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chairman of the Committee on Post Offices and Post Roads of the House of Representatives He indicated that during his administration of the post department the consolidation of a few thousand post offices might be effected. He did not ask for more money; he asked for less. He recommended that two millions of dollars be taken from the appropriation for the salaries of postmasters, and that in place of this an increase of only one and one-half million be added to the appropriation for clerk hire—a clear saving of $500,000.
Well, what happened? Of course, Congress jumped at the chance of saving this sum—a sum certainly not to be despised in this time of harrassing deficits, when every dollar counts? Of course, Congress made haste to encourage the Postmaster-General in such a measure of economy, which, at the same time, was shown to be of great benefit to the efficiency of the service? Oh no, Congress did not jump at the chance. The plan was received with chilling aversion. In vain was the Postmaster-General's plea that the extensive realization of the plan would strengthen and improve the postal organization by introducing competent local supervision, responsibility and control; that it would insure a prompter and more intelligent accounting for public funds with less bookkeeping, less correspondence, fewer requisitions for supplies, and less call for inspection from the department; that it would increase and improve the postal facilities of the people, and thereby augment the postal revenues; that it would lessen, by a large amount, the necessary expenditure for the postal service, with the certainty that this saving would swell into millions of dollars annually—all of which nobody has denied, and nobody can to-day. All in vain. The House turned a deaf ear to the appeal. The transfer of appropriations asked for was not granted. And when the matter turned up in the Senate, that body, led by the well-known statesman Mr. Gorman of Maryland, not only did not further the reformatory and economizing work of the Postmaster-General, but expressly curtailed his power by resolving to prohibit the consolidation of post offices beyond five miles from the corporate limits of any city, and providing that even within those limits no consolidation should affect a post office located at any county seat. This is the law now.
Look at this spectacle. The representatives of the people
