes They
have TO study all the time
StockstiU Distribution
Mr.. Burleson "readjusted" them. He
would change them over, for instance from
six days on and six days off to six days on
and three days off. They complained They
complained from one end of the United
States to the other. Their PRESIDENT
f. Il Rvon
plants in this matter and in other matters
when he issued the circular of remon-
STRANGE which led to his discharge from
the service and which finally carried the
Railway Mail Association into the Ameri-
can Federation of Labor But Mr.. Burleson
succeeded. He ''readjusted" the hours. and
by "readjustng" the hours he reduced the
number of crews Routes which used to
have SIX crews now had five. Routes which
used to have three crews now had two
And the fourth idea arrived 1t con-
cerned itself with decreasing the amount
of service to be given on the decreased
number of railway postoffce cars. Hav-
ing reduced the number of cars, Mr.. Burle-
son decided to reduce the amount of sorting
and distributing to be done on the cars
remaining.
Paper mail is put on the Chicago and
New York railway postoftice line at, say.
Rochester. 1t is destined, say, to a point
IN Massachusetts 1t used to be distributed
on the train. Now it rides along in a sack
untouched. 1t reaches Albany There is a
Waln going out toward Boston at once.
MI burleson does not care He is going to
distribute that mail on solid ground. He
takes it off tho New York train and car-
fies 1t to tho Albany terminal There he
holds 1t aud distributes it, and the i'm
mediate boston train goes on; and Mr..
hVrieson catches the next train if ho can.
All over tho United States Mr.. RurIeson
Is sor''ng all the mail he can in nierminalsu
aloeks'll and as lttlo of it as ha can an
railways travelling, II is the essence az
MS distribution system, and il is the es-
seNea ar the reason why the final sun,
W MS effefls ~ ofiee s sweleR surpius
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