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Post-Office Employees
Human Beings?
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AN AMERICAN BOY went to work one day
in the United States Post-office. He was
wide-awake and ambitious, and so he chose
the 'biggest business and the biggest employer in
the country. Step by step, he rose to be super
visor, and then superintendent of an important
department. He made a record of "supreme
industry, faithfulness, and loyalty." Age came on,
but his zeal did not diminish. Postal officials
pointed to him with pride and said he upheld "the
very highest traditions of the service," and was
"ever ready to sacrifice his personal interests for
the public good." Seventy years without a break
he served his big employer, the American people,
a shining example for all who would hear that
crowning tribute "well done, good and faithful
servant!" Last winter, at his post of duty, he
was stricken with a chill. Pneumonia followed.
Even then he begged that he might dress and re
turn to his duties. And his big employerthe
American people what generous provision and
tender care did it give to this oldest employee who
had always "sacrificed his personal interest for the
public"? The man had not yet taken his annual
vacation of fifteen days. His absence now from his
post of duty was charged against his vacation. In
fifteen days all his "vacation" was gone and his sal
ary stopt. For three days, as he lay on his death
bed, his pay was deducted. Then death came, and
he went to receive the "well done" from One whose
words are backed with eternal reward. But on
earth, where he had toiled so long, the praise given
him was empty. No allowance for sickness; no al
lowance -for burial; nothing for his family; his
meager salary docked after seventy years of faith
ful service. What an employer!
You can hardly believe it? You think it must
have been an accident, quite unusual in the service
of the United States Post-office? You say such a
thing could not be tolerated by the American peo
ple? It is not unusual, except for the man's extreme
age. It is tolerated by the American people by
you and by us to our shame. Our postal laws,
until we change them, treat all employees, high
and low, letter-carrier, porter, clerk and super
intendent, in the most niggardly way. They
work night and day, often in unwholesome quarters
and under severe strain. Their minds are crowded
with the endless details of an exacting systefn.
Their bodies are racked and worn by harsh condi
tions and cruel burdens, and they are the lowest
paid free workers in the United States. It is time for
us all to know the facts and to see that quick justice
is done. ,
Congress has been looking into these facts, but
Congress is not the "big employer" against whom
the prophet Malachi thunders when he threatens
swift judgment for "those that oppress the hireling
in his wages." The bitter protests poured out to the
Committee of Congress must ring in our ears and
rouse us to action. Crowding the experience of
thousands into a single sentence, a letter-carrier
from Camden, N. J., exclaimed: "If you men really
knew the want, and. distress, and sorrow, and
trouble that reach into the life of the poor letter
carrier, you would be up at night trying to find a
remedy."
Kt$
From every city and village of this great rich
country and from every branch of the postal service
have come these protests and appeals for fair play:t
"We are not able to provide our families with the
necessities of life." .... "Our wives and our children
have to go to work in order to exist." "If you
compel men to be ill-fed and under-nourished
because of insufficient salary, it will have a far
reaching effect on the coming generation."
"We bought Liberty Bonds to help the Government
and had to sell them at a loss to buy food."
Can we hear such things from the men who are
working for us and not tingle with shame and in-
. dignation? Can we rest easily and take our own
pleasure and comfort until we have first done all in
our power for quick relief?
Consider the kind of man our post-office
demands as clerk. His work is highly specialized
and complex; he must be skilled by long and
intensive training and study, memorizing thou
sands of facts, intricate systems of classifications,
and many methods used in banking, insurance, and
commercial business. He must be familiar with the
postal laws and regulations filling a volume of 1,700
sections; All this study and preparation must be in
his own time and at his own expense. And when he
stands in his hard-earned place, a full-equipped
postal expert in the employ of the American people,
he is paid less than the common unskilled day
Jaborer on the streets. One of these experts who,
after twenty-four years of postal service, had
acquired special knowledge and experience inval
uable to the Government, testified, "I could go out
as a milk-wagon driver and get $50 a week, yet the
Government pays me an average of about $4 a day$?
The steadfast loyalty of such a man through long
years of pinching penury may be a splendid
example of American patriotism, but not one of us
can claim a like virtue if we fail to raise our voice
against the continuance of such shameful parsi
mony. But that isn't all. These meager salaries are
constantly shrinking throughout the year. Any
absence for sickness or other causes is penalized by
forfeiture of pay. If death occurs in the family of
the employee, whether wife, child, or parent, not a
day nor an hour of absence with pay is allowed.
Even the solemn hours of funeral rites can be taken
only at the expense of the employee.
Letter-carriers are converted into pack-animals
and loaded down with burdens often weighing
sixty to eighty pounds or more. Through driving
rain or blizzard, in burning heat or stinging cold,
they must cover their routes on schedule time. The
stoutest often succumb to the inhuman strain; yet
the highest salary they can earn, after years of
smaller pay, is less than $32 a week.
New York is the biggest post-office in the
world. It docs the biggest business and turns in
millions of dollars profit. It is one of the most highly
specialized and responsible organizations in modern
industry, the center of innumerable activities on
which the progress and prosperity of the entire
nation depend. Its banking and financial transac
tions last year alone totaled more than $672,000,000.
The management of this vast business concern,
with its great central office covering two city
blocks, its fifty branch offices, its 250 substations,
and fourteen thousand employees, requires supreme
managerial abilities on the part of its department
chiefs. They would be receiving salaries of $25,000
to $75,000 for such official services in big commercial
organizations. Yet the highest salary paid to the
"big four" superintendents at the head of the four
main departments of the great New York post
office is only $3,360 a year, or less than $65 a week,
and not one of these men attained his position in
less than twenty-seven years' service. The super
intendents of the great railway terminal postal
stations receive less than $46 to $56 a week after
serving an ave'rage of thirty-five years each! And
we pay more than that to longshoremen and
window-cleaners and drivers of milk-wagons!
We are doing more than this act of cruel injus
tice to the 280,000 postal employees of the country.
We are bringing a serious menace to our own
interests. The postal service is being crippled by
wholesale resignations. It is becoming impossible
to induce competent men or women to fill the
vacancies. In the New York post-office alone nearly
eight hundred resignations have occurred within
five months. False economy is destroying all effi
ciency and threatening a collapse of the service.
Time and energy that ought to be given to handling
the mail is diverted to instructing and managing a
shifting, dissatisfied organization. The same thing
is true in all parts of the country. Our indifference
and neglect as the "big employer" of the post-office
workers is recoiling on our own heads.
THE LITERARY DIGESThas made thor
ough investigation of the facts and is making this
brief, urgent statement to its more than two million
readers because many times they have responded
nobly to appeals for worthy action as Americans,
and now is a time for such action. Congress is
not to blame for the existing conditions. The men
now sitting in the Capitol at Washington are human
beings like the rest of us. They have warm hearts
and ready sympathy and as keen a sense of justice
as any American citizen can have. The blame and
the shame for this pitiful injustice to the nation's
postal employes are ours as a people. It is yours
who read this page. It is ours who write and publish
it. The change of policy from a brutal stinginess or
careless indifference to a fair and liberal American
policy must be wrought by us, the Americans who
always love fair play.
Write to your Congressman and to both of your
Senators, every one of you men and women who has
a heart and an active sense of human justice. Don't
put it off; the time before Congress will adjourn is
short. Urge them to give their most ardent support
to the bill putting into immediate effect a substan
tial increase of salaries throughout the entire postal
service of the United States. Congress will gladly
and quickly pass this bill when the American people
rally to its support. If you don't know the names of
the Senators and Congressman ask your letter
carrier, or postmaster, or banker. Let all business
houses be heard from, and all civic societies and
fraternal orders. Rescue these postal toilers from
penury and narrow lives and set them on their feet
as American citizens who need not suffer nor be
ashamed in their service of us all.
Reprinted from the May 22d Issue of
f The
A Laborer is
I Worthy of 1
His Hire
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