is the one nearest the people, and the one with which they
are the most familiar. In addition to its work of collecting,
transporting, and delivering legitimate mail matter, viz.,
letters, newspapers, and magazines, it is the greatest express
company of the continent, since it has an office at almost every
cross-roads, even carrying merchandise cheaper (considering the
distance) than its rivals. Its registration system affords a means
of forwarding valuable packages, at a slight additional cost, with
almost absolute security. It is the greatest banking institution
on this side of the Atlantic. The transactions of its money-order
system, not only in our own country, but with almost every nation
in the civilized world (Russia and Spain excepted), run up to
wellnigh fabulous sums. Its drafts are easily obtained and cheap.
Its notes are "gilt edged," and have never been repudiated. With
the creation of the Postal Savings Bank system, the working
people's department in its organization will approach perfection.
The first mention of a travelling post-office occurs in a memorial
addressed to Congress in November, 1776, by Ebenezer Hazard,
Postmaster-General under the Continental Congress, in which he
states that, owing to the frequent removals of the Continental
Army, he was subjected to extraordinary expense, difficulties, and
fatigues, "having paid an exorbitant price for every necessary of
life, and having been obliged, for want of a horse--which could not
be procured--to follow the army on foot."
Directly after the inauguration of General Washington, in April,
1789, the organization of the Post-Office Department followed, and
Samuel Osgood, of Massachusetts, was appointed Postmaster-General.
That the people might derive the greatest possible advantage from
an institution peculiarly their own, this gigantic monopoly--for it
is nothing else--was created, and all competition forbidden. The
Postmaster-General had then but one clerk, and there were but 75
post-offices and 1,875 miles of post-roads in the United States;
the cost of mail transportation being $22,081, the total revenue,
$37,935, the total expenditures, $32,140; leaving a surplus of
$5,795. From this time until 1836 the contracts made for the
transportation of the mails do not mention any kind of service
on post-roads except stages, sulkies, four-horse post-coaches,
horseback, packets, and steam-boats.
[Illustration: The Pony Express--The Relay.]
The growth of the Railway Mail Service has been coincident with
that of the railway itself, and the importance of both cannot
be underestimated in considering the future development of the
country. Almost as soon as a railroad is fully organized it becomes
a mail contractor with the Department.
The Act of Congress constituting every railroad in the United
States a post-route was approved July 7, 1838. Postmaster-General
Barry, in his annual report for 1836, speaks of the multiplication
of railroads in many parts of the country, and suggests it as a
subject worthy of inquiry, whether measures may not be taken to
secure the transportation of the mail on them, and adds: "Already
have the railroads between Frenchtown, in Maryland, and Newcastle,
in Delaware, and between Camden and South Amboy, in New Jersey,
afforded great and important facilities to the transmission of the
great eastern mail." At this time a railroad between Washington and
New York was in process of construction, and Postmaster-General
Barry dwelt in his report on the importance of the facilities
that would be afforded for speedy service between the two cities,
predicting that the run between them would probably be made in
sixteen hours. The service is now performed in about five hours.
[Illustration: The Overland Mail Coach--A Star Route.]
At first the facilities for mail services were very limited.
Postmaster-General Kendall, in 1835, suggested that the Baltimore
& Ohio Railroad Company might be asked to close in some portion of
their baggage-cars, a strong lock being placed on the apartment, to
which only the postmasters at Washington and Baltimore should have
keys. In the same report he adds: "If wheels can be constructed
which can be used alike upon the railroads and the streets of the
cities respectively, the Department will furnish an entire car
containing the mail to be delivered at one depot, and received at
the other, asking nothing of the company but to haul it." It was
even proposed at this time that the Government should have its own
locomotives, everything else on the road giving the right of way
to the mail train. This proposition was not adopted. The fear was
expressed, however, that if the Department did not have absolute
control over the road, the people would have to depend on stage
or other horse transportation for mail service. All these early
troubles in time passed away, and, through concessions on both
sides, the railways soon became the most important agent of the
Post-Office Department.
[Illustration: Mail Carrying in the Country.]
This, of course, was not accomplished without many trials and
tribulations. It seems strange, in the light of the present, to
read in an official report a remonstrance from route agents that
nearly every night dead bodies were placed in the mail crates
between Philadelphia and New York, and the mails packed around the
coffins. This breach of good order disappeared after that time, and
with it came to an end the freight methods and the old stage-coach
ideas of dealing with the mails.
A separate compartment in a baggage-car, fitted up with few
conveniences necessary for the distribution of local way-mail, was
the beginning of the system which has developed into the luxurious
postal cars of the present time. As a matter of history, however,
it is only fair to say that the system which we then adopted had
been in use for some time by our northern neighbors of Canada, who
had taken it from the mother country.
The credit of suggesting the first step toward the present system
has generally been given to Colonel G. B. Armstrong, who in 1864
was Assistant Postmaster at Chicago. This is incorrect; Mr. W.
A. Davis, a clerk of the St. Joseph, Mo., Post-Office, where the
overland mail was made up, conceived the idea, in 1862, that if the
letters and papers could be assorted on the cars between Quincy and
St. Joseph, the overland mail could start promptly on time. He was
given permission to carry out this idea, and there are vouchers on
file in the Department at Washington showing that he was paid for
that specific work. In 1864 Colonel Armstrong was authorized and
encouraged by the Hon. Montgomery Blair, then Postmaster-General,
to undertake the difficult task of arranging and introducing the
service. On August 31, 1864, he wrote: "To-day I commenced the new
distribution." Subsequently, Colonel Armstrong became the first
General Railway Mail Superintendent, and held this office until
ill-health compelled him to resign, in 1871. To Colonel George S.
Bangs, of Illinois, and his successors, Theodore N. Vail, William
B. Thompson, and John Jameson, is due the excellence of the present
system. Colonel Bangs was a thoroughly equipped post-office man,
energetic, courageous, and progressive. Brimful of ideas, he
was ever on the lookout for improvement. Never satisfied with
old ways, he was constantly striving to simplify and better the
service. He forgot himself in his work, and died a martyr to his
duty, leaving the Travelling Post-Office of to-day a monument to
his memory. While to Colonel Armstrong is due the credit for the
skeleton of the system, it was the genius of Colonel Bangs that
clothed the bones with flesh, developed the sinew, put the blood
in circulation, and breathed into its body the breath of life.
Colonel Bangs found, in 1871, that everything was disjointed,
disconnected, and sluggish. There was no attempt at "certainty,
security, or celerity." It was a "go-as-you-please" condition of
affairs. He grappled at once with it and brought order out of
chaos. He introduced a system of emulation among the employees,
rewarding those who displayed proficiency by promotion over the
sluggish, and thus, in fact, was probably the father of what
is now known as Civil Service Reform. In 1874 he discussed the
propriety of establishing a fast and exclusive mail train between
New York and Chicago, "this train" (quoting his report to the
Postmaster-General) "to be under the control of the Department,
so far as it is necessary for the purposes designed, and to run
the distance in about twenty-four hours. It is conceded by railway
officials that this can be done. The importance of a line like
this cannot be overestimated. It would reduce the actual time of
mail between the east and west from twelve to twenty-four hours.
As it would necessarily be established upon one or more of the
trunk lines, having an extended system of connections, its benefit
would be in no case confined, but extended through all parts of the
country alike."
This report met with the approval of Postmaster-General Jewell,
who ordered Bangs to negotiate with the New York Central & Hudson
River Railroad and the Lake Shore Railroad for a fast mail train,
leaving New York at four o'clock in the morning, and arriving
at Chicago in about twenty-four hours. It was the old story of
making bricks without straw. The Post-Office Department had no
appropriation to pay for such facilities, hence it had to depend at
first on the public spirit of the railroad authorities. Commodore
Vanderbilt, the president of the companies whose lines were to be
used, had had dealings with the Department, and was perhaps not
altogether sanguine as to the practical issue of the experiment,
or in respect to the countenance it would receive from Congress;
but Mr. William H. Vanderbilt, the vice-president, lent a willing
ear to Mr. Bangs's proposition, and did his utmost to aid him
in putting it into effect. There being no special appropriation
available for the purpose in hand, "the devil was whipped around
the stump" by Colonel Bangs stipulating that if Mr. Vanderbilt
would have twenty cars built and the service performed, all matter
originating at or coming into the New York Post-Office, which
could reach its destination at the same time by this line, should
be sent by this train, and that the railway companies could have
the right to demand a weighing of the mail matter at will, all
railroads being paid according to weight. When the details of the
plan were communicated to Commodore Vanderbilt, he is reported to
have said to his son: "If you want to do this, go ahead, but I know
the Post-Office Department, and you will, too, within a year." Mr.
Vanderbilt did "go ahead." He constructed and equipped the finest
mail train ever seen on the planet, ran it for ten months, never
missed a connection at Chicago, and was always on time at New
York. He did not have to wait a year, however, for a realization of
the sagacious old commodore's prophecy. Within three weeks, despite
the indignant protest of Colonel Bangs, the mails of three States
were ordered to be taken from this and given to another route. A
grosser and more wanton breach of plighted faith it would be hard
to find, and its results were far-reaching and disastrous.
This train was a marvel of completeness and efficiency. It was
manned by picked men, and the only complaint ever made against it
was that it ran so fast that the clerks had not time to sort the
mails for the post-offices between New York and Poughkeepsie. To
obviate this, Colonel Bangs requested the postmaster at New York
to have two hundred mail-bags dyed red, which should contain the
mail for those offices nearest together, so that the crew in the
train could distribute them first. There was no complaint after
that. But when the dyer's bill was sent by the postmaster to the
Department, it was disallowed by a clerk of the Second Assistant
Postmaster-General, who, in a letter announcing the fact, said that
there was no necessity for the outlay if the postal clerks did
their duty. Bangs, who had just arrived at the post-office from a
day and night's ride on his favorite train, was lying on a sofa
half asleep in the postmaster's private office, as that official
was opening his mail. When he came to that letter he handed it to
Bangs. He was wide-awake in an instant. "Mr. Postmaster," said he,
"do you know the man who signed this letter? He is a wheezy priest,
a fool, and a Baptist, at that. Give me the letter." The bill was
allowed as soon as Bangs reached the Department. He was wrong,
however, in crediting the subordinate to the Baptist faith. He was
an ornament of another persuasion.
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.
[Illustration: 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.
[Illustration: Loading for the Fast Mail, at the General
Post-Office, New York.]
It must not be supposed that everything has been left until the
last moment, and that the mail matter has been tumbled into the
cars on the eve of departure, to be handled as best it may in the
short run to Albany; for under such conditions the task would
be an impossibility even to an army of trained hands. Work has
been in progress since four o'clock in the afternoon, and it has
been steady, hard labor every minute of the time. The five cars
have been backed down to the tracks opposite Forty-fifth Street,
and have been so placed that they are convenient of access to
the big lumbering mail wagons which are familiar sights in the
streets of the metropolis. The crew of nineteen men, skilled in
the handling of mail matter, and thorough experts in the geography
of the country, reported to the chief clerk and took up their
stations in the various cars at the hour named. At the same time
the wagons began arriving from the General Post-Office with their
tons of matter which had "originated" in New York, and were soon
transferring their loads to the cars, where agile hands were in
waiting to receive them. Since the removal of the deadly stoves
from the railway trains the occupants of the postal cars have
suffered to no small extent owing to the lack of heat. These cars
are provided with steam-heating apparatus which is worked from the
engine, but they are occupied for five hours before the engine
comes near them, and in cold weather the hands of the men employed
in distributing letters become numb with cold. This is a matter
which should receive prompt attention.
[Illustration: At the Last Moment.]
Before we deal with the mail matter, let us look at the cars and
the men who occupy them. The train, as it leaves New York, is made
up of five cars which are placed immediately behind the engine, and
are followed by express and baggage cars and one passenger coach.
The car next to the engine is devoted entirely to letter mail, and
the four following it to papers and packages. The letter car is
fifty feet in length, while those for the newspaper mail are ten
feet longer. All are uniform in width, nine feet eight inches,
and are six feet nine inches high in the clear. When newly built,
before long and hard service had told on their appearance, their
outsides were white in color, with cream-tinted borderings and gilt
ornamentations, and were highly varnished. Midway on the outside,
and below; the windows of each car, is a large oval gilt-finished
frame within which is painted the name of the car, with the words,
"United States Post Office" above and below. The cars used by
the New York Central are named for the Governors of the State
and the members of President Garfield's cabinet. Along the upper
edge and centre are painted in large gilt letters the words, "The
Fast Mail Train," while on a line with these letters at the
other end, in a square, are the words, in like lettering, "New
York Central" and "Lake Shore." The frieze and minute trimmings
around the windows are of gilt finish. The body of the car also
contains other ornamentation, including the coat-of-arms of the
United States. The running gear is of the most approved pattern.
The platforms are enclosed by swinging doors which, when opened,
afford a protected passage between the cars. This arrangement no
doubt suggested the modern improvement now known as the vestibuled
train. The letter car is provided with a "mail catcher," which is
placed at a small door through which mail pouches are snatched from
conveniently placed posts at wayside stations where stops are not
made. Each car is divided into three sections, all fitted up alike
with conveniences for the service to be performed. The letter car,
however, is somewhat differently arranged from the others, to
meet the requirements of that particular branch of the work.
[Illustration: Transfer of Mail at the Grand Central Station, New
York.]
[Illustration: Pouching the Mail in the Postal Car.]
In the first section of the letter car are received the pouches
from the General Post-Office, which when opened are found to
contain letters done up in packages of about a hundred, marked
for Michigan, Indiana, New York, Ohio, Western Pennsylvania,
Montana, Dakota, and California. When this mass of matter has
been emptied out of the pouches and, in the vernacular of the
service, "dumped up" preparatory to distribution, the section is
clear for the registered mail which is worked in it. Before this
is accomplished, however, much work is done; in fact, a sort of
rough distribution is made. All packages which are directed to one
office are distributed into pouches, which are afterward stored
away until the towns are reached. The other packages are carried
into the letter department for distribution, where a rack, similar
to those seen in almost every post-office, although space is
thoroughly economized, is used for the purpose. To give a slight
idea of the work done in this section, it may be mentioned that
the distribution for New York State alone requires 325 boxes.
Still there is plenty of space, otherwise the third section of the
car would not be used, as it is, for the distribution of Montana
and Dakota newspapers. How closely everything is packed, and
all available space utilized, may be imagined when it is stated
that for this newspaper mail ninety-five pouches are hung in the
section, and that there is still sufficient room for the storage of
pouches locked up and ready for delivery, and also for the sealed
registered mail. A separation of the California mail is also made
in this car, so that when it reaches Chicago the pouches into which
the matter is placed are transferred without delay, thus saving
twenty-four hours on the time to the Pacific Coast, not by any
means an unimportant accomplishment.