Grand Central Station between 1,000 and 1,500 packages of letters
and, in addition, forty or fifty sacks of Dakota and Montana
papers. To handle this mass of correspondence there are six men in
addition to the chief clerk, or superintendent. This official is
not assigned to any particular duty, but he supervises the general
work and lends aid where it is most required. The second clerk
handles letters for Ohio, Dakota, and Montana; the third clerk
takes charge of those for New York State; the fourth, Illinois; the
fifth opens all pouches labelled, "New York and Chicago Railway
Post-Office," distributes their contents, and afterward works on
Dakota and Montana papers; the sixth, Michigan State letters,
and the seventh, California letter mail. The salaries of these
men, intrusted with so much responsibility and of whom so much is
expected, range from $900 per annum for the lowest grade to $1,300
per annum for the superintendent.
The second, or "Illinois Car," is devoted, as are the others which
follow it, to the newspaper and periodical mail. In it are handled
papers for Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, New York, Oregon, and Wyoming.
Two clerks and two assistants man this car. The first assistant,
who "faces up" papers ready to be distributed, draws mails from
stalls to case, and removes boxes as fast as they are filled, has
gained the sobriquet of the "Illinois derrick," owing to the heavy
nature of his duties. The second, who lends what aid he can in the
heavy work on the run between New York and Albany, has become known
on the train as "the short stop." The third section of the car is
used for storing the bags of assorted matter.
[Illustration: A Very Difficult Address--known as a "sticker."]
The third car is used for storing through mail for San Francisco,
Omaha, and points west of Chicago. In it are also carried stamped
envelopes from the manufacturer at Hartford, Conn., to postmasters
in the West. This car is frequently fully loaded with matter from
the New York office when the journey is begun, and it is then
found necessary to add a similar car to the train on its arrival
at Albany for the accommodation of matter taken on by the way and
bound for the same destination.
[Illustration: Distributing the Mail by States and Routes.]
[Illustration: Sorting Letters in Car No. 1--The Fast Mail.]
The Michigan paper car is the fourth. In it are handled papers for
Michigan, Iowa, and the mixed Western States. In the first section
are piled the Iowa pouches and those for points out of Utica, which
have been distributed in the centre section, and in the third
section the distribution for Michigan, Nebraska, and Minnesota,
as well as for points reached from Buffalo, is made. Two men
perform the work of the car, one of whom has already handled the
registered mail and Indiana letters in the first car.
[Illustration: Pouching Newspapers for California--in Car No. 5.]
The fifth, or California paper car, is the last mail coach on the
train, as it is made up when leaving the Grand Central Station.
Besides the papers for the Golden State the car carries through
registered pouches to Chicago and the West, which have been made
up in the New York office, and, as a usual thing, a large lot of
stamped envelopes for postmasters in the West. The California
letter man from the first car looks after the papers for the same
State, and has an eye to the safety of the car. On reaching Albany
another car is added to the train, making six in all from that
point. This last addition comes from Boston, brings the morning
mail from Bangor, Me., and is manned by four men.
The run to Chicago for post-office purposes is divided into three
divisions: from New York to Syracuse, from Syracuse to Cleveland,
and from Cleveland to Chicago. Each division has its own crew, so
that the men leaving New York are relieved at Syracuse by others,
and these in turn at Cleveland. The New York crew go to work, as
has been said, at 4 P.M., and if the train is on time at Syracuse,
as it usually is, they arrive there at 5.35 A.M., after thirteen
and a half hours of as hard work as men are called upon to do. The
same evening at 8.40 they relieve the east-bound crew, and are in
New York again at six o'clock on the following morning. Half an
hour later they are to be found on the top floor of the General
Post-Office building, comfortably ensconced in bunks and in a
large and airy room, provided as a dormitory for their use by the
postmaster of New York at the time of the inauguration of the fast
mail service. Each crew makes three round trips and is then laid
off for six days, but its members are all this time subject to
extra duty, which they are called upon to perform with unpleasant
frequency, particularly in holiday times.
After leaving New York, the first stop the train makes is at
Poughkeepsie, but no mail is taken on there. At Albany the second
halt is made, and there twenty minutes are spent in taking on
the mail from New England and northeastern New York. At Palatine
Bridge there is a brief stop, and after that comes Utica, where
the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western, the Ontario & Western, and
the Rome, Watertown & Ogdensburg roads exchange mail matter. At
Syracuse more mails come, this time from the Oswego, Binghamton
& Syracuse, and the Auburn & Rochester branch of the New York
Central. Here also comes welcome relief for the crew which left
New York. Those who follow have much to keep them busy, but the
heaviest part of the work has been already performed.
From Syracuse to Cleveland there are several distributing points
where mail matter is also received on the train, and the routine is
continued much as already described until the crew is relieved at
Cleveland. There the men of the Western Division take charge and
continue the work until Elkhart, Ind., is reached. There a special
force from Chicago meets the train, takes possession of a portion
of the letter car, and makes the distribution for the main office
and stations of the city of Chicago, thus saving much time. When
the train arrives in Chicago, it makes connection with a fast mail
train on the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, as also on a like train
on the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul. The former train arrives at
Council Bluffs about 7 P.M., and there overtakes the train which
left Chicago on the previous evening. The Pacific Coast mail is
thus expedited just twenty-four hours. A similar train on the St.
Paul road also saves twenty-four hours' time on the trip to the
northwestern portion of the Pacific Coast.
The appropriation for special facilities for the year ending June
30, 1889, was $295,987.53. The uses to which the appropriation
referred to is put are explained in the following table.
-----------------------+--------------------------+------+-----------
Termini. | Railroad Company. |Miles.| Pay.
-----------------------+--------------------------+------+-----------
New York to |New York, New Haven | |
Springfield | & Hartford |136 | $17,647.06
4.35 A.M. train |New York Central & | |
| Hudson River |144 | 25,000.00
Philadelphia to |Philadelphia, Wilmington | |
Bay View | & Baltimore | 91.80| 20,000.00
Bay View to Quantico |Baltimore & Potomac | 79.80| 21,900.00
Quantico to Richmond |Richmond, Fredericksburg | |
| & Potomac | 81.50| 17,419.26
Richmond to Petersburg |Richmond & Petersburg | 23.39| 4,268.67
Petersburg to Weldon |Petersburg | 64 | 11,680.00
Weldon to Wilmington |Wilmington & Weldon |162.07| 29,541.27
Wilmington to Florence |Wilmington, Columbia | |
| & Augusta |110 | 20,075.00
Florence to Charleston | | |
Junction |Northeastern | 95 | 17,337.50
Charleston Junction | | |
to Savannah |Charleston & Savannah |108 | 19,710.00
Savannah to |Savannah, Florida | |
Jacksonville | & Western |171.50| 31,309.70
Baltimore to | | |
Hagerstown |Western Maryland | 86.60| 15,804.50
Jacksonville to Tampa |Jacksonville, Tampa & Key | |
| West & South Florida |242.57| 43,962.42
-----------------------+--------------------------+------+-----------
Total |$295,655.38
---------------------------------------------------------+-----------
A careful perusal of this table develops the fact that the greater
portion of this money is expended south of Philadelphia, the
railroad companies in that section not having sufficient weight of
mails to warrant fast trains without some additional compensation.
It will also be noted that with the exception of the sum of $25,000
for a special train to Poughkeepsie, which leaves New York City at
4.35 in the morning, the New York Central receives no compensation
except that earned by them as common carriers of so many pounds of
freight-mail matter carried, being paid for in accordance with its
weight. It will also be observed that the Pennsylvania Railroad, on
its trunk line, is not even so fortunate as its great rival.
There may be more dangerous pursuits in life than that of the
railway post-office clerk, but there are not many so, and there are
few in which the risk to life and limb is so constant. The everyday
citizen who is called upon occasionally to make a railroad journey
of a few hundred miles feels it to be incumbent upon himself on
such occasions to make special provision for those dependent on him
in case injury or death should come while riding in the thoroughly
appointed and luxurious coach placed in a portion of the train
least likely to suffer from accident. But too little thought is
devoted to the safety of those poorly paid but efficient servants
of the State, in the forward cars, without whose services the
business of the country, as conducted to-day, would come to a
stand-still. To show that the importance of this service is not
here exaggerated, it is only necessary to recall the condition
of affairs in New York City, and other cities as well, in March,
1888, when the great blizzard fell upon the land. There were then
no mails for several days, and the prostration which came upon
the community is too well remembered to need comment. The danger
to those within the postal cars, however, is recognized by the
railway people, and efforts have been made in the way of providing
safety appliances, but it is, of course, impossible to lessen the
danger to any great extent. All that American ingenuity suggests
in the way of construction, both inside and outside of the cars,
is provided. The body of the car is most substantially built, the
platforms and couplings are of the most approved patterns, the
trucks are similar to those used under the best passenger coaches,
and the air-brakes and other safety apparatus are all brought into
requisition. Within the cars are saws, axes, hammers, and crowbars
conveniently placed in case of wreck, and safety-bars extend the
length of the cars overhead to which the clerks may cling when
the cars leave the track and roll down embankments, as they often
do. In the year ending June, 1888, there were 248 accidents to
trains upon which postal clerks were employed. In these wrecks four
clerks were killed; sixty-three were seriously, several of the
number permanently, and forty-five slightly injured. The official
report of the accidents shows that the majority of them resulted
from collisions, while others were due to the spreading of the
rails, the failure of air-brakes to work at critical moments, and
obstructions on the track.
In every case where cars were wrecked the postal car was among the
number.
In many instances the cars were telescoped, and on such occasions
the clerks were found buried in the wreckage or pinned under the
engine or its tender. And many times true heroism was shown by the
injured men. Over and over again the General Superintendent reports
that, notwithstanding severe injuries received by the clerks, the
scattered mail matter was collected by them and transferred either
to another train or to the nearest post-office. Several times
trains in the West were held up by robbers, who, after sacking the
express car, visited the postal car, introducing themselves with
pistol-shots. One clerk was seriously wounded in the shoulder.
An instance of self-possession is reported in Arkansas, where
the robbers, before visiting the postal car, had secured $10,000
from the express safe. When they came to clerk R. P. Johnson he
suggested that they had secured booty enough, and that under the
circumstances they might let the mail matter alone. The masked men
agreed with him, and did not molest the mails.
[Illustration: Catching the Pouch from the Crane.]
In view of the dangers to which employees of the Railway Mail
Service are exposed, it may be permitted to quote from the last
annual report of General Superintendent Bancroft on the subject
of insurance. No action, he points out, has ever been taken by
Congress toward providing for the care of clerks permanently
injured in the service, or those dependent upon them in case of
death, notwithstanding frequent recommendations by the Department.
He attributes this to insurmountable objections on the part of the
people's representatives to the creation of anything of the nature
of a civil pension-roll. He therefore suggests that there shall
be deducted from the pay of each and every railway postal clerk
ten cents per month, to be paid into "The Railway Postal Clerks'
Insurance Fund," the custodian of which is to be the United States
Treasury. In case of death from injuries while on duty, $1,000 is
to be paid to the clerk's heirs. While this proposition is in the
right direction, it hardly goes far enough. Provision should be
made for the disabled, and to do so, the clerks doubtless would not
object to an assessment of double the amount suggested. That they
should be compelled to resort to such a mode of relief, however, is
a reflection upon the Government of the United States.
The first great need of the Railway Mail Service is an adequate
appropriation by Congress to extend its usefulness, and to keep
it up to the demands and the needs of the public. Where speed
is required to make connections, the Department should have the
cash on hand to buy what is necessary. The railways are business
institutions, managed as such, and when the Department desires
extra facilities it should be prepared to pay in coin and not in
talk. In this connection it is a pleasant duty for the writer of
this very imperfect sketch to say that during his term of service
in the post-office at New York, and at the Department, he always
found Mr. William H. Vanderbilt, Mr. Cornelius Vanderbilt, Mr.
J. H. Rutter, of the New York Central; Mr. John Newell, of the
Lake Shore; Mr. George B. Roberts, Mr. A. J. Cassatt, and Mr.
Frank Thomson, of the Pennsylvania system; Mr. R. R. Bridgers
and Mr. H. B. Plant, of the Atlantic Coast Line, ready to grant
any reasonable request for the improvement and extension of the
service. Time after time Mr. Roberts has run a special train with
the Australian transcontinental mail from Pittsburg to New York,
that it might catch an outgoing steamer; and he and Mr. Vanderbilt
practically re-established the fast mail, by taking letters on
their limited trains. Mr. Roberts gave, in addition, an extra mail
train from Philadelphia west at four o'clock in the morning, and
Mr. Vanderbilt placed a postal car on the 4 P.M. train from New
York, receiving in return--what they had a right to demand--an
extra weighing of the mails, and, what was not a matter of surprise
to them, unmeasured abuse on the floor of Congress for giving these
additional facilities to the people of the country.
The last and greatest need of the postal service is the total
and complete elimination of partisan considerations as affecting
appointments and removals in the working force. The spoils method
invariably brings into the service a lot of do-nothings or a race
of experimenters, whose performances never fail to breed disaster
and to crush out substantial progress.
There is no position in the Government more exacting than that
of a postal clerk, and none that has so many requirements. He
must not only be sound "in wind and limb," but possessed of more
than ordinary intelligence, and a retentive memory. His work is
constant, and his only recreation, study. He must not only be
proficient in his own immediate work, but he must have a general
knowledge of the entire country, so that the correspondence he
handles shall reach its destination at the earliest possible
moment. He must know no night and no day. He must be impervious
to heat or cold. Rushing along at a rate of forty or fifty miles
an hour, in charge of that which is sacred--the correspondence
of the people--catching his meals as he may; at home only
semi-occasionally, the wonder is that men competent to discharge
the duties of so high a calling can be found for so small a
compensation, and for so uncertain a tenure of official life. They
have not only to take the extra-hazardous risks of their toilsome
duties, but they are at the mercy of the practical politicians
who believe that "to the victor belong the spoils." There are no
public offices which are so emphatically "public trusts" as those
whose duties comprise that of handling the correspondence of the
people, because upon the proper and skilful performance of that
duty depend--to a far greater degree than in the care of any other
function accomplished through government agency--the business and
social welfare of the entire community. The effects of ignorance,
carelessness, and dishonesty in any other branch of the public
service, although to be deplored, are not to be compared to those
which follow the existence of such evils in the Post-Office.
Can there be a more flagrant abuse of a "public trust" than the
perversion of a branch of the public service into an agency for
furthering the ambitious ends of local politicians and their
partisans by allowing them to distribute its "patronage" as rewards
for party services among those who, by reason of inexperience--if
for no graver cause--are incompetent to replace the skilled
workman who must be routed out in order to give them room? This
evil should be corrected at once. The Railway Mail Service must no
longer be left at the mercy of the local partisans. The reform is
not only a present necessity, but it was one in the past and will
be in the future, until the force of public sentiment shall compel
acquiescence in the reasonable demand that what was so eminently
meant for mankind shall not be given up to party; that the
non-political business of letter-carrying, which the Government has
monopolized, shall be conducted by it solely with a view to prompt
and expeditious carrying of mail matter, and not with the object of
bolstering up local "statesmen" or carrying elections.
At the coming in of Mr. Cleveland's administration, William B.
Thompson was Second Assistant Postmaster-General--in charge of
the contract office--and John Jameson was General Railway Mail
Superintendent. Both of these gentlemen had worked their way from
the ranks by sheer merit. In private business the value of their
services would have been so highly appreciated that, no matter
who became senior partner of the firm, under no circumstances
would they have been permitted to retire. The case of these
gentlemen is mentioned now simply to illustrate an idea and not
to found a complaint. On the incoming of the new administration,
General Thompson, in accordance with precedent, promptly tendered
his resignation, and it was as promptly accepted; while General
Superintendent Jameson struggled along doing his work until,
to relieve his chief from embarrassment, he, too, tendered his
resignation. The country was thus deprived of the services of two
men who were experts in their profession, simply to give place
to others, of high character, no doubt, but with no knowledge
and special aptitude for the great trust that was committed to
them. And now, in the first year of another administration, the
experience that many valuable officials have gained has counted
for nothing, and they have been rotated out. In no other civilized
country would such an atrocity be possible. An attempt to remove,
for similar reasons, such postal authorities as Messrs. Rich, of
Liverpool, Johnston, of Manchester, or Hubson, of Glasgow, all of
whom, under a sound, logical, just, and economical business system,
have reached their present positions by merit and efficiency from
more or less inferior places, would hurl an administration in
Great Britain from power, and justly too. The possession of the
immense patronage of the Government did not save the Republican
party from defeat in 1884, or keep the Democratic party in power in
1888. Ideas are stronger than "soap," and principles more potent
than spoils. It is due to President Cleveland to state that toward
the close of his administration he recognized the importance of
permanency in the Railway Mail Service, and that he made a long
step in advance by approving a series of rules submitted by the
Civil Service Commission having for its object the removal of the
service from the influences of politicians. It needs more than
this, however; it needs the sanctity of the statute law, declaring
that the clerks should not only keep their offices during good
behavior, but that after twenty years of faithful and efficient
service, or before that time, if injured in the discharge of
their duty, they should retire on half-pay. In case of death from
accident while on duty, proper provision should be made for the
family of the official. Whenever justice is done by Congress in
these particulars, the United States will have the best and most
efficient Railway Mail Service in the world.
THE RAILWAY IN ITS BUSINESS RELATIONS.
BY ARTHUR T. HADLEY.
Amount of Capital Invested in Railways--Important Place in
the Modern Industrial System--The Duke of Bridgewater's
Foresight--The Growth of Half a Century--Early Methods of
Business Management--The Tendency toward Consolidation--How
the War Developed a National Idea--Its Effect on Railroad
Building--Thomson and Scott as Organizers--Vanderbilt's Capacity
for Financial Management--Garrett's Development of the Baltimore
& Ohio--The Concentration of Immense Power in a Few Men--Making
Money out of the Investors--Difficult Positions of Stockholders
and Bondholders--How the Finances are Manipulated by the Board
of Directors--Temptations to the Misuse of Power--Relations of
Railroads to the Public who Use Them--Inequalities in Freight
Rates--Undue Advantages for Large Trade Centres--Proposed
Remedies--Objections to Government Control--Failure of
Grangerism--The Origin of Pools--Their Advantages--Albert
Fink's Great Work--Charles Francis Adams and the Massachusetts
Commission--Adoption of the Interstate Commerce Law--Important
Influence of the Commission--Its Future Functions--Ill-judged
State Legislation.
The railroads of the world are to-day worth from twenty-five to
thirty thousand million dollars. This probably represents one-tenth
of the total wealth of civilized nations, and one-quarter, if not
one-third, of their invested capital. It is doubtful whether the
aggregate plant used in all manufacturing industries can equal it
in value. The capital engaged in banking is but a trifle beside it.
The world's whole stock of money of every kind--gold, silver, and
paper--would purchase only a third of its railroads.
Yet these facts by no means measure the whole importance of the
railroad in the modern industrial system. The business methods
of to-day are in one sense the direct result of improved means
of transportation. The railroad enables the large establishment
to reach the markets of the world with its products; it enables
the large city to receive its food-supplies, if necessary, from
a distance of hundreds or thousands of miles. And while it thus
favors the concentration of capital, it is in itself an extreme
type of this concentration. Almost every distinctive feature of
modern business, whether good or bad, finds in railroad history at
once its chief cause and its fullest development.