The Postal Cyclone

For those who want to have a bill passed, especially in a particular form, Congress is like a swarm of bees--it may quietly go about providing honey, or it may fly out in a stinging temper. For example, one has only to consider the case of Secretary Mellon and his tax reduction bill last year. And tax reduction was a comparatively simple question--nobody was against it, nobody could be hurt by it. The only question was how it should be gone about.

This year, there is an immensely more complicated subject before Congress--more complicated, that is, as far as motives of interested parties are concerned--the Postal Pay Bill. In the first place, there are the postal employes. They have a considerable bloc of votes. They want higher salaries and, naturally, Congress wants to please them. There is also the President, who calls for economy, who has declared that any increase of postal salaries must be accompanied by an approximately equal increase in postal revenues. But an increase of postal revenues concerns a whole group of contrary-minded people--the press, which fears that second-class postage will be increased; the farmers and others, who fear that parcels-post rates will be increased. These in turn are echoed in Congress.

The place where all these conflicting desires converge is at the office of the Postmaster General. There sits Harry Stewart New, substantial, stern in appearance, with circles deepening under his eyes. Above him is the President, demanding more economy. Below him are the postal employes, demanding more pay. At his side is Congress, demanding whatever it believes will serve its political interests. At the other side is the public, represented chiefly by the press and the farmers, shouting loudly that it will not be abused by higher postage rates. Mr. New's position is surely delicate and difficult.

It is to be wondered that he has not already brought a storm down upon his head from one faction, or all. The employes demanded more pay. Congress passed a bill granting it to them, the President vetoed it because there was no provision for increased revenues. That happened last year. Mr. New rode through in calm. The Senate began, this year, by sustaining the veto, and called for a new bill providing both increased pay and revenue. Mr. New furnished cost figures as a basis for a new bill. The Senate ignored them and passed a bill providing about $40,000,000 in revenue to meet a pay increase of $68,000,000.

Last week, the House rejected the Senate measure on the grounds that the Senate was constitutionally unable to initiate a revenue bill. The vote was 225 to 153. At once, the House Committee on Post Offices and Post Roads prepared another bill with revenue-raising features, calculated to provide about $61,000,000 of the conjoined pay increase. Even this is only a beginning of the struggle. This bill is expected to be passed, after which the Senate will substitute its own measure for the House measure, the contest will go to conference and, in the closing hours of the session, with every one in a desperate mood, something will be done---or not done--in haste and ill feelings. And what better "goat" can be found on whom the dissatisfied parties may vent their wrath than the Postmaster General?

Still Mr. New has grown no capric whiskers and there is no evidence that he is about to become a goat for anyone. It seems surprising that a man so sincere, so stable, so steady and with so great a sense of responsibility has succeeded in avoiding the slings and darts of outraged partisans. The reason is that Mr. New is old in politics. He was born into it. His father, an Indianapolis banker, was in politics and the younger New grew up in the atmosphere of politics, knowing many political leaders before he was 20. After being graduated from Butler University (Indianapolis), he spent three years abroad. When he returned he wrote his experiences for the Indianapolis Journal. This led to his employment as a reporter. The reporter's job led to the city editorship. In time, he persuaded his father to buy the paper, which he brought, during his 25 years with it, to a place as one of the leading Republican papers of the state.

He went into politics, became a state senator, later a member of the Republican National Committee, of which he became Chairman for two years. In 1917, he went to the Senate, where he came to know Warren Harding well. They had a good many things in common, although the hard-working Senator from Indiana could never see the point of the Senator from Ohio's going out into a pasture to chase a small white ball from cup to cup. Mr. New was much fonder of duck hunting.

Anon came the fateful elections of 1922, but Mr. New never got so far as the elections. He was defeated in the primaries by Albert J. Beveridge who, in turn, fell before Samuel M. Ralston at the election. But then the famed Mr. Fall resigned the portfolio of the Interior, and Postmaster General Work was shifted to his post, leaving a place in the Cabinet for Mr. New. He took it. He held it. Recently, President Coolidge announced that he would remain after Mar. 4. He has a way of pleasing without resorting to any of the tricks of the political aspirant.