The Post-office of General Concern
There is no governmental activity that comes so uniformly into intimate daily contact with different classes of this country's inhabitants, nor one the functioning of which touches practically the country's entire population, as does the United States postal system. Mr. Daniel G. Roper, in a volume highly regarded by postal executives, entitled "The United States Post-Office," called the postal service "the mightiest instrument of human democracy." This system, as we know it to-day, represents the growth, development, and improvement of over a century and a third. In the last seventy-five years this growth has been particularly marked; the total number of pieces of all kinds of mail matter handled in 1847, for instance, was 124,173,480; in 1913 it was estimated that 18,567,445,160 pieces were handled, and to-day about 1,500,000,000 letters are handled every hour in the postal service. In 1790 the gross postal revenues were $38,000 in round numbers and the expenditures $32,000. In 1840 the revenues were $4,543,500 and expenditures $4,718,200. In 1890 the revenues were $60,880,000 and the expenditures $66,260,000. In 1912 the revenues were $247,000,000 and the expenditures $248,500,000.
The revenue of the postal service for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1921, including fees from money-orders and profits from postal-savings business, amounted to $463,491,274.70, an increase of $26,341,062.37 over the receipts for the preceding fiscal year, which were $437,150,212.33. The rate of increase in receipts for 1921 over 1920 was 6.02 per cent., as compared with an increase in 1920 over 1919 of 19.81 per cent.
The audited expenditures for the year were $620,993,673.65, an increase over the preceding year of $166,671,064.44, the rate of increase being 36.68 per cent. The audited expenditures for the fiscal year were therefore in excess of the revenues in the sum of $157,502,398.95, to which should be added losses of postal funds, by fire, burglary, and other causes, amounting to $15,289.16, making a total audited deficiency in postal revenues of $157,517,688.11. The material increase in the deficiency over that for 1920 was due to large increases of expenditures made necessary by reason of the re-classification act allowing increased compensation estimated at $41,855,000 to postal employees, and to increased allowances of more than $30,000,000 for railroad mail transportation resulting from orders of the Interstate Commerce Commission under authority of Congress.
The revenues of this department are accounted for to the Treasury of the United States and the postmaster-general submits to Congress itemized estimates of amounts necessary under different classifications; Congress, in turn, makes appropriations as it deems advisable.
In 1790 there were a total of 118 officers, postmasters, and employees of all kinds in the postal service. Postmaster-General Work to-day directs the activities of nearly 326,000 officers and employees. The number of post-offices in the United States in 1790 was seventy-five; in 1840 the number had increased to 13,468; in 1890 it was 62,401; and on January 1, 1922, there were 52,050. The greatest number of post-offices in existence at one time was 76,945, in 1901, but the extension of rural delivery since its establishment in 1896 has caused, and will probably continue to cause, a gradual decrease in the number of smaller post-offices.
The Post-office in Colonial Times
The first Colonial postmaster, Richard Fairbanks, conducted an office in a house in Boston in 1639 to receive letters from ships. In 1672 Governor Lovelace of New York arranged for a monthly post between New York and Boston, which appears to have been the first post-route officially established in America. Much of this route was through wilderness, and the postman blazed the trees on his way so that travelers might follow his path. This route, however, was soon abandoned.