No impure books, pamphlets, or papers are allowed transportation by the United States mail. Men in this employ have a right to insist that their work shall not include indecent matter. As far as possible the government tries to prevent advertisers of dishonest businesses from using the mails for fraudulent gain. It is to be hoped that the time may soon come when all financial schemers who now defraud the wage-earning class by circulars on mining, oil, or industrial stock, or other doubtful enterprises, shall be obliged to prove to the government officials that the scheme represented is just what the circular sets forth. All Building Associations and Insurance Companies should pass under the same law. Good people would be glad of this inspection, and bad people make it necessary.
The Postmaster-General recommends that the government have inspectors appointed who shall see that neither telegraph nor express companies be permitted to carry matter for lotteries or any known fraudulent enterprise. The McKinley and Roosevelt administrations will be noted for the improvement and extension of the rural delivery system.
The dead-letter office is one of great interest, and is found in the general post-office building. Of unclaimed letters there were last year nearly six million; of misdirected letters, 454,000; and of letters without any address, 39,837. Any letter which is unclaimed at a post-office after a few weeks is sent to the dead-letter office. Here it is opened, and if it contains the name and address of the writer, the letter is returned; but letters signed “Your loving Amy,” “Your devoted mother,” “Your repentant son,” fail to reach the eyes and hearts of those who wait for them in vain. East year 526,345 unclaimed letters written in foreign countries, probably to loved ones in the United States, were sent to the dead-letter office. Think of the heartaches which that means! Think of the loves and friendships wrecked thereby!
Letters whose envelopes display the business card of the writer are returned to the sender by the local postmaster after a certain period. Papers, magazines, and books with insufficient postage are sent to the dead-letter office, held for a short time, and then distributed to hospitals, asylums, and penal institutions.
Wherever “Old Glory” floats, there the servants of Uncle Sam carry his mail. Of this department every citizen should be proud, for its speed and efficiency is equaled by no other mail service in the world.
XVIII
DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
About fifty years ago, at the request of Hon. H. L. Ellsworth, the sum of one thousand dollars was set apart in the interest of agriculture; now there is a Department of Agriculture, and its Secretary is a member of the President’s Cabinet.
The present Secretary of this department is Hon. James Wilson, of Iowa. He served several terms in Congress, was Regent of the State University of Iowa, and for six years prior to his present appointment was Director of the Iowa Experimental Station and professor of agriculture at the Iowa Agricultural College, Ames, Iowa.
The Department of Agriculture consists of twenty different divisions, each one of which is worthy of a complete chapter. The department has many buildings, but the main one stands within the grounds of the Smithsonian Institution, in a bower of blooming plants and clinging vines. Every kind of plant from the tropics to the Arctic Circle which can be made to grow in this climate can be found in this department.