CHAPTER XI POWERS OF CONGRESS—Continued THE POSTAL POWER The Work of the Post Office Department.-Of all the government departments, that which touches the people most closely is undoubtedly the post office. Its branches reach out to every hamlet of the land, its employees number 286,000, its receipts total $266,000,000 yearly, its expenditures $265,000,000. This entire establishment with all its important activity is based upon one short clause in Section 8, Article I of the Constitution which gives to Congress the power "to establish post offices and post roads." The term 'to establish" is a very broad one. It includes the designation as postal routes of certain roads, railways and shipping lines, the power to make contracts with the railways, steamships, and other carriers for the transport of the mails, and without doubt it would also give a constitutional authority for the erection or purchase of telegraph and telephone lines if such were considered necessary, just as the government now builds and controls post offices, pneumatic postal tubes, etc. 66 The post office is not merely a means of carrying letters. On the contrary it is a gigantic machine whose energies may be turned in such a direction as to serve materially the business progress of the country. From this larger viewpoint let us regard some of the chief problems which the Department is now successfully solving. 1. Postal Savings Bank.-All the principal countries of the world have adopted a plan by which every post office becomes a savings bank. The result has been to stimulate wonderfully the habits of thrift and economy among the people and to render their funds useful for important government undertakings. After much opposition Congress on June 25, 1910, passed a law providing a postal savings plan. The system is under the general control of a Board of Trustees consisting of the Postmaster-General the Secretary of the Treasury and the Attorney General. This Board designates which post offices may act as savings depositories, and at such places any person ten years of age or over may open one account to a maximum amount of $500. Deposits may be made in amounts varying from $1 to $100, and in order to encourage the saving of smaller amounts it is provided that savings cards with adhesive stamps known as postal savings stamps may be purchased at the post office, each card and each stamp representing ten cents. When the stamps amount to $1 they may be deposited with the card and are then destroyed by the postmaster and credited in the account of the depositor. The funds of the system are deposited in local banks and draw from such banks 214 per cent interest. Thirty per cent of such funds may be invested in bonds or other securities of the United States. The depositor is paid 2 per cent interest and the government guarantees the payment of the deposits. Against strong opposition from the banks this system has been extended into all parts of the country. At the end of the first year of business, December, 1911, the division had 162,000 depositors and $10,600,000 deposits. At the end of two and onehalf years in June, 1913, there were 331,000 depositors with $33,800,000. The officers of the Postal Savings Division have taken steps to popularize the plan and its facilities still further, by calling it to the attention of the public through the local post masters. The Parcel Post.-For many years there has existed a strong demand for a postal express service similar to that of other nations, by which packages of moderate size may be sent through the mails. Such a plan found little support in Congress because of the strong opposition of the express companies and the small country storekeepers, the latter fearing that their business would be hampered or destroyed by the mail-order stores in the large cities. The leading express companies had made a remarkable profit on the small package business and their rates were abnormally high, so that the natural current of small trade between different parts of the country was clogged or entirely stopped by the expense of transmission. In a law suit over a question of taxation it was testified by the agents of the four largest companies that their annual earnings in one State, Ohio, equalled many times the property which they owned in that State. The company with the smallest earnings had a property investment of $42,000 on which it earned $280,000 in one year. This highly artificial condition was maintained for many decades after other nations had established cheap and efficient postal express service. At last, in the political changes of the years 1910 and 1912 the influences which blocked the new system were finally weakened and on August 24, 1912, Congress passed an act providing for a modern Parcel Post. This law went into effect on January 1, 1913, and has wrought a revolution in the conditions of interstate retail trade. The country is divided into zones based on distance from the point of sending, and the charges vary according to these distance zones. article sent may be insured up to $50 on payment of a small fee. The results of the first year of the service were so satisfactory, even at the low rates charged, that a reduction in rates and an increase of the size of the package which might be carried was made; the weight limit is now 50 lbs. for the first and second zones and 20 lbs. for the others, and books have been added to the parcels accepted. The Third Assistant Postmaster General whose jurisdic tion includes the parcel service in his report for 1913, says of the growth in business: "The usefulness of the parcel post as a ready, cheap, and efficient means of transportation is realized by the public more and more each day. Its numerous features and advantages are being utilized in a surprisingly large number of ways, and there is almost no limit to the variety of articles transported. The consumer is placed in direct touch with the farmer and producer whose products can now be conveniently and quickly obtained at a very reasonable charge for transportation and handling, thereby assuring the freshest fruits, vegetables, eggs, butter, and other necessities, for the lowest possible price and opening the way to the lowering of the high cost of living, which has caused so much concern in recent years. As a saver of time to those who in the past were compelled to leave their accustomed duties in order to get articles which now are brought to their doors by parcel post, the system has proven a boon indeed. The fact that the service is universal, extending to every city, town and village of the United States and its possessions, and covering a field vastly greater than that of any other transportation agency, at once makes it the ideal system for carrying on the small commerce of the Nation. The usefulness of the system was greatly enlarged by the addition, on July 1, 1913, of a collect-on-delivery service, and it is now possible for one to send an article by parcel post for repairs and then have it returned, insured against loss, the charges for the repairs to be paid upon delivery of the article. Furthermore, by utilizing the special-delivery feature of the postal service the forwarding and return of the article can be expedited to the fullest extent. The advantages and accomplishments of the parcel post have not only been direct, but indirect as well, for the competition created by it has caused other transportation agencies to increase their limits of free delivery in many districts, improve their service in other respects, and decrease their charges in many instances." Marketing by Mail.—In 1914 the first steps were taken in a plan to bring the farmer and the consumer into direct relations through the Department. A list of farmers was prepared by local, rural postmasters, giving the kind of produce and the quantity which each would supply at regular intervals. These lists were furnished to the large city postmasters who in turn distributed them to the prospective customers in the city, upon application. The farmer and his customer having made satisfactory arrangements, the produce was then forwarded by parcel post. The possibilities of this system seem most promising and it has already been extended to several large cities. Fraud Orders.-The Postmaster General has authority to exclude from the mails all fraudulent, illegal or obscene matter. This important power has given rise to the celebrated "Fraud Order" which is an administrative decree issued against those firms who are proven to be engaged in a fraudulent business. It excludes their circulars, letters, etc., from the mails. The power is a drastic one and is frequently resisted by impostors and others who are detected in attempts to defraud the public by advertising methods. In Degge v. Hitchcock, 233 U. S. 639; 1913, Degge and the Wellington Development Company had been shown by evidence adduced before the Postmaster General to be engaged in a fraudulent land scheme. Notice was given to Degge and to the company and a formal hearing was held. The charges were found to be true, and an order was issued directing the Postmaster at Boulder, Colorado, not to deliver to Degge or to his corporation the mail addressed to them, but to return all such letters to the sender with the word-"fraudulent" plainly stamped on the envelope. Degge and his corporation thereupon filed a suit in the Federal court asking that a complete record be certified to the court by the Postmaster in order that a judicial decision should be made on the order to this end he applied for writ of certiorari. This was denied by the Supreme Court on several grounds, the strongest being, that the Courts will always refuse to interfere with the action of administrative officials, unless some clearly illegal or inequitable official performance is shown. In such case the proper remedy is by a writ of injunction or mandamus. As Degge was unable to show any illegality on the part of the officers, and as the writ of certiorari is never otherwise issued to government officials to interfere with their official duties, the action of the Postmaster General was upheld. Administrative Organization.-The organization and work of the department deserve special notice. Thus far we have paid little attention to the administrative framework of the departments, since in most respects they are similar and present few features of interest. In view of the intimate relation of the Post Office with the people, the magnitude of its operations, and the care with which its administrative machinery has been worked out, we shall examine this structure in some detail, taking it as an example of departmental methods. The Postmaster-General, who presides over the Department, has four assistants, each controlling certain definite groups of bureaus, divisions and offices. All grades of work, even the most important, are conducted by the chiefs of these bureaus and offices and are then if necessary referred for approval to that Assistant Postmaster-General who exercises jurisdiction over the bureau. That official then approves or disapproves, usually by initialling the papers presented, and passes on the most important affairs prepared, for approval by the Postmaster-General. The latter is naturally obliged in most cases to rely upon the recommendations of his assistants. The following outline gives some notion of the method of organizing the work of the Department. First Assistant Postmaster-General. Division of Salary and Allowances. Division of Post Office Supplies. Division of Money Orders. Division of Correspondence. Of these the most important is the Division of Salary and Allowances, which has charge of the annual readjustment of postmasters' salaries, allowances for clerk hire, rent, fuel, light, advertising, etc. The head of this Division recommends action in each case and while his recommendation may be modified or may not be accepted by the First Assistant, yet in practice it is usually adopted. The importance of this power may be understood when it is known that the expenditures of the Division in 1913 exceeded $79,000,000. There is always some danger of abuse of this power, as was illustrated by an investigation made some years ago, in which a regular system of selling salary increases was discovered. According to the report of the Fourth Assistant Postmaster-General who directed the investigation, the clerks and other employés who desired increases of salary often paid in advance of these increases. Such payments could not be made openly with safety, so the employés in question purchased "stock" in various companies officered or owned by their superiors, a large part of the proceeds presumably going to the officials who recommended the increase in pay. In the thorough house-cleaning which followed this exposure the Division was reorganized and has now become an efficient means of controlling, systematizing and keeping down useless expenditures. The Second Assistant Postmaster-General. These all have to do with the transportation of the mails. Of them all the most interesting is probably the railway mail service. This Division has charge of the travelling post offices all over the United States, whether in trolley cars, railway cars or steamboats. The sorting of mail while in transit is done by the most highly trained and efficient clerks in the national service; the large through trains on the railway systems of the country often carry a double force of clerks who work in shifts, under high pressure, opening the sacks as the latter are thrown into the cars, sorting the mail and distributing it among a large number of bags ranged along the walls of the cars, and completing each lot by the time the various destinations along the route are reached. In order to do this each clerk must usually be familiar with the names of 1,200 to 20,000 post offices and their locations, together with the respective routes to which they belong. In the foreign mails carried on the ocean steamships there are also travelling post offices with a double force |