Address Before the National Association of Postmasters.

Mr. Postmaster of the great city of St. Louis, Mr. Postmaster General, and postmasters and ladies and gentlemen:

I am glad to welcome you to Washington this morning.

I don't believe there is a finer group of public servants anywhere than the members of the postal service.

There are some people who would call this just a meeting of bureaucrats. Well, if you are bureaucrats, so am I, and I am proud of it.

It seems to be open season, these days, on Government employees. There are a lot of people who are trying to make political capital by slurring the loyalty and efficiency of Government employees, and trying to bring the public service into disrepute.

I think that is a contemptible way to try to get votes.

We have the greatest Government in the world, and the most loyal and efficient Government servants. And I am proud to be a part of that organization. And I am sure you are proud to be a part of it, too.

It is time we made it perfectly plain that we feel it is an honor to work for our fellow citizens through public service.

The postal service is one of the key activities of the Federal Government. It employs over half a million people, one-fourth of all the civilian employees of the whole Government. It is one of the biggest businesses in the country. And without it, the rest of the country would not be able to do business at all. Without the postal service all our activities would come to a standstill--business, national defense, family life, everything.

Last year the postal service carried over 27 billion letters and 1 billion parcels. It carried over 6 billion copies of newspapers and magazines and nearly 40 million packages of books.

The postal service is not only big business, it is public business. We all ought to be concerned about the way the postal service is run. We ought to be sure that it is run on a businesslike basis--that it pays for itself.

Today it does not pay for itself. Postal rates are not set by the Post Office Department, the postal rates are set by the Congress. And these rates are not high enough to cover the cost of carrying the mail.

Right now the postal service is being run at a deficit of more than $500 million a year. The biggest part of this deficit is caused by the low rates on second- and third-class mail--that is, on newspapers, magazines, and circulars and advertising matter. Now, first-class letter mail pays its own way. There are lobbyists who are trying to raise the rate on it. But the publishers and advertisers who use second- and third-class mail to reach the public are not paying fully for the services they get.

To put it bluntly, the taxpayers of the country are subsidizing these business interests to the tune of several hundred million dollars a year. That is not right, and I have asked the Congress to raise these rates. The Congress has been considering this matter very diligently, and I hope that they will soon pass legislation to raise these second- and third-class rates substantially.

However, there is a lot of opposition to raising these rates, and I am sorry to say that most of it comes from the "slick" magazine publishers--I mean that word in two ways-who are getting the benefit of millions of dollars of the taxpayers' money each year. About $200 million a year of the taxpayers' money is going to carry second-class mail-that is, newspapers and magazines. I am glad to say that a large number of newspaper publishers know this is not right, and are entirely willing to pay their own way. It's the "slick" magazine people who don't want to pay their way. We are subsidizing them for all that bunch of advertising that we have to read in order to find something to look at in those "slick" magazines.

There is some justification for using public money to subsidize the mailing of certain publications--such as small weekly papers in rural areas. But I see no excuse whatever for subsidizing the huge publishing concerns which make millions of dollars in profits every year. Some of these concerns have come down here and lobbied Members of Congress from breakfast to bedtime, trying to prevent them from raising second-class postal rates. Some of the biggest magazine publishers in the country are fighting tooth and toenail to keep their juicy subsidies, and then write editorials about somebody else getting a subsidy.

They are strongly against subsidies--for everybody but themselves. Here they are, costing the taxpayers millions of dollars every year, and they have the nerve to complain about the high cost of government. The next time any of you see an article or editorial in one of those "slick" magazines attacking Government subsidies, I just wish you would write them a very polite--very polite--little letter asking them when they will be ready to pay the full cost of sending their own publications through the mail.

In addition to fair rates for postal service, I believe in fair salaries for postal workers and other Government employees. A while back I sent a recommendation to the Congress on this subject, too, asking them to raise the salaries of Government employees, including the postal workers.

In addition, I asked the Congress to remove the inequities they have allowed to creep into the postal pay scales. This is something that affects postmasters as well as employees. I hope the Congress will straighten out this situation the way it ought to be done. And there are some postmasters who are not getting as much money as the people who are working for them. And that is not fair.

Fair rates and fair salaries are the responsibility of Congress. But there is something equally as important which is the responsibility of you who work in the postal service. This is the responsibility of constantly using new ideas and new techniques to increase the efficiency of postal operations. And I want to tell you that in this field I am proud of you.

Since 1945 the output of postal employees per man-hour worked has increased by more than 10 percent. And that is a record that you all ought to be proud of.

A lot of new equipment has been put into service, and more new equipment is being tested. The postal service has new mail sorting machines, for example. It is using helicopters for short air hauls. Postal engineers have developed a new kind of light motor vehicle for mailmen who work in suburban districts where houses are far apart. And if ever I get retired from the Presidency, I am going to get me one of those machines to ride around in.

All these and many more mechanical improvements are being tried out in the effort to find more efficient ways to handle and transport the mails.

Another way in which we are improving the postal service is through administrative reorganization. Ever since I have been President I have been working for greater efficiency through the reorganization of Government departments. The Commission on Government Organization, headed by former President Hoover, studied this field thoroughly--and Mr. Acheson was the vice chairman of that organization--and made some very valuable recommendations for improving the efficiency of the Government.

The other day--just the other day, now-a Member of Congress said that we had not carried out any of the recommendations of the Hoover Commission regarding the Post Office. That man was just as wrong as he could be, and he knew it. He should talk to some of the other Members of Congress, who have been putting some of these reorganization measures through, and who know what the situation really is.

The fact is that we either have put into effect or have submitted to the Congress virtually every recommendation the Hoover Commission made concerning the Post Office--and some of them have been in effect for more than 2 years.

One of the first recommendations of that Hoover-Acheson Commission was that the Postmaster General should continue to be a member of the Cabinet, but that he should not be an official of a political party. Well now, I had accomplished that long before the Commission made any recommendation. I put the first career man in as the Postmaster General, and he has been there ever since. He came up from the ranks in the postal service. He is a fine public servant-Jesse Donaldson.

The Hoover-Acheson Commission recommended that the top level of the Post Office Department be reorganized. We've done that too. I sent up to the Congress a reorganization plan to give the Postmaster General more authority over the Department, along with a Deputy Postmaster General and four Assistant Postmasters General to help him, and a National Advisory Board to consider methods and policies for improving the postal service. Well, the Congress approved that plan and it has been in effect for 2 years, and it is working fine. I am calling the attention of this Congressman to that statement--who made the statement that we had never made any reports.

The Hoover-Acheson Commission also recommended that the fiscal affairs of the Post Office be reorganized. And that has been done, largely as a result of the Financial Control Act of 1950, which gave the Post Office Department, for the first time, the authority to establish and maintain its own accounting setup.

We have been making a lot of reorganizations like this in other departments of the Government too.

There has been a great deal of misinformation I am kindly when I use the word "misinformation"--put out around the country lately to the effect that nothing much has been done about the Hoover-Acheson Commission's recommendations for any part of the Federal Government. Well, that is just poppycock, to put it mildly. I've been surprised to see that a lot of people have been taken in by it--including some newspapers that should have known better.

Anyone who looks at the record will see that our achievements in Government reorganization and management improvement have been outstanding. Out of the 36 reorganization plans I have submitted to the Congress, 27 have been approved. The other 9 were voted down--and some of the Members of Congress who talk the loudest about efficiency and economy voted against those 9 reorganization plans.

As a result of these reorganization plans, and other actions, I can report that we already have in effect a majority--a majority of the recommendations of the Hoover-Acheson Commission for the whole Government. The Department of Defense has been brought under more unified direction. The Department of State has been substantially strengthened. Reorganization plans have gone into effect for the Department of Commerce, the Department of the Interior, the Department of Justice, and many other departments, and agencies and regulatory commissions. The supply and property management activities of the Government have been consolidated into the General Services Administration.

Those and many other changes have stepped up the efficiency of the Federal Government. They have saved the taxpayers money. And they are standing us in good stead as we face the large, new problems brought on by the defense emergency.

Now, don't let anybody tell you that the President of the United States is not for economy and efficiency. Whenever there is any economy and efficiency in the Government, the President of the United States has been responsible for it, and don't let anybody tell you different.

But that job is not finished, of course. In fact, the job of making the Federal Government more efficient will never be finished. There are other recommendations of the Hoover-Acheson Commission to consider. I also have an advisory commission of experts on administrative management who are constantly finding new ways to improve the operations of the whole Government. One of the members of that commission is the Deputy Postmaster General, Vincent Burke.

There will always be new ideas to be tried out, better ways of doing things to be found. There will always be new challenges to be met as the Government is called on to serve the people of our country under new conditions.

Now, they are always talking about going hack to something. You can't turn the clock back. You have got to go forward. And these people who talk about going back are thinking about a government for 70 or 80 million. We have got 156 millions of people now, and you have to have a government in proportion to the size of its population, and it has to expand, if we are going to run.

All of us who work for Uncle Sam should continue to strive for good government at the lowest possible cost. That is the spirit, I am sure, in which you postmasters are doing your work.

Let us continue, in everything we do, to encourage every postal employee, and every other Federal worker, to give his energy, his imagination, and his talents to continually improving the service he renders to the people of this great country of ours. And then we will be marching toward efficiency in government, toward economy in government, and toward the general welfare of all the :people.

Thank you very much.