Postal Riders and Raiders

by W. H. Gantz

(3) Three crates of fruit went into a mail car at one time, two cases of canned goods at another and a crate of tomatoes at another, without passing over the weighing scale. A drum of coffee, fifty to eighty pounds in weight, went to mail at another time, and a large sack of sawdust at another.

Both of the last mentioned went over the weighing scale before they went to the mail car.

I am speaking only of what casual or chance notice brought to my attention in three railway stations in Chicago. If similar or corresponding abuses were indulged at other stations here, as it is a legitimate inference they were, it is also a legitimate inference that similar abuses were, and are, practiced throughout the country, especially in cities of the first, second and third classes—in cities and towns on which has been conferred the distinguished honor of having their mail handled under the watchful eye and supervising care of a “Presidential Postmaster,” that is, by a postmaster appointed by the President for partisan reasons and prospective uses.

Again going back to our mutton, I repeat the question, “What is the extent of this ‘franking’ and ‘penalty’ raid upon the revenues of the Postoffice Department?” I have cited three local instances merely to give a “hunch”—to blaze a line along which thoughtful people may safely think, and think to some fairly satisfying conclusion. I do not know the extent of the lootage of postal revenues by the uses and abuses of those “frank” and “penalty” regulations. You do not know, and the present Postmaster General admits he does not know, nor has he any means or method of ascertaining.

On page 11 of the report of the Postoffice Department for the fiscal year 1909-1910, Mr. Hitchcock very frankly states the fact and gives his personal opinion of the extent of the franking raid upon the service of his department. He also suggests a partial remedy which also I shall quote because it is a good suggestion, on right lines, and for making it Mr. Hitchcock deserves the thanks of a people over-burdened by the abuses his suggestion would, I believe, correct in material degree. At any rate, the suggestion is on right lines. Following is what he says:

The unrestricted manner in which the franking privilege is now being used by the several federal services and by Congress has laid it open to serious abuses—a fact clearly established through investigations recently instituted by the department. While it has been impossible without a better control of franking to determine the exact expense to the government of this practice, there can be no doubt that it annually reaches into the millions. It is believed that many abuses of the franking system could be prevented, and consequently a marked economy effected, by supplying through the agencies of the postal service special official envelopes and stamps for the free mail of the government, all such envelopes and stamps to be issued on requisition to the various branches of the federal service requiring them, and such records to be kept of official stamp supplies as will enable the Post office Department to maintain a proper postage account covering the entire volume of free government mail.

“There can be no doubt that it annually reaches into the millions,” says Mr. Hitchcock of the cost to his department of transporting and handling the government free mail matter—frank and penalty matter. It should also be noted that he says that “the unrestricted manner in which the franking privilege is now being used by the several federal services and by Congress, has laid it open to serious abuses.”

Not only are the foregoing statements of our Postmaster General true, but with equal truth he could have said that the abuses of the postal service practiced by other federal departments have encouraged—have coached, so to speak,—the Postoffice Department into abusing itself.

Those crates of fruit and cases of canned goods which I saw loaded into mail cars were probably for some postmaster who conducted a grocery or fruit stand, as a “side” to his official duties. Or they may have gone to some “friend” or “good fellow” along the line, or to some one who stood for a “split” of the express charges on such a shipment.

The drum of coffee and sack of sawdust may have had consignees of similar character. But their shipment as mail matter showed another abuse of the postal service by the Postoffice Department itself, or by employes of that department. They were weighed into rail transportation at a time when the average weight of mail carried during a period of three or six months would govern the rate of pay the transporting railroad would receive for carrying the mails during a period of four years.