The Appointment Section corresponds to a well-organized personnel bureau of a modern business establishment. This section is under the superintendency of Mr. Peter Putz. All appointees from the Civil Service list report to this section, and from here they are assigned to the various divisions and departments, according to the requirements. In a force of 15,000 men there are, of course, many changes daily, caused by deaths, resignations, promotions, and demotions. Whatever action is involved in the changes is taken by the Appointment Section. The efficiency records of all employees are filed here, and likewise the bonds covering their financial responsibility. From the day a person enters the service to the time he or she leaves it, a record is kept of all ratings, of qualifications as determined by his superior officers, and of all delinquencies.
The Drafting Section
How diversified the requirements of the postal service are is illustrated by the work of the Drafting Section, under the direction of Mr. John T. Rathbun, whose corps of draftsmen are constantly engaged in laying out new stations, replotting equipment in different units as various changes incident to the growth of the city necessitate, or as changes in the regulations affect the volume of business at different points. This section includes also a corps of mechanics engaged in the repair and maintenance of mail-handling apparatus and equipment.
The Supply Department
The Supply Department of the New York post-office corresponds to a well-equipped store and printing establishment. It is under the superintendency of Mr. William Gibson. By this division supplies are furnished not only to the New York office and its stations, including those on naval vessels, but to post-offices throughout New York State, as many as 2200 points in all being cared for. Among the items supplied are 5,000,000 penalty envelops and 1700 different varieties of forms and books, of which approximately 60,000,000 copies are used annually. This department furnishes 250 different items of stationery and of janitors' supplies, and innumerable repair parts for a great variety of mechanical contrivances used in the postal system. The aim of the official in charge of the department is to keep in touch with the latest labor-aiding mechanical devices that can be utilized in the service, and among the various bureaus and sections will be found more than 300 type-writers, eighty adding-machines, cancelling machines, check-writing, check-protecting, accounting, and duplicating machines. For these numerous repairs are required and parts have to be secured, all of which is attended to by this department.
A feature of this department is a well-equipped printing section, which prints a daily paper or bulletin containing instructions, orders, and information for the employees, as well as numerous forms, posters, placards, etc., utilizing in this work a monotype type-setting machine, two cylinder and five job presses. A detail in its workshop is the precancellation of postage-stamps, to meet the requirements of large mailers who desire to purchase them, of which the yearly output is approximately 250,000,000.
The Classification Section
In the Division of Classification all questions involving rates and conditions of mailing are passed upon. At the head of this section is Mr. Frederick G. Mulker, whose experience with these matters is probably unequaled.
All applications for the entry of publications as "second-class" matter are handled here, and to this bureau publishers come to arrange for the acceptance of their magazines and papers. After a publication is admitted to the mails at the second-class rate its columns are scrutinized to detect anything that infringes upon the regulations, and if anything is found, action is taken by this section. The law defines various classes of mail matter, and innumerable questions arise as to the class in which certain articles belong, many of the questions being difficult of determination and involving numerous technicalities, but here, sooner or later, all questions are settled.
It is to this point, also, that the public comes for information as to the preparation of matter for the mails, how it should be wrapped, addressed, and posted; this section passes upon the mailability of matter under the lottery laws, which cover everything relating to prize schemes, contests, competitions, drawings, endless-chain schemes, etc. Many are the plans submitted, and while the law is rigid in respect to these matters, the field is alluring, and each day some novel proposition is submitted with the hope that it will not infringe the law, yet be attractive to the public through some subtle appeal to its gambling proclivity.