The Washington times., 1921-01-29

this service. 30 far rs the pay of the
postal employees Is concerned / was
not at any time opposed to increasing
the pay Of the employees. i was and
am In favor of paying Government
employees from l5 to 80 per cent more
than they can make outside. was
not, and am not, however. in favor Of
making tremendous blanket increases,
which mean that men who are not en-
titled to II get more money than they
earn.
II asked Congress to give me
81, 500. 900, and with that i could have
met every pay situation In the service
and adequately compensated every
man who ought to have had an in
crease without giving to a lot of men
whose duties required less than two
hours day q whole lot more than
they ought to have. But Congress In
the end yielded to pressure and added
s35. 900, 900 to the payroll. thus max
ing 1t impossible for the department
ever again to show a surplus.
"Oh, I could have gone along the
| easiest way and avoided lot of the
| unpopularity you say l possess. There
was nothing in II for me personally
in opposing this unjustifiable increase.
but did not think II right and still
do not think 1t right. Neither you
nor myself nor any member of Con-
Eress would have dreamed of doing
| It had this business been our own
instead of the public's.
REASONS FOR ENEMIES.
What about these enemies, Mr..
Burleson. and the reasons you spoke
OF while agos"
| II will tell you about that" was
the reply. "As f90le hack. upon 1t
| i made were the 1kpress companies.
soon after took this job my atten-
tion was called to the fact that the
parcel post rates for short hauls.
which is the profitable business, had
! been fixed much higher than the eN-
! press rates, but on the long hauls,
which are not profitable, the parcel
post rate was lower than the express
| rate"
81 studied that situation and then
reduced the parcel post rate on short
hauls and raised 1t on long hauls, at
| the same time increasing the weight
limit from ten to twenty pounds
Well, Of course, the express COM
panies howled and hated 1t. Can You
blame them? I waited six months
| IOun0 WOThtu ~cll, anu oS
creased the rates again on the short
haul. again raising the weight to
| 100 pounds.
| The test of whether this has work
| ed well seems to me to be that when
| IL was done we were carrying a little
over 3OO, 900 parcels a year and now
we are carrying 1000 900 a year. and
| making money at II, too. And the ex-
press companies are not out OF busi'
| ness either. But they became my
enemies-my very bitter and impla-
cable enemies. You see, I had hit
them in the pocketbook and 1t hurt
They had wide and powerful oonAec-
tions. They arrayed and are still ar
raging a lot of people against me-"
TELLS OF RAILROAD FIGHT.
who were your next set of enc
mies?"
The next set were the railroad
presidents. changed the method OF
paying the railroads from weight to
space. Every expert agreed that
was the right thing to do. My pre-
decessors in office for a generation
had recommended 1t, but had not
been able to put 1t across. When
proposed It, fifteen of the railroad
presidents came to see me in this
room. told them ] wanted to pay
them every dollar their service was
worth. but not n dollar more. They
told me to forget II. I told them
was going to make the change,
tried 1t and they beat me in Con-
gress.
II tried 1t again and they beat me
in conference, but they had to kill
the entire postoffice bill to do IT.
They thought 1 would weaken. but
said. XIII her them and kill hsI
they did. 1 had to run the depart
ment for a year on a resolution. The
next time I put II over, but they
tackled on an amendment referring II
to the Interstate Commerce Commits
sion. The commission unanimously
approved the space method and the
thing was done. Well, you can up-
derstand that, while I saved some
$40, 100000 year to the department
/ did not become popular with the
railroad presidents"
'Do you think they did you much
harm7'
| "well, they scared me up a little
and waged a pretty bitter campaign
against me. They think. and not un.
naturally. that I am "A perfectly ter.
rible man. equal 20 doing most any
iniauitous thing, but they were not
as effective in their hostility as m,
next set of enemies"
| "who were theyT"
ABOUT MAGAZINE FIGHT.
"why. the newspapers and mag.
azines. Every Postmaster-General
Democrat and Republican, for the las,
thirty years had recommended an in.
crease in the second-class mail rate
I recommended It, too. Tho difference
was that I put II over. And II IL
right and just. ! know and ap
preciate the argument that the postaI
rate for newspapers and magazlne'
should be low in order that knowl-
edge and information may be dis
lcnntinnnd on Pare A. Column a