The Monett times., 1922-01-13
THE HUMAN SIDE OF THE
POSTAL SERVICE
By Hon. Will H. Hays, Postmaster
General.
In December Review. Of Reviews.

sASSS5 hIIlNil any Ia
more than 100000, 100000.
In every single hour of the twenty
four, l,400,000 letters are mailed; in
every sday of the 365 days, 33,0O0,000
letters are sert; during this year
more than 12,00O,O 100000 letters will
be handled, fourteen. billion postage
stamps, 1,25O,00O,O00. postal cards,
and 2,75O,0O0,000 stamped envelopes
are sold every year.
More than $4,000 postal co-work-
ers are daily engaged serving the
110,000,000 people, or one postal
worker for every 337 persons.
The postal establishment operates
its railway-mai service over rail
trackage long enough to encircle the
earth ten times. FolTy-three thous-
and rural carriers go out every morn
ing, serving six and one-half million
families, and before sundown every
day travel 1,170,000 miles-a total of
353,000,000 miles a year over the
highways of the country.
We use 100000 miles Of twine every
year tying the packages of letters,
enough twine TO encircle the earth
thirty-two times. Every year $780,
600 pounds of paper are used in
manufacturing the postal cards alone
Debts totaling 81, 1,500,000,O00 are paid
through the Post Office Department
annually, with. 150,000,000 money
orders. There are 100000 depositors
in the Postal Savings, larger num-
ber than in any banking Institution
in the world, and rs per cent of them
are Of foreign extraction.
Sixty-five million mail sacks are in
use constantly, and it requires 6,000,-
900 yards of canvas every year to
keep up the supply. There are over
1926, 100000 separate facing slips
used on the packages of letters and
pouches of mail. One hundred and
eighty million envelopes are used
annually for the correspondence of the
postal service alone and a billion
blank forms.
There is twice as much busi-
ness done in the post office
in New York City as in
the entire Dominion of Canada. An
average of more than 250,000 letters
every day in the New York City post
office alone are readdressed from city
directories; 100000 letters every
year go to the Dead Letter Office
think of the cost which those services
bring to the taxpayers because of the
carelessness of the public in address
ing.
The Parcel Post is the great ex-
press company in the world, and will
this year handle more than $500, ,000,-
900 packages; the annual business
of the American Railway Express will
probably be 4OOOOO,OO0 packages.
The postal establishment of the
United States is incomparably the
biggest distinctive business in the
world-and it comes nearer to the in
nermost interests of a greater number
of men and women than any other in
stitution on earth. No private busi-
ness, however widespread, touches so
many lives so often or so sharply; no
church reaches into so many souls,
so many pulses, has so many
human beings dependent on its minis
trations.
The postal service is the heart
the blood through the veins
and arteries of our national life. 1t
makes a thousand scattered communi-
ties into a State; it makes 48 scat
tered States into a Nation. Through
the printed matter it carries it brings
the joys, the SORROWS, the crimes and
the achievements, the political, social,
economic and religious theories and
of the whole people be-
fore each minute portion of it; TO
instruct, to inspire or to horrify:
sweeping away sectional lines and
up religious prejudice;
political thought and building
political parties; advancing good
causes, checking dangerous tendencies
Without it, business would languish
in day, and be at standsrill in a
week. Public opinion would die of
dry rot. Sectionalism only would
and provinciaism thrive.
When the average patron of the
post office mails a, letter he never
gives thought beyond that point, nor
does the person receiving the letter ,
ever stop to think of what its journey
through the postal service involves,
The postal service is taken for grant
ed like the sequence of the seasons.
LoTTIE PICKFORD WEEDS.
MARY Is MATR0N OF HONOR