Postmen

Perhaps the least spectacular branch of the Government is the one with the job of keeping the other branches, and all the people under them, in touch with one another. Stamps, mailboxes and mailmen are so closely integrated with daily life that the average mind is about as conscious of the U. S. Post Office Department as it is of an eye or an eardrum.

Not even a national convention of U. S. postmasters and postal supervisors last week at Niagara Falls, N. Y., made much popular impression. Newspapers that will lavish column after column upon Moose. Shriner, Grotto, Lion, Rotary, Yahoo, Wahoo and Hoohoo conventions, gave their old friends the postmasters scarcely a mention. Even the presence in Buffalo and the speech of Postmaster General Harry S. New were virtually ignored by local newspapers.

Billion-Dollar Service. Mr. New prefaced a survey of his Department's record and functions by telling what it costs to operate it now --714 millions for the last fiscal year. Soon, he said, the U. S. Post Office will cost a billion per annum."*

Business Index. Fifty selected local postoffices serve the department as an index of postal revenues and, consequently, as an index of general business conditions.

Parcel Post. Fourteen years ago these 50 offices would have consti- tuted no business index, because in 1913 fourth-class mail was only about 5% of all domestic matter carried. Now it is 63%, the 14- year-old parcel post service having been extensively adopted by manufacturers for delivering their merchandise. The Rural Free Delivery system, inaugurated in 1896, opened up a new mail-advertising field which is now seven million families strong, and parcel post enabled advertisers to fill their mail orders with mail deliveries.

"Special Handling." A refinement of the parcel post was lately introduced. For 25c extra, parcels for either urban or rural delivery can be specially stamped, marked "special handling," and assured of receiving the same treatment as letters. "Special Handling" parcels are kept out of the sacks containing ordinary parcels; they skip the terminals and are expedited in the railway mail cars.

Foreign Markets. The U. S. has negotiated 72 parcel-post conventions with various foreign countries, greatly facilitating foreign trade. Mr. New called the attention of businessmen to the danger in which the last Congress placed our parcel-post convention with uba by failing to remove restrictions on U. S. imports from Cuba.

Urban v. Rural. Only first-class mail pays its own way. Hence there are annual deficits in all the five branches of U. S. mail service which carry all classes of mail. Yet the Rural Free Delivery is regarded by some people as more of a public welfare service than City Delivery, Village Delivery, the Star Routes* or the Railway Mail. Mr. New could not see how this distinction could be made, nor why some people want to have the Rural Free Delivery deficit treated as an extra-postal expense in the national budget.

He said that 55,800,000 people are served by city mailmen; 31,600,000 people by rural mailmen. The remaining 29,600,000 inhabitants of the U. S. either go to postoffices for their letters or, being too young, unpopular or obscure, presumably get no letters at all.

In cities, the delivery cost is about $2 per person per annum; in the country, about $3.30. Considering the relative densities of city and country populations, rural delivery is cheaper than city delivery. Mr. New is in favor of extending Federal rural service rather than as has been urged, putting it on a contract basis.

Airmail policy has been the reverse of rural delivery policy. The airmail service was established in 1918, using planes and equipment left over from the War, with the idea of putting it on a contract basis as soon as private agencies could be encouraged to enter the field and educated to perform efficiently. Last fortnight, nine years and three months after the first U. S. mail plane flew from New York to Washington, the Post Office Department relinquished to private control the last link (New York to Chicago) of its New York-to-San Francisco system. During the nine years, Government planes had flown some 14 million miles with some 300 million letters at a cost of some 17 million dollars for flyers' pay, buildings, fuel, radio, lighting equipment, etc. Upon leaving the air delivery business, the Post Office Department turned over its hangars, planes, etc., to the War and Commerce Department; its pilots, of whom Colonel Lindbergh was a specimen, to U. S. commercial aviation.

*Expenditures of other U. S. Departments for 1926 were as follows:

War 8358,329,075.62

Treasury 335,459,870.87

Navy 311,611,693.71

Interior 304,708,012.53

Agriculture 155,754,232.74

Commerce 29,079,059.44

Justice 24,005,306.34

State 15,984,725.33

Labor 8,613,167.89

The U. S. Post Office Department exceeded all but the Treasury Department in revenues, coming within $2,000,000 of being self- supporting.

*A Star Route is one on which the carrier delivers mail to postoffices in addition to serving homes on the way.