The classification of the postal service made by the Postmaster-General
under section 6 of the act of January 16, 1883, is hereby extended to
all free-delivery post-offices; and hereafter whenever any post-office
becomes a free-delivery office the said classification or any then
existing classification made by the Postmaster-General under said
section and act shall apply thereto; and the Civil Service Commission
shall provide examinations to test the fitness of persons to fill
vacancies in all free-delivery post-offices, and these rules shall be
in force therein; but this shall not include any post-office made an
experimental free-delivery office under the authority contained in the
appropriation act of March 3, 1891. Every revision of the classification
of any post-office under section 6 of the act of January 16, 1883, and
every inclusion of a post-office within the classified postal service
shall be reported to the President.
BENJ. HARRISON.
GENERAL ORDERS, No. 4.
HEADQUARTERS OF THE ARMY,
ADJUTANT-GENERAL'S OFFICE,
_Washington, January 19, 1893_.
I. The following proclamation [order] has been received from the
President:
EXECUTIVE MANSION, _Washington, D.C., January 18, 1893_.
_To the People of the United States_:
The death of Rutherford B. Hayes, who was President of the United
States from March 4, 1877, to March 4, 1881, at his home in Fremont,
Ohio, at 11 p.m. yesterday, is an event the announcement of which will
be received with very general and very sincere sorrow. His public
service extended over many years and over a wide range of official
duty. He was a patriotic citizen, a lover of the flag and of our free
institutions, an industrious and conscientious civil officer, a soldier
of dauntless courage, a loyal comrade and friend, a sympathetic and
helpful neighbor, and the honored head of a happy Christian home.
He has steadily grown in the public esteem, and the impartial historian
will not fail to recognize the conscientiousness, the manliness, and
the courage that so strongly characterized his whole public career.
As an expression of the public sorrow it is ordered that the Executive
Mansion and the several Executive Departments at Washington be draped
in mourning and the flags thereon placed at half-staff for a period of
thirty days, and that on the day of the funeral all public business
in the Departments be suspended, and that suitable military and naval
honors, under the orders of the Secretaries of War and of the Navy,
be rendered on that day.
[SEAL.]
Done at the city of Washington, this 18th day of January, A.D. 1893, and
of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred and
seventeenth.
BENJ. HARRISON.
By the President:
JOHN W. FOSTER,
_Secretary of State_.
II. In compliance with the instructions of the President, on the day
of the funeral, at each military post, the troops and cadets will be
paraded and this order read to them, after which all labors of the
day will cease.
The national flag will be displayed at half-staff.
At dawn of day thirteen guns will be fired, and afterwards at intervals
of thirty minutes between the rising and setting of the sun a single
gun, and at the close of the day a national salute of forty-four guns.
The officers of the Army will wear crape on the left arm and on their
swords and the colors of the Battalion of Engineers, of the several
regiments, and of the United States Corps of Cadets will be put in
mourning for a period of six months.
The date of the funeral will be communicated to department commanders by
telegraph, and by them to their subordinate commanders.
By command of Major-General Schofield:
R. WILLIAMS, _Adjutant-General_.
GENERAL ORDER No. 406.
NAVY DEPARTMENT, _Washington, D.C., January 19, 1893_.
The President of the United States announces the death of ex-President
Rutherford B. Hayes in the following proclamation [order]:
[For order see preceding page.]
It is hereby directed, in pursuance of the instructions of the
President, that on the day of the funeral, where this order may be
received in time, otherwise on the day after its receipt, the ensign at
each naval station and of each of the vessels of the United States Navy
in commission be hoisted at half-mast from sunrise to sunset, and at
each naval station and on board of flagships and vessels acting singly
a gun be fired at intervals of every half hour from sunrise to sunset.
The officers of the Navy and Marine Corps will wear the usual badge of
mourning attached to the sword hilt and on the left arm for a period of
thirty days.
JAMES R. SOLEY, _Acting Secretary of the Navy_.
EXECUTIVE MANSION, _Washington, January 27, 1893_.
_To the People of the United States_:
It is my painful duty to announce to the people of the United States the
death of James Gillespie Blaine, which occurred in this city to-day at
11 o'clock.
For a full generation this eminent citizen has occupied a conspicuous
and influential position in the nation. His first public service was in
the legislature of his State. Afterwards for fourteen years he was a
member of the national House of Representatives, and was three times
chosen its Speaker. In 1876 he was elected to the Senate. He resigned
his seat in that body in 1881 to accept the position of Secretary of
State in the Cabinet of President Garfield. After the tragic death
of his chief he resigned from the Cabinet, and, devoting himself to
literary work, gave to the public in his Twenty Years of Congress a
most valuable and enduring contribution to our political literature.
In March, 1889, he again became Secretary of State, and continued to
exercise this office until June, 1892. His devotion to the public
interests, his marked ability, and his exalted patriotism have won for
him the gratitude and affection of his countrymen and the admiration
of the world. In the varied pursuits of legislation, diplomacy, and
literature his genius has added new luster to American citizenship.
As a suitable expression of the national appreciation of his great
public services and of the general sorrow caused by his death, I direct
that on the day of his funeral all the Departments of the executive
branch of the Government at Washington be closed, and that on all public
buildings throughout the United States the national flag shall be
displayed at half-staff, and that for a period of thirty days the
Department of State be draped in mourning.
[SEAL.]
Done at the city of Washington, this 27th day of January, A.D. 1893, and
of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred and
seventeenth.
BENJ. HARRISON.
By the President:
JOHN W. FOSTER,
_Secretary of State_.