with former postal inspectors, and that is just a matter of taking the Congressional Directory and going down the list. Senator MONRONEY. But I think if you took every postal inspector, you would not have enough postal inspectors to go around to fill more than 5 percent of the postmaster jobs, if you got every one of them in. Mr. RILEY. That is the danger you run. We may run out of postal inspectors. SUPPLEMENTARY STATEMENT OF GEORGE D. RILEY, MEMBER, NATIONAL LEGISLATIVE COMMITTEE, AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR In support of my statement that the present administration of the Post Office Department is overloaded with post office inspectors, I submit the following observations: One of the difficulties met by postmasters and other employees of the Post Office Department under the administration of the present Postmaster General is that the inspection force of 815 men has been moving in and assuming more and more authority in local post offices. In their usurpation of the postmaster's authority, they have had the complete support of the Postmaster General and his staff. That is easily understood because most of the key positions in the Post Office Department are held by former post office inspectors. It is ridiculous to assume that all of the brains in the postal service are in the inspection force, inasmuch as numerically they comprise less than one-fifth of 1 percent of the entire postal service. To assume that inspectors are experts in all fields of postal operations is patently absurd. To become a post office inspector, an employee must have 5 years of service in the postal service. He then takes an examination consisting chiefly of the postal laws and regulations and an investigation is made of his character. To illustrate exactly how it happens, let us take for example an employee who enters the postal service as a postal transport clerk. After 5 years of experience in this division of the postal service, he takes the necessary examination and becomes an inspector. Following his appointment, he is sent to some city other than his regular home and a very definite attempt is made to sever his ties and to discourage fraternization between post office inspectors and the postal employees. Following this rigid police training, in his early years of appointment, he is used principally on depredations and on auditing the accounts of postmasters in small post offices. Following a few years of this police and secretarial work, he suddenly blossoms out as a postal expert. He visits the post offices and tells men who have been handling and supervising the delivery and distribution of mail for many years how to perform their duties. A great deal of the confusion that exists in the post office today comes from the fact that these men have assumed too much authority and are permitted to function as experts on subjects on which they are almost totally ignorant. Under the present administration in the Post Office Department, a small corps of inspectors control all of the appointments. It is almost impossible for a postmaster or a supervisory official or any other employee of the Post Office Department to secure promotion to the highest positions in the Post Office Department. These jobs are held mainly by post office inspectors. When the top echelon is selected from such a small group, it is obvious that the procedure is wrong. There has been a growing tendency to select post office inspectors for postmaster positions, starting with those in the larger cities. This practice is limited to some extent because of the residence requirements of the Civil Service Commission in establishing eligibility to take postmaster examinations. However, the postmaster at Washington, D. C., the postmaster at Indianapolis, Ind., and both the postmaster and assistant postmaster at Cleveland, Ohio, have come from the inspector ranks. There are a number of other inspectors who have been promoted to postmaster positions, but I do not have a complete list at the present time. In Auburn, N. Y., at the present time a post office inspector by the name of Stevens, who is assigned to Syracuse, is residing in Auburn and drives back and forth between the two cities. The purpose of his residence in Auburn, according to reports, is to meet the residence requirement for postmaster so that he will be eligible to succeed the present postmaster who retires on June 30: Postmaster General Jesse M. Donaldson and Deputy Postmaster General Vincent C. Burke, the two top officials of the Post Office Department, are former post office inspectors. In the Bureau of Post Office Operations, which is the most important Bureau in the Post Office Department and which directs the operations of every single post office in the country, the head of that Bureau, Assistant Postmaster General Joseph J. Lawler is not an inspector. However, he is so surrounded by post office inspectors that he is permitted to exercise little or no authority. The Executive Director of the Bureau of Post Office Operations is Clinton B. Uttley, a former post office inspector; the two Assistant Executive Directors. Tom C. Cargill and Fred U. Mills, are both former post office inspectors. Out of the 13 remaining high officials in the Bureau, 7 of them are former post office inspectors, and it is worthy of note that they hold most important positions in the Bureau of Post Office Operations. In this entire set-up, there is only one official who actually came from one of the post offices around the country to the Department, and that is Hugh S. Noonan, who holds the position of Assistant Director in the Division of City Delivery Service. There isn't a single official outside of Noonan in the Bureau of Post Office Operations who has had experience in actually supervising the work of men in local post offices. The administration of the postal service under Postmaster General Donaldson is daily assuming all the aspects essentially of a police administration. Senator MONRONEY. I am just assuming that if what you say is true you would still be infiltrating the postal service with 5 percent of the inspectors if you took every single one and left none for the inspecting job, whereas what you are putting in is a bunch of political appointees who are supposedly friends of the Congressmen, and for whom the Congressman is responsible, and if the mail does not get delivered, then he loses that area. Mr. RILEY. Mr. Chairman, I am not going to attack the political appointees, because I know they originate from the favor or the support of men who have been put in office by the people. I just won't go for that one. Senator MONRONEY. Then you are approving the spoils system? Mr. RILEY. I am not approving anything. I said I wasn't attacking anything. I am not approving the present system. I am disapproving plan No. 2, because I see the potentials it is going to lead to. Senator MONRONEY. I do not know how you could get more Hatch Act violations, which you spoke of a while ago, out of the career service appointments than you would out of having the Congressmen or the Senators, where you do not have a sitting majority Congressman, or where you have neither, the men being recommended by the political organizations. How you can square that one with logic, I cannot understand. Mr. RILEY. I am not going to be in a position of defending the present system, Mr. Chairman. I am not saying that at all. I am attacking this plan No. 2. Senator MONRONEY. I do not see how you could anticipate more Hatch Act violations. Mr. RILEY. I am giving the potentials, of course. The CHAIRMAN. I do not think you quite understand, Senator Mon roney. You stated a while ago, that if this plan went into effect, the Postmaster General, by issuing an order to that effect, could change the status of postmasters from that of civil service employees to executives, administrators, policy-making officials; therefore the Hatch Act would not apply to them. That is what you were saying, as I understood you. Mr. RILEY. I suggested that that is a possibility, because I see nothing to the contrary that would prevent that from happening. The CHAIRMAN. Are there any questions? Senator Dworshak? Senator DwORSHAK. No, but I had one reaction from the colloquy which has just taken place. If it involves a spoils system to permit members of the party in the House and in the Senate to participate in the selection of postmasters, then I wonder if it would not be concentrating a comparable spoils system in the hands of one man, the Postmaster General, under this plan? Mr. RILEY. If I failed to bring that out adequately, Mr. Chairman, then I have been remiss. That was my last point, that you are without question, in my opinion, building up a huge personal patronage system, which is a loss worse than anything else I have ever seen. And I have seen personal patronage systems built up in this Govern ment. The CHAIRMAN. All right. Thank you very much, Mr. Riley. Mr. RILEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. (Subsequently the following letter was received:) Hon. JOHN L. MCCLELLAN, AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR, Chairman, Committee on Government Operations, Senate Office Building, Washington, D. C. DEAR SENATOR MCCLELLAN: In further support of the statement I made before your committee yesterday on Reorganization Plan No. 2 in regard to the plan's failure to recognize postal career employees in filling postmasterships, I refer to the present Postmaster General's views on the same subject. His remarks at the time S. 2027 was pending before the Post Office and Civil Service Committee indicates just how the Postmaster General stands so far as promotion to postmaster jobs are concerned. The text of the pertinent portion of the bill then pending is brief. It is quoted here: "Provided, That the appointee shall be (1) a supervisor, clerk, or carrier in the classified service at the office where the vacancy occurs or (2) selected under civil-service regulations from a register to be made up and furnished the Postmaster General by the Civil Service Commission from a competitive examination open only to persons who have resided within the delivery of the office for 1 year or more next preceding the closing date for applications for the examination and who on the date of the examination are not more than 63 years of age but have attained the age of 21 years for third-class offices; 23 years for second-class offices; or 25 years for first-class offices." The Postmaster General asserted he was opposed to the provisions of the bill to set up machinery for recognizing these career persons, though he admitted that such bill would increase the morale of postal employees. (See p. 124, March 14, 1950, hearings on S. 2027.) In view of Senator Monroney's remarks yesterday that morale in the postal service today is far below what it should be, I believe the views of the Postmaster General are important in this connection. In connection with postal inspectors' agitation to get postmaster jobs, I refer to a letter to the editor of the New York Herald-Tribune as of May 7, 1952, which reads as follows: "Once again a political choice has been made for postmaster in New York. With over 800 postal inspectors available, many with large city office experience, at least one such should be acceptable to the political bosses, especially now with conditions as they are in the New York Post Office. "H. W. HART." It has become the custom of many these days to buy an article because it has an attractive label. There are those who are willing to endorse any proposal whenever it bears the brand of "civil service" regardless of the contents of the package. Some even have blindly endorsed plan No. 2 on the mere assumption that it will put postmasters under civil service. Yet, they do not hesitate even to ask what kind of civil service. Are the examinations to be assembled or nonassembled and more importantly, are they to be competitive or noncompetitive? There are many other questions remaining unanswered. Due to the peculiar position in which the Congress has placed itself in considering reorganization plans, it can only vote the plan up or down. Thus, some plan which might have a suggestion for better government cannot be amended to make it actually such plan. In regard to reference included in your committee staff report on residence provisions for postmasters, it can be agreed that the staff's conclusion on this point is correct. But, as in the instance of postal inspectors, the stations or posts of duty vary according to the place of their assignments. Their posts of duty may well be regarded as their residences. It involves no difficult maneuver to shift residence merely by changing the post of duty. In such manner, Washington, according to the whim of whoever may be the occupant of the job of Postmaster General, could deploy here and there to fill the postmasterships. You probably know that variation of residential requirements in the form of State apportionment has been under fire from the "reformers" a long time. It is regretted that the Bureau of the Budget where, I understand, this latest agitation for plan No. 2 originated, did not seek to discuss these points clearly and forthrightly. Sincerely, GEORGE D. RILEY, Member, National Legislative Committee, The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Keating, did you have something to add? REORGANIZATION PLAN No. 2 of 1952 AND SENATE RESOLUTION 317 Mr. KEATING. I would like to add a supplemental point to what Mr. Riley has said about post office inspectors becoming postmasters. Prior to the present administration we had no postal inspectors as postmasters, except that Washington very often had one. Mr. Burke was postmaster here. But we have one now in Indianapolis and one in Cleveland. And I received a letter this morning from one city where a post-office inspector who was stationed in an adjoining town had moved in and was establishing residence in that town, and he was slated to become postmaster. There was a vacancy coming up. The CHAIRMAN. I do not think there is any objection to appointing some inspectors postmasters. I cannot see that there is any objection to that. But where they are permitted-if things like that are occurring-where they are being encouraged to move into a community and establish residence simply for the purpose of getting a post-office appointment Mr. RILEY. I knew the unions could give you better information on that. Mr. KEATING. The evil comes from the fact that the postal inspectors are the policemen of your organization. They check depredations, and they have somewhat the police idea. And unfortunately only officials of the Post Office Department at the present time, or the majority of them, are in the inspector force. So we have more police administration than we have good administration in the Post Office Department at the present time, and that is what we object to. The CHAIRMAN. All right, Mr. Hallbeck. STATEMENT OF E. C. HALLBECK, LEGISLATIVE REPRESENTATIVE, NATIONAL FEDERATION OF POST OFFICE CLERKS REORGANIZATION PLAN NO. 2 of 1952 and SENATE RESOLUTION 317 Mr. HALLBECK. Mr. Chairman, for the purpose of the record, my name is E. C. Hallbeck, and I am the legislative representative of the National Federation of Post Office Clerks, with offices at 711 Fourteenth Street NW., this city. I expect, in view of the testimony the committee has heard this morning, what I will have to say will perhaps sound in the nature of a summation. I have a very brief statement. I have just a couple of extra copies here. The CHAIRMAN. Will you let us have those up here, for the present? Mr. HALLBECK. Yes; I am sorry, but our mimeograph machine broke down this morning, and I could not get them copied. I am appearing this morning in support of Senate Resolution No. 317, and in opposition to Reorganization Plan No. 2 of 1952. At the outset, I should like to make it clear that we have grave doubts of the wisdom of attempting to accomplish the purpose stated in the President's message by the reorganization method. We believe that the question of legality raised in the Staff Memorandum 82-2-29, dated May 12, should be carefully considered by those competent to determine whether the proposal is in fact within the scope of the Reorganization Act of 1949. Aside from any question of doubt concerning the method by which the stated objective is to be accomplished, we are of the opinion that the objective itself is not desirable. Reduced to major essentials, the plan proposes to eliminate the necessity for Senate confirmation of postmaster appointments. We see no reason to believe that such action will result in the appointment of better qualified people to the position of postmaster, or that such action will result in any considerable saving of time or money to the Post Office Department or to the Federal Government. Neither do we believe that the adoption of this plan will have a tendency to cause a greater number of promotions to the position of postmaster from within the service. The plan would, however, place in the hands of a single individual the sole right to appoint some 21,000 people, most of whom he could not possibly know, without consultation or advice from any source. Such a power could be used for political purposes or for practically any other purpose the appointing officer has in mind. In a political sense, I think it is safe to assume that the appointing officer would appoint only those of his own political faith wherever and whenever possible. Further than that, however, I think it likely that appointments would go only to those of his own branch or faction of that political faith and might in some instances have important repercussions within a political party. It seems to us, therefore, that rather than eliminating political considerations, the plan under discussion would stimulate political activity within the postal service because it would open the doors to the creation of a personal patronage machine such as does not exist at the present time. In his appearance before the committee last week, I believe Postmaster General Donaldson hit the nail on the head when he stated in effect that the requirements of the Veterans' Prefer |