tracts and sending out the notices to the accepted bidders occupies several weeks, during all of which time not less than a dozen clerks are withdrawn from their current business, and necessarily required to work day and night. These facts are stated to show that the time required to perform the duties assigned to each individual must be greater or less, according tocircumstances. Many of the officers and clerks (one-third at least) require an average of nine hours a day to keep up their work; and there are several who are actually employed twelve hours a day for more than half the year; while about one-half of the whole number do not require more than six or seven hours a day to perform the duties assigned them. The resolution before referred to also requires the Postmaster General to state "what reform and retrenchment may be reasonable and practicable, in diminishing the number of persons so employed in the public service." In connexion with this branch of the subject, it is proper to state, that the force of the whole office having been found insufficient in 1837, Congress granted an appropriation for the employment of a topographer and seven additional clerks. In 1838, another clerk was employed to keep the appropriation accounts, making a topographer and eight clerks in all, for whom appropriations have been regularly made by Congress up to the 1st January last. No addition of a permanent nature has been made to the clerical force of the Department since 1838, although the labors of the office have been greatly increased, since that period, from various causes. Two of these I will state: 1. Congress added, in 1838, about 750 new mail routes to those then in operation, thereby increasing the amount of labor in the several bureaus of the Department to an extent requiring the services of at least five clerks. 2. The increase in the number of post offices, since the 1st July, 1838, as ascertained on the 1st January last, was 688. Hence it is evident, that if the force of the office in 1838 was barely sufficient to perform the labor then required, that force must now be inadequate, when the business of the Department has been augmented by the addition of the post offices and post routes above stated; for, although the revenue now may be no greater than it was then, there are, notwithstanding, several hundred more mail contractors, and 688 more postmasters in the service, with all of whom more or less correspondence must be maintained. It is obvious that the business of this Department must increase in proportion as the country advances in population, and new avenues of intercommunication are opened and improved. So far, then, from being able to recommend a reduction of the force employed in this Department, I am clearly of opinion that the public interest would suffer by a diminution of the number of clerks now employed. A reduction of post offices, in some sections of the country, may be made without detriment to the public service; and means are now employed to ascertain, as far as it is practicable, such offices, with a view to their discontinuance. The only hope I can entertain of diminishing the expenditures of this Department is by a faithful administration of it, under existing laws. In reply to the second resolution, I have the honor to transmit a statement, (marked A,) showing the names of postmasters removed from office, and of the persons appointed in their places, from the 4th March, 1829, to the 4th March, 1841, with the exception of a period of 258 days, from the 17th September, 1834, to the 17th July, 1835, when no record was kept showing the causes of the changes of postmasters, whether they arose from death, resignation, or removal. The files embracing that period were, as. I learn, destroyed by fire at the burning of the Post Office building, in December, 1836. I also transmit a similar statement, (marked B,) showing the names of the postmasters removed from office, and of the persons appointed in their places, between the 4th March and the 16th July, 1841, the date of the resolution. I also submit another statement, (marked C,) showing the names of the officers and clerks removed from office from the 4th March, 1829, to the 4th March, 1841; and a similar statement, (marked D,) exhibiting the names of the officers and clerks removed from office between the 4th March, 1841, and the 16th July ensuing. I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant, Hon. JOHN WHITE, Speaker of the House of Representatives. C. A. WICKLIFFE. A. Statement showing the names of postmasters removed, and of those appointed, from March 4, 1829, to March 4, 1841, with the names of the offices and States. Appointed. Samuel Besley Nathaniel Mitchell Ebenezer Putnam Sanders Van Rensselaer Richard Greenough Abner Greenleaf |