Chapter IV: Special Articles on Postal Subjects (3)

Rural delivery in which the rural resident is so greatly interested will profit most by this liberal government provision, it being originally intended for post road purposes, of which rural delivery is now the principal and most important part. The rural life of the country is to be bettered in every way by the spread of this means of postal communication. The Post Office Department is always ready to listen to every suggestion which makes for greater comfort and convenience in this direction, and to act promptly when resulting advantages can be shown. Therefore, the sections where rural delivery is not as fully introduced and developed as it might be, or inviting fields for exploration and administrative action are not yet reached, the people for whose benefit this money is to be used should get in touch with the Department and bring to its attention whatever information upon the subject they may possess which might be fashioned into useful results. The Department has many eyes but cannot see all and know all, and this is where outside assistance can be of great advantage, and would be most gladly welcomed. Postal patrons are the working partners of the Postmaster General in all that concerns the improvement and extension of the service, and if they will take the same active interest that he does and cooperate with the Fourth Assistant Postmaster General, in whose Bureau this rural delivery work is centered, great advances in all directions may be readily made.

$14,550,000 for Rural Post Roads

Apportionment to the States from government funds to aid in the construction and maintenance of rural postroads in accordance with the Federal aid roads law for the year ending June 30, 1919, is as follows:

Alabama $313,456 Ohio 558,043
Arizona 205,540 Oklahoma 346,489
Arkansas 250,018 Oregon 236,332
California 456,167 Pennsylvania 690,145
Colorado 257,278 Idaho 182,471
Connecticut 92,216 Illinois 658,323
Delaware 24,411 Indiana 406,230
Florida 170,723 Iowa 434,653
Georgia 403,909 Kansas 429,131
Maryland 130,871 Kentucky 292,984
Massachusetts 221,261 Louisiana 203,755
Michigan 435,356 Maine 144,807
Minnesota 425,865 Rhode Island 34,972
Mississippi 268,751 South Carolina 215,014
Missouri 508,603 South Dakota 243,175
Montana 298,520 Tennessee 340,663
Nebraska 319,445 Texas 876,986
Nevada 193,229 Utah 170,763
New Hampshire 62,610 Vermont 68,128
New Jersey 177,357 Virginia 298,120
New Mexico 238,634 Washington 216,530
New York 749,674 West Virginia 159,713
North Carolina 342,556 Wisconsin 382,707
North Dakota 229,585 Wyoming 183,805

Mail Extensions by Air and Motor Truck Routes

As the result of a recent conference between Postmaster General Burleson and Secretary of War Baker, and with the approval of the President, Congress has been asked to authorize the Secretary of War to turn over to the Post Office Department all military aeroplanes and motor vehicles not serviceable for military purposes, or which after the war may be dispensed with for military service.

As soon as any aeroplanes are turned over to the Post Office Department, aeroplane mail routes will be established in the country, as they now are in Italy and France.

Italy has an aerial mail route from her coast to Sardinia, and is able to deliver 500 pounds of mail in two hours. France has a similar aerial route between her coast and Corsica.

The motor trucks procured from the War Department at this time or at the close of the war will be available for the parcel post truck service. In the view of the Postmaster General, the operation of these motor-truck routes would add 100 per cent to the value of the parcel post service in the vicinity of the cities where established.

The cost of living will be reduced, it is stated, by eliminating useless and expensive operation in the postal means of communication between producer and consumer; will permit the producer to continue production and the labor incident thereto, instead of suspending production or labor while conveying produce to consumers, and will extend the postal zone of collection-and-delivery service in the vicinity of large cities to the point where the actual farmer-producer is domiciled rather than where only suburban residents and nonproducers live.

Care Required in Preparing Contracts

Among the most important duties which a postmaster is called upon to perform is seeing that contracts for star-route service are properly filled out before being sent to the department. These contracts are of a legal nature and while the necessary provisions are plainly stated and simple enough to be easily understood, extreme care must be exercised to see that the instructions are complied with. Spaces for the signatures of the contractor, the sureties and witnesses properly filled out, dates given, names plainly written wherever required and the contractor should personally examine the contract to see that all this is carefully done. Failure to note these necessary details causes the return of the contract for correction, delaying its acceptance and imposing extra and unnecessary work upon the contract clerk. It may also be stated that as failure to perform service on the part of the contractor is liable to bring these contracts into courts of law for judicial determination, it becomes of the highest importance that nothing required to be done is omitted in preparation and the contract be correct in form and in every particular.

Birthday of the American Postal Service

On the twenty-sixth of July, 1917, the postal service of the United States can celebrate the one hundred and forty-third anniversary of its establishment. It was on July 26, 1775, nearly a year before the independence of the colonies was proclaimed, that the freedom of postal affairs was made an accomplished fact. The British control had existed for eighty-three years, from 1692 to 1775. There was only one line then in existence along the coast with but few branches and those far between. This service was first managed by private interests under a patent from William and Mary, but afterwards directly by the English crown. The fullness of time had at length arrived, had brought the auspicious day, and postal independence was born!

Patriotic sentiment is not wanting in this country of ours, and the flag is ever the object of sincere and heartfelt devotion. The great strides in postal development from that day to this should make the pulse of every citizen, particularly every postal employe, great or small, quicken with civic pride as each successive anniversary of our great postal establishment brings the date to mind. Postmasters might well signalize the day by conspicious display of the flag under which such tremendous progress has been made not only in postal affairs but in national greatness and glory.

List of Postmasters General

_Continental Congress_
Benjamin Franklin, Pennsylvania, July 26, 1775
Richard Bache, Pennsylvania, Nov. 7, 1776
Ebenezer Hazard, New York, Jan. 28, 1782

_Date of
_Presidents_ _Postmasters General_ _State_ Appointment_
Washington, Samuel Osgood, Massachusetts, Sept. 26, 1789
” Timothy Pickering, Pennsylvania, Aug. 12, 1791
” Joseph Habersham, Georgia, Feb. 25, 1795
Jefferson, Gideon Granger, Connecticut, Nov. 28, 1801
Madison, Return J. Meigs, Jr., Ohio, April 11, 1814
Monroe, John McLean, Ohio, July 1, 1823
Jackson, Wm. T. Barry, Kentucky, April 6, 1829
” Amos Kendall, Kentucky, May 1, 1835
Van Buren, John M. Niles, Connecticut, May 26, 1840
Harrison, W. H., Francis Granger, New York, Mar. 8, 1841
Tyler, Chas. A. Wickliffe, Kentucky, Oct. 13, 1841
Polk, Cave Johnson, Tennessee, Mar. 6, 1845
Taylor, Jacob Collamer, Vermont, Mar. 8, 1849
Fillmore, Nathan K. Hall, New York, July 23, 1850
” Samuel D. Hubbard, Connecticut, Sept. 14, 1852
Pierce, James Campbell, Pennsylvania, Mar. 7, 1853
Buchanan, Aaron V. Brown, Tennessee, Mar. 6, 1857
” Joseph Holt, Kentucky, Mar. 14, 1859
Lincoln, Horatio King, Maine, Feb. 12, 1861
” Montgomery Blair, Dist. of Col. Mar. 9, 1861
Johnson, Wm. Dennison, Ohio, Oct. 1, 1864
” Alex. W. Randall, Wisconsin, July 25, 1866
Grant, John A. J. Creswell, Maryland, Mar. 5, 1869
” Jas. W. Marshall, New Jersey, July 7, 1874
” Marshall Jewell, Connecticut, Sept. 1, 1875
” Jas. N. Tyner, Indiana, July 12, 1876
Hayes, D. M. Key, Tennessee, Mar. 13, 1877
” Horace Maynard, Tennessee, Aug. 25, 1880
Garfield and Arthur, Thos. L. James, New York, Mar. 8, 1881
” T. O. Howe, Wisconsin, Jan. 5, 1882
” W. Q. Gresham, Indiana, April 11, 1883
” Frank Hatton, Iowa, Oct. 14, 1884
Cleveland, Wm. F. Vilas, Wisconsin, Mar. 7, 1885
” Don M. Dickinson, Michigan, Jan. 17, 1888
Harrison, John Wanamaker, Pennsylvania, Mar. 6. 1889
Cleveland, Wilson S. Bissell, New York, Mar. 7, 1893
” William L. Wilson, West Virginia, April 4, 1895
McKinley, James A. Gary, Maryland, Mar. 6, 1897
” Charles Emory Smith, Pennsylvania, April 22, 1898
Roosevelt, Henry C. Payne, Wisconsin, Jan. 15, 1902
” Robert J. Wynne, Pennsylvania, Oct. 10, 1904
” Geo. B. Cortelyou, New York, Mar. 7, 1905
” Geo. Von L. Meyer, Massachusetts, Mar. 4, 1907
Taft, Frank H. Hitchcock, Massachusetts, Mar. 6, 1909
Wilson, Albert S. Burleson, Texas, Mar. 5, 1913