Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-09-10
BACKGROUND OF EVENTS
BY PAUL Y. COLLINS.

Business Is picking up" in the Post
Office Department-picking up and
carrying many millions of items, mostly
transported at loss to the service.
President Hoover is planning to stop
that leak and improve the service and
to guarantee more and bigger letters
to hungry correspondents. He will
make drastic recommendations in his
next message to Congress, although the
situation is not nearly so critical as that
Of stopping crime and installing virtue
in the enforcement of law and the Con-
stitution, for there will be no recon-
mendation that the several States run
their own postal services to suit them
selves.
The fact that the President has not
appointed a whole commission, like that
of the farmers and the law enforce
ment experts, but has simply hired one
man and made him Third Assistant
Postmaster General, with the special
duty to audit, ascertain and point out
more efficient methods, shows that it
should be easy to save the present loss
of $95 900, 900 year, more or less. That
does not include certain payments
covering retroactive claims OF $51 ,oOo,-
900.
\ n y II
1t will surprise some critics of the
Post Office Department to learn that
nobody in that service has anything to
do with its financial policies. The Post
master Geenral is only an executive
officer; he cannot define policies, fix
rates, nor classifications, nor running
expenses.
For example, a few weeks ago the
Interstate Commerce Commission added
SIS, 100000 year to the running ex-
penses of the Post Office Department
by increasing the subsidies to the rail-
road companies carrying the mails. The
Postmaster General had no voice In the
matter.
Salaries have been raised by Con-
gress-not too highly, but raised
without the action of the Post Office
Department. BY act of Congress every
policy of the mail service is fixed; all
that the officials of the department can
do about it is to obey the acts OF Con-
greSS.
Politics, and not scientific economics,
governs the policies of the Post Omce
Department, as all employees must seek
the backing of some Congressman,
whether they are capable or not. Every
country postmaster is appointed by
order of his Congressman, and unless
he commits a crime he cannot be re-
ulONGO eACCpL ny dllO WAU14 tAAC SOAASNAAe
of his Congressman. It is Congress and
the Interstate Commerce Commission
and the owners of ships and railroads
subsidized to carry our mails that run
the Post ONCE Department. The Post
master General can recommendation
decree anything.
So, we pay the cost of politics in an
nual deficits of carrying the mails, and
the public, in its ignorance OF facts,
sometimes believes that there is mis-
management in the postal service.
X y \
When a question was asked the head
of one of the branch Offices of our Post
Office Department how our annual
deficits compared with similar deficits
in foreign countries, he was puzzled at
the question, but thought that in for
eign countries subsidies to carriers
were more liberal, and, consequently
the deficits must be greater than here.
Upon asking the same question OF Mr..
White, who is in charge OF foreign
mails in the United States Post Ofhce
Department, we were informed that for
eign nations do not substitute their rail-
roads and have no deficits in their mail
services, for the foreign nations COM
bine all services of communications
mail, telegraph and telephone, and even
newspaper SupScrlpClonS-dno So aEe
self-sustaining.
When a person wants to subscribe
for a newspaper or other publication
he does not write the publisher or cir
culation manager and remit; he tells
his postmaster, and the payment is
made at the local post Office, which
then RENTS to the publisher, less a
commission. Thus the post office de-
partment in any European country is
general subscription agency, with a
monopoly on all circulation Of all pub
locations.
r n n X
America alone pays liberal" sub
sides to steamship and railroad car
riers, and charges the lowest postage
rates, and hauls the longest distances
and delivers to the most isolated desti-
nations, Of any nation in the world,