Evening star., 1937-12-12
POSTAL SKILL is FACING TEST
Preparation for Holiday Demands Started Each Year When Old
Season Has Ended, and Continues Until Time for Ex.
panding of All Branches of Service

in one sense 1t spun itself out to a
twelve months season which lasted
the year around.
This is because officials must be
forecasters of sort, able to know if
they must prepare for light or heavy :
mails. As weather men scan maps,
so they scan statistics Many of these
are tallies on year-round developments,
a gauge by which to figure the holiday
rise.
For example. the Railway Mail Serv- ,
ice keeps tally on the upward or down.
ward trend Of the space it needs in
railroad cars, for which Uncle Sam
pays the companies so much per foot
per mile. An upward trend implies
corresponding public prosperity; a
downward trend that the year Of the
locust is upon mailers, and the holiday
burden will probably be light.
More human barometers are the in
spectors stationed in each large Office
at Christmas, acting in an advisory
capacity and making observations.
Their reports for this Christmas will
be used as a partial check in alloting
funds for 1888 This, however, does
not fall within the year-round category.
THIS season, the department ex-
poets mail as heavy or perhaps a
trif1e heavier than last years To de-
tail the whole task Of handling it would
be impossible, Of course. But the brunt
of Washington preparations falls on
several divisions under each Of Mr.
Farley's four assistant postmasters
general. The latter. corresponding to
vice presidents of bank-or more in
formally, to ball players under an um-
pire-hold Chris mas conferences
among themselves, and take their trou-
bles to Mr.. Farley only if a matter of
policy arises.
The first assistant, William w.
Howes, is entitled to vince at the
sound of sleigh bells and carols His
department is in reality one of the
worlds greatest personnel bureaus.
with its registration" just doubling at
Christmas His workers collect, deliver
and distribute the mail in post Offices,
before it goes into the hands of the
transportation division: and to make
this possible he furnishes clerks and
carriers. both regulars and auxiliaries.
to the nations 4.5O0 first and second
class offices. In the third and fourth
class. the postmasters are men-of-a
work and handle the job themselves.
At Christmas, Mr.. Howes also sup
plies the horde which helps out in the
rush-job- seekers ranging from Span
ish-American war veterans to slim,
young stenographers. from musicians
to plain John Citizen, with hopeful
eye on holiday pin money.
Sixty-five cents an hour. incident
ally. is the rate of pay, the price Of
meal or flowers for the girl friend.
according to the workers financial
| status
Mr.. Howes department does not fur
nish this force direct. The statistical
minded won't learn how many tempo
rary workers will be employed this
Christmas. Nobody in Washington will
divulge this, for nobody knows. Local
postmasters are given funds and au-
thority to hire as needed-some help
ers only for an hour, some for week,
some for the whole season.
This is not done haphazardly. Along
in September, this department started
the employment drive by asking post
masters to get their personnel requi-
sitions in early. But clairvoyant au-
thorities, in sense, investigated these
requests before their arrival. and
judged whether they were reasonable.
nURING 1887, a large corps Of work.
ers in Mr.. Howes Offices kept its
year-round check on the normal needs
of each Office. This implies not only
background knowledge of each station.
but an equal knowledge of various
cities-their current prosperity or lack
of it, their cultural status. and other
conditions which affect the mailing
public. When the requisitions arrive,
the workers calculate the probable holi-
day rise by checking this years data
with last year. This is done on the
basis of manpower hours; postmasters
never ask directly for funds or workers.
but for so many hours at the sixty five
cent pay rate.
So prompt were the postmasters this
year in making their requests that Mr..
Howes was able to make all allotments
before October 25.
But the average postmaster Is as
human as housewife before dinner
| (see POSTAL SKILL, Page Coy