Newspapers / Wilmington Morning Star (Wilmington, … / Jan. 14, 1923, edition 1 / Page 13
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POSTAL SERVICE PAINTS PICTURE OF THE NA TION Postmaster General Work Delves deep Into History of Postal System and Points to Benjamin Franklin, Whose Natal An niversary is Being Celebrated during National Thrift Week* ns its Founder ’ ft JJ}. I-OST.HASTER GENERAL WORK) l'., ujamin Franklin, thaQ'delightful .uumsopher and astute statesman, laid inundation of the present postal cUm ot the United States, v;; ilie earlier postal history ot the , American colonies radiates .,'n him as the central figure-. Frank II tirst served as postmaster of Phll n, ,i,i,j ;i. He ran the office very much lihi- a fourth class office in the smaller onmtminity life of this country is man a,inlay. He owned a weekly news “p,.,- anil ‘he r'OSt office was operated !n* coiijunruoii with this publication. Franklin was named deputy postmas . general of tne British colonies of .. hurica in tne year 17.V5 Immedi r n Iv his troubles began. Dispatching e-,.! ’ delivering letters through! ut the K v-wooded and sparsely-populated '•i is in these pioneer times was a diffl , ht task and there was little to en .,ui:ly,. him. Then the mails were "'ansported b). couriers and six weeks 'ivdisuraed in making the excur k n from 1 hiladelphia to Boston. Dur si,'il! ,-n,, winter months the couriers j^i,I.-Jt only twice in every thirty } “vs |most instances travelers made •iR’ti fa-i' r time than the mail cour ! i-s ala .a the same roads so that the '] ci stern in the middle of the ■ n, nili century was unreliable as ,,'Jli ns ]irecarious. II waver, Franklin set to work to re iiiize the service. Trips were in i unrated weekly between Phlladelph i and Boston throughout the year, the ,iint, of travel was shortened by one ,ili. new routes were opened to Sav in n and southern points g,nd many I:,, rovi-ments were effected. In the ,...a- 17 63. after the British had won Canada as a new colony from the mnch, Franklin proceeded at once to Quebec and opened the first post office v re with subordinate offices at Three divers and Montreal. A monthly ser vice between Quebec and New York was promptly arranged, the courier iking close connections with the racket ' oats sailing monthly between \ , w York and Falmouth. England. T ne coiomai yusLiu o^o ».*,**» ~ .;?e with our department today—was losing business, the expenditures far , utrunnig the receipts. Franklin, as ,i,,puty postmaster general, was allow ,1 to shoulder the burdens of the annu li deficits'out of his private purse, the debts runing as high as 900 pounds by :he rear 1757. His salary was $1,000 ■„,r annum. The British government took only the slightest interest in the ■ ,ntf office of' its American colonies, al most forgetting its very existence dur nc this period. But Franklin was obdurate. He kept ;,is post riders covering the mails and maintained his po^t offices at various villages regardless of the losseS In curred. Three years Jater he »» Silver lining slip out from behind the lark clouds. In 1760 the debt was not only entirely cleared up but upon bal ancing his books Franklin found a surplus of 278 pounds. In 1761 this sur plus grew to the amount of 49^ and With a feeling of deep pride akin to the satisfaction displayed by a pres ent-day postmaster general should h be able to report an annual, proOt t Congress. Deputy Postmaster General Franklin sent thef money in Ja sailing vessel to the British postmaster gener al in London. After that, a reBnlar re mittance was forwarded to the British crown covering annua ■a-ntngs of the colonial postal »erv|®® Although it Is/not generally known, Beniamin Franklin was dismissed in K 1774 by the British crown a deputy postmaster general of the \ merlean colonies. The charge against him was that he made public a number of private letters passing through Ws hands from Governor Hutchinson an Lieutenant Governor DlverofMasaa -husetts, written to friends in BPS land. These letters contained •ions of the rebellious spirit displayed bv the people In this colony against the despotism of English rule and urged the use of military force to »up T ’-ess these growing sentiments. Vital jv interested in seeing the struggle for 'ustice and freedom succeed, Franklin permitted, the publication of these let ters. which resulted •sembly of Massachusetts adopting res elutions condemning Hutchinson am ..liver as inciters and breeders of de pression and petitioning the King for their removal from office. At^f® -eeling of resentment swept over Eng laud against Franklin and no time was lost in summarily discharging him as deputv postmaster general. _ i ftf'r tne du»lu« ... — ■774 it became inevitable that the col lies would separate from the mother country. A continental congress wafe organized at Philadelphia for the pur pose of establishing a separate B°vern n.mt and one of the first quest.ons ” at came up before the delegates was ;he matter of providing for the con veving and delivery of the mails. Ben jamin Franklin, as chairman of a com mittee of investigation, made ia rep<ort providing for the appointment of a postmaster general of the th^®" American coloni.es to conduct a postal system and his report was adopted, Franklin, himself, being Mmel o the, office. A line of posts, was established i v him from Massachusetts to Georgia, with manv cross posts, and postmasters were selected for the principal com munltles. , ._ Thus was the foundation laid for tne present Post Office department of tne .United States, which has survived the Wlcissltudes of peace, war and political upheaval. Franklin served as colonial postmaster general until the election of George Washington as President of tne jRepublio under the rtew constitution, in hen Samuel Osgood of Massachusetts Viecame Postmaster General of tne United States. „ , 7 From this time on the rapid devel» tipment of the postal system paralleled the amazing advancement of the nation commercially and industrially. The big problem that confronted the postmas ters general in the early days of the ( nited States was t^e transportation of iIle mails. The roads were poor and impassable during the winter seasons. )n many instances only narrow trails through dense forests formed the con necting links between the villages and jiamlets where post offices were locat ed. Couriers traveling by foot and rid ins' horseback carried th-e mails during the early part of th** nineteenth cen tury as they did in Franklin’s postal t'gin.e. Then it was discovered that | lie stage coaches that mada rugular trips between Boston, New York, Phjl idelphia and other points could be util ized for this purpose and the first . ather m&il pouches sufficient to hold large quantities of letters came Into t \ i s fence. ’iiere is a glaring contrast between ■ stage coach lumbering heavily over ■ public highways in those days and wift airplane darting above the ■i mntains and prairies at the present ,uim;. Yet transporting the' mall* the air wag not a wild flight of the Imagination to the early citi *®"f. af the American republic. As a matter of fact the American public then was intensely interested in the speedy dispatch of the mails between post offices and offered frequent sug gestions to the postmasters general serving as heads of the Post Office de partment. **lese’ astonishingly prophetic of the future, was made in 1822 when the editor of the Freeman’s Journal, Published at Norristown, Pensylvania advised Postmaster General McLean that it might be possible to carry the mails by the use of “flying ships.” The editor of this publication wrote as fol lows: We would advise the Postmaster General to avail himself of the novel and very ingenious flying machine in vented by James Bennett of PhiladeL phla, by which we conceive the mails would be transported with more celer ity and their arrival at- the places of destination be n>uch more certain than is the case at the present.” While the Po^t Office department evi dently could not avail itself of such friendly advice at that time, this does not mean that it was entirely wasted, for in less than one hundred years later the mails w6re actually being trans ported by flying machines “with more celerity” and “with arrival at their places of destination much more cer tain,” just as was originally predicted by the editor of the Freeman’s Jaurnal. In thfe connection, too, it should be noted that in the haste of the first days’ operation of the stage coach loaded with mail one man was killed while the mails last year were carried two million miles without a single fatality. Illustrative of the mode of the selec tion of the postmasters in these days is an ancient commission issued by Post matser General McLean to Thomas Lindsey, Esquire, the firstpostmaster to serve at Cherry Ridge, Pennsylvan ia, that was recently unearthed. Print ed in quaint italics on age-eaten paper, this document is dated July 13, 1824, and shows the old seal of the Post Of fice department “long sijice abandoned, with the design of the God, Mereury, with wings on his feet. The commis sion reads like this: "Know ye; that confiding in the in tegrity, ability and punctuality of Thomas Lindsey, Esquire, I do appoint him as postmaster and authorize hing to execute the duties of that office at I Cherry Ridge, Wayne County, State of Pennsylvania, according to the laws of the United States and such regulations conformable thereto as he shall receive from he; to hold said office of postmas ter with all the powers, privileges and emoluments to the same belonging, during the pleasure of the postmaster general of the United States for the time being.” .Thg.t the game of politics was played In the early history of the Republic even more than now with regard to the distribution of federal p&tronage, is indicated by the specific clause in this commission declaring that the tenure of office of the Cherry Ridge postmas ter may be ended at the pleasure of the postmaster general. The year 1836 saw the beginning of the transition from the stage coach to the railr>ad car as a means of trans porting the mails. It was at this per iod that the first railroad lines were constructed in the United States and while they were crude and the sched ules maintained by their trains ex tremely uncertain, no time was lost in making use of them for carrying the mails. A rather haphazard method of administration was In vogue in the Post Office department at that time. Contracts were let to private individu als to haul the mails in the stage coaches. In some instances postmasters were allowed certain sums to handle the transportation of the mails over routes from their own post o'ffice to others, so that when new railroad lines were built these postmasters frequently made arrangements personally for hauling the mails with the railroads without even consulting the depart ment at Washington. In other cases the private contractors simply trans ferred their contracts to the railroad companiej, the compensation received for carrying the malls by the Bteam carriers being the same as was paid to the owners of the stage coach lines. Several years later, however, when construction of railroads passed the ex perimental stage and a regular net work of railroad lines was built up. connecting the larger as well as the smaller communities of the country, the Post Office department abojished these private contracts and. took ever the entire management of mail trans portation. This was necessary to as sure connection bdlween trains at ter minal points. The postmaster general himself negotiated with railroads, both through personal interviews with the executives of the steam carriers and' through correspondence, making direct contracts between the companies and the government. Among the files of the department arc quite a number of documents dealing with these negoti ations. The great difficulty in those early days was to induce the railroads to operate trains at night for the pur pose of making conectlons with other lines and thus obtaining a speedier dis patch of the mails. The railroad offici als were extremely wary. They object ed to taking any chances and frequent - ly refused to accede to the requests of the postmaster general to run trains after dark. They were aiso very cau tious In their negotiations with the ' government not to promise any service that they were not certain could not be performed. A letter recently found, dated December 29, 1838, written by' R. T. Hayne, Esquire, president of the South' Carolina and Charleston Rail road company, to Postmaster General Amos Kendall, is a unique example. A verbatim copy of which follows: Charleston 29th, December 1888. Dear Sir: < Your favor dated 28th, 9 o’clock P. M. was received this day and has been laid before the Committee charged with making a contract for the transporta tion of the daily mail on our Rail Road between Charleston and Hamburg. I •am instructed by the Committee to say that they cannot consent to contract for the departure of their cars at a later hour than half past 7 in the morning for their arrival at an earlier hour than / half past 4 in the afternoon. It was ■stated to you frankly in the beginning, and has been repeated in all our com munications, that from the character and condition of our road and the na ture of the country it was not deemed -safe to undertake to convey passengers upon it in the night and that in the present state of the road it would be impossible to make the run with cer tainty so as to meet the hours of 8 and 4 as proposed by you. In particular seasons and under favorable circum stances it might be done, but we know that we would frequently fail and we could not contract to dq that which we know beforehand could’ 4iot.be perform ed and having determined that the saf ety of the passengers forbids our run ning in the dark, we have no alterna tive but to adhere to the hours stated. Indeed, this proposition postpones the departure hour half an hour beyond the present time, which has been done ex pressly to accommodate you and the Wilmington Company, who might cer tainly arrive at 6 o’clock as they now I certainly, do. You are mistaken in sup I posing- that in my conversation with ! you in the presence of Mr. Huber I j proposed any hours different from the above.* You are correct in saying that .1 intimated “a willingness to deliver the mail upon the boats at 5 P. M. and to receive it from the Beat at 7, pro vided the Postmaster General agreed to the sum of $237.50 per mile." This arose out of a suggestion of Mr. Hu ber and yourself, that possibly ar i rangements might be made to take the mails directly from the . boats to the | rail road, which I knew could be^done in twenty minutes. We should stUl.be willing to make that arrangement, though we should greatly prefer the | delivery of the mails..to us (as at pres ent) at fixed hours at our depository. In short any arrangement consistent with our certain departure from our ! depository not later than half past sev I en and our arrival there at half past 4 would represent no insuperable diffl I culty to contract; to do more would be i to bind ourselves to do what could not 1 be effected without frequently running ! in the night which our duty to the pub | lie will not permit. At some future | time when the improvements on our ; road shall be finished we may be able to ^effect what you desire, but it is im practicable now. To satisfy you of our desire to go as far as possible to meet your wishes, we shall be happy to make an experiment with you of carrying the mail between the hours of half past 7 and half past 4. begining any day after the first of January you may ad vise, so that you may satisfy yourself of the practicability of effecting your | object through proper arrangements with the Post Offices and the Wilming ton Company. I forbear to. enter into any further details and still hope that seeing our anxious desire to meet the views of the department and the public convenience, you may be enabled to make the necessary arrangements for carrying our obpects In effect/’ In 1838, the very time that this let ter was written, there were only 200 miles of railroads in the nation carry ing the mails-. Since then year after year the railroad mail service of the Post Office department has grown along with the advancement in railroad con struction until the present 'time, when the mails are being transported over no less than 231,981 • miles of railroad trackage. *rom tnese sman Deginings tne ser vice of the United States gradually de veloped into the greatest postal ma chine ever known. When Benjamin Franklin was Postmaster General of the rebellious thirteen colonies fight ing- the wjjr of independence there were 75 post offices. Now there are 52.000. Then the gross receipts totaled $30,000 annually and gross expenditures were $30,240. During the last fiscal year the Vost office revenues reached the astonishing figures of $484,853,000 with gross expenses running to $546, 644.000. The annual payroll for post masters that Benjamin Franklin made out and paid, amounted each year to about $6,000 to compensate the 75 post masters, handling the mails at that time. The payroll of the Post Office department for postmasters last year necessitated an outlay of money mounting up to $43,697,000. The postal service is now the big gest business in the world. It employs around 333^000 workers—a hundred thousand more than any other business institution in this country or any other one_and handles during the course of every twelve months the gigantic turn of $3,000,000,000. Between the time of Franklin, the first Postmaster General, and that of the writer, who is the fiftieth, the pic ture of the United States has been painted. • , It is best viewed through the history of the postal service, which has faith fully chronicled the march of events, and curiously enoush, the fundament als of thrift set up in Poor Richard’s Almanac by Pranklin, upon which the character, of able men has heretofore been founded, and upon which nations must stand, are as apt today as when written. GET RID OF YOUR FAT Thousands of others have gotten rid of theirs WITHOUT DIET ING OR EXERCISING often at the rate of over a pound a day and WITHOUT PAYMENT until reduction has taken place. X am a licensed practising physician and person ally select the treatment for each individual case, thus enabling me to choose remedies that wiU produce not only a loss of weight harmlessly, but which will also relieve you of aH the troublesome . symptoms of overstoutness such as shortness of i/reath, palpitation, indigestion, rheumatism, gout, asthma, kidney trouble and various other afflic tions which often accompany overstoutness. My treatment will relieve that depressed, tired, sleepy feeling, giving you renewed energy and vigor, a result of the loss of your superfluous faf. You are not required to change in the slightest from your regular mode of living. There is no dieting or exercising. It is, simple, easy* and pleas ant to take. . . ....__ - /_. If vou are oyerstout do not postpone imi *>*<■ .. .““ mv FREE TRIAL TREATMENT and my plan wheriby I am to be PAID ONLY AFTER REDUCTION HAS TAK EN PLACE if you so desire.—adv. DR. R NEWMAN, Licensed Physician State of New York 286,Fifth Avenue, New York, N. Y. Desk H-701. The Georgia Farmer Who Beat The Boll- Weevil To a practical Georgia farmer, Mr. L. D. Hill, of Burke County, goes the credit for having developed the most efficient and economical boll weevil poison yet offered the farmer; a poison which attracts the weevil, which a child can apply without machinery, and which can be put on in daytime, not at night! ,, Hill’s Mixture (the name of this poison) contains three elements—calcium arsenate as a poison, molasses as a binder, and a third (secret) element which attracts the tweevil from any part of the plant and kills him. It has been endorsed by every fanner who hks used it, by the President of the American Cotton Association, and the Manufacturer’s Record. We will be glad to send you booklet of unimpeachable evidence upon request. Necessity The Mother of His Invention With capital, livestock, equipment, farm buildings and a complete organization to run many big plantations all dependent upon cotton, Mr. L. D. Hill came to the point where he had to have protection against the boll weevil or face'ruination. He'tried diversi fied farming; it failed. His only way of saving himself, was to kill the boll weevil. On his ability to do this, he staked $23,000.00 in cash and five years of effort. The result of his courage and hard work is Hill’s Mixt ure, which has enabled him to make back his $23,000.00 in two years on his plantations, and has demonstrated to the world that Hill’s Mixture is the most successful SOLUTION OF THE BOLL WEEVIL PROBLEM. No Night Work or Expensive Machinery Not only does Hill’s Mixture bring death and destruction to the boll weevil, but it lifts two big burdens from the shoulders of the cotton farmer, that he has had to bear in his efforts to combat the boll weevil. Hill’s Mixture can be used any hpur of the day; early morning, at noon, in the afternoon or the late evening; it makes no difference, Hill’s Mixture always does the work. Use Hill’s Mixture according to the laws of Na ture: work in the day time and’sleep at night. More than this, instead of spending hard earned cash for machinery, the only tools you need to treat 5 acres of cotton a day with Hill’s Mixture, is a cohjmon ordinary bucket and a stick with a rag tied around one end. Use the bucket and stick and put your ma chinery money in thejbank. Touch the Top— And Off They Drop Like many other great benefits that have come to mankind, Hill's Mixture is simple and easy to use. Just pour your Hill's Mixt ure into a bucket; take any piece of wood or stick that is handy; tie a rag on the pnd of it and make a mop. Walk down between your cotton rows and dip your mop in Hill's Mixture and daub some on the top of each cotton plant as you walk by it. And in a few hours after you “touch- the top” why “off they drop.” HILL’S MIXTURE GETS ’EM. Hnn®smE HAS NEVER HAD A FAILCKa . What more can you say? Success Is Suc cess and that’s all any man can ask for. Thousands of bales of cotton have been car ' ried to the gin where but as many hundreds were carried before. Hundreds of farmers have used and Hundreds and hundreds more are demanding Hill's Mixture and the record is one unbroken story of success—a full crop of cotton wherever Hill's Mixture is used. Full Protection for $3.50 Per Acre This is the lowest price that has ever been paid for absolute and positive protection against loss by boll weevils. Three dollars . and a half an acre!!! Who wouldn’t pay $3.50 an acre to raise a full bale of cotton?? Do you know any farmer in this United States who wouldn’t gladly pay this price and then some? Think this over. Read this advertisement again and you’ll begin to realize what Mr. L. D. Hill, of Burke County, Gough, Georgia, has done for the thousands of cotton farmers who have been going down the road to financial ruin on account of the pesky Mex ican Boll Weevil. . , ORDER HILL’S MIXTURE NOW! Raise a full crop of cotton and make your name worth as much as it used to be with the business men and bankers of your commu- . nity. T/^ 17 O • The price of Hill’s Mixture is 70c a gallon, freight free to any Geor- _ IV’I I a Kil! gia or S. Carolina point, plus $3.00 for barrel. It comes in 50-galkm steel hoop hogsheads. This is enough Hill’s fixture to bring a 10-acre crop of cotton through free and protected from boll weevils. When you get through with the hogshead, if you want to return it to us in good condition, we will refund you $2.50 in cash for it. ^ Buy Hill’s Mixture from our agent in your county or order from us direct. a y-'i 1k. Tnrr» ITT a \T 'T'T? T"\ _ We want agents in every county. ' Ai X S W’ X • We’ll advertise Hill’s Mixture in their newspapers over their names. If you know how to make a crop of cotton and want to- do something for the good of all the farmers of your county, build up your community and at the same time make something for ^ourself, WRITE US AND WE WILL SHOW YOU HOW TO' DO IT WITH HILL’S MIXTURE. SentLyour name and address. Responsible men, able to furnish' references, only considered. . / f Hill’s Mixture Corporation ' * AUGUSTA, GEORGIA r . t > .1 - ' %.
Wilmington Morning Star (Wilmington, N.C.)
Standardized title groups preceding, succeeding, and alternate titles together.
Jan. 14, 1923, edition 1
13
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