So carefully had the project been considered and adapted that the service on the Central, from the start, moved with the precision of clock-work, and was an immediate success. It is proper to say that word of what was going on between the Department and the Vanderbilt system reached the Hon. Thomas A. Scott, President of the Pennsylvania Railroad, and he at once made up his mind that the corporation under his management could not afford to be behind its great rival. One Saturday morning he telegraphed to J. D. Layng (now General Manager of the West Shore and President of the C. C. C. & I.), then General Manager of the Pennsylvania lines west of Pittsburg, to know if by the following Monday week, the date on which the train was to start, four postal cars could be built and the first one be in Chicago ready to start on its eastern trip. The answer came back, "Yes." The order was given to the Allegheny shops on Saturday afternoon, and on the following Saturday the first of the cars, complete and equipped for mail service, started for Chicago, and began its east-bound trip on Monday morning. The second and third cars were finished on Monday night, and the fourth—thus fully equipping the line—on Tuesday.
Thus had been established two splendid fast trains, and the outlook was bright for the future, when Congress, in spite of the efforts of the Post-Office Department, passed an Act reducing the already inadequate compensation to the trunk lines, for the carrying of the mails. This action brought official notice from Messrs. Vanderbilt and Scott of the discontinuance of the fast mail trains between New York City and Chicago, and that service ended.
At a Way-station—The Postmaster's Assistant.
Colonel Bangs was greatly mortified at this result, but he stood his ground and remained at his post until the close of the year. Then, worn out with never-ending toil, and disheartened by the action of Congress, he tendered his resignation and insisted on its acceptance. Parted from the Post-Office, President Grant, knowing his worth and wishing to recognize his services, appointed him Assistant Treasurer of the United States at Chicago. He lived to perform the duties of this office only a few months, as death overtook him suddenly, while on a visit to Washington on official business, December, 1876. His work, however, was not permitted to drop. He had left in the service three assistants, Theodore N. Vail, William B. Thompson—afterward Second Assistant Postmaster-General—and John Jameson, who were fully imbued with the ideas of their late chief and were fully loyal to them. They, in the order named, became his successors, and never permitted opportunities to escape wherein there was a possible benefit to the service to be secured. Although the fast mail service was suspended for lack of support from Congress, its usefulness and practicability had been so thoroughly demonstrated that an appropriation of $150,000 was made in March, 1877, for its resumption on the trunk lines. This victory was not reached without untiring efforts on the part of Mr. Vail, and by generous support in both houses of Congress; in the Senate by the Hon. Hannibal Hamlin and James G. Blaine, of Maine, and in the House of Representatives by such broad and liberal statesmen as Mr. Waddell, of North Carolina, Mr. Randall, of Pennsylvania, and Mr. Cox, of New York.
Since then, Messrs. Thompson and Jameson have watched the progress of the work with jealous eyes, and have succeeded in extending it practically to the whole country. The present service is due not alone to the liberality of Congress, because the appropriations have been parsimonious, but to the generosity of the railways, which have performed a valuable work for a price which in many cases does not pay the expense of the necessary additional labor involved.
The Railway Mail Service at the close of the fiscal year ending June 30, 1888, gave employment to 5,094 clerks. Matter was distributed on 126,310 miles of railway, and on 17,402 miles additional closed pouches were carried. There were also operated 41 inland steam-boat lines on which postal clerks were employed. The postal clerks travelled (in crews) 122,031,104 miles by railway, and 1,767,649 miles by steam-boats. They distributed 6,528,772,060 pieces of ordinary mail matter, and handled 16,001,059 registered packages and cases, and 1,103,083 through registered pouches and inner registered sacks. The service is in charge of one General Superintendent, who has his headquarters at Washington, and it is divided into eleven divisions with a superintendent in charge of each.
The majority of people who travel on railways (and how many Americans are there who do not?) have paid passing attention to the railway mail cars as they have stood at the station preparatory to the starting of the train, and have glanced through the open doors with more or less curiosity at the scene of energy and bustle witnessed within. At such a moment, no matter how great the curiosity, it is not feasible to investigate closely, for the workers must not be hampered by the prying public, however praiseworthy the motive. To supply this pardonable desire to know how it is done, I invite my readers to accompany me in spirit on a visit to the Grand Central Station, to witness the preparations for the departure of train No. 11, known in railway parlance as "the New York and Chicago Fast Mail," which leaves New York every night at nine o'clock.
