The Washington herald., 1920-05-22
Are POST Office E1nploye
Human Beings?

two city blocks its fifty branch offices, its $50 sub
stations, and fourteen thousand employees re-
quires supreme managerial abilities on the part of
its department chiefs. They would be receiving
salaries of $4,000 to $4,000 for such official serv
ices in big commercial organizations. Yet the
highest salary paid to the "bg four" superintend-
ents at the head of the four main departments of
the great New York Post-office is only $500
year, less than SOS week, and not one of these
attained his position in less than twenty-seven
years service. The superintendent of the great
railway terminal postal stations receive less than
$40 to $50 week after serving an average of thir-
ty-fve years each And we pay more than that to
1ongshoremen and window-cleaners and drivers OF
milk-wagons!
We are doing more than this act of cruel in
justice to the 10000 postalemployees of the coun-
try. We are bringing serious menace to own
interests. The postal service is being crippled by
wholesale designations 1t is becoming impossible
to induce competent men to fill the va
cances. In the New York post-ofice alone nearly
eight hundred designations have occurred within
hve months False economy is destroying all eff
cheney and threatening collapse of the service.
lime and energy that ought to be given to han
ding the mail is diverted to instructng and manag-
ing shifting, dissatisfied organization. The same
thing is true in all parts of the country Our in
difference and neglect the "big employer" of the
post-offlce workers is recoiling on our own heads
THE LITERARY DIGEST has made thor
ough investigation of the facts and is making this
brief, urgent statement to its than two mil
lion readers because many times they have
sponded nobly to appeals for worthy action
Americans, and now is time for such action. Con-
gress is not to blame for the existing conditions.
The men now sitting in the Capitol at Washington
human beings like the rest of us. They have
warm hearts and ready sympathy and keen
of justice any American citizen can have.
The blame and the shame for this pitiful injustice
to the nations postal employees are ours as peo-
ple 1t is yours who read this page. 1t is ours who
write and publish it. The change of policy from
brutal stinginess careless indifference to fair
and liberal American policy must be wrought by
us, the Americans who always love fair play.
Write to your Congressman and to both of
your Senators, every one of you men and women
who has heart and an active sense of human JUS
tice. Don't put off, the time before Congress will
adjourn is short Urge them to give their most ar
dent support to the bill putting into immediate eff
feet substantial increase of salaries throughout
the entire postal service of the United States Con-
gress will gladly and quickly pass this bill when
the American people rally to its support. If you
don't know the names of the Senators and Con-
gresham ask your letter-carrer postmaster, or
banker. Let all business houses be heard FROM
and all civic societies and fraternal orders Rescue
these postal toilers from penury and narrow lives
and set them their feet as American citizens
who need not suffer be ashamed in their service
of us all