LETTER' \ I c ! r W\ — LIBRARY BUREAU OF RAILW^ft ECONOMICS, WASHINGTON, D. C, THE POSTMASTEB GENERAL TO )■ HON.GEORGE IN ANSWER TO A PUBLICATION MADE BY THE JOINT BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF THE DELAWARE AND RARITAN CANAL AND CAMDEN AND AMBOY RAILROAD AND TRANSPORTATION COMPANIES. WASHINGTON: PRINTED BY RITCHIE & HEISS. 1847. 1USEAU OF RAILWAY cCONOHIC^ WASHINGTON. O.C, H EZJ7! .NisXVt /ml LETTER. Post Office Department, February 4, 1847. Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 2d instant, submitting to my attention a pamphlet which you have received from the directors of a railroad company in New Jersey, animadverting upon certain proceedings of this department. I had previously received a copy of this publication; and what the accuracy of its allegations and the justice of its complaints are, you can judge, when I assure you that the schedule it denounces as being ordered ain the absence of all right" I had full authority to prescri&e under the powers conferred by law upon the Postmaster General. The right of the department to prescribe at what hours the mail shall be conveyed upon its routes exists in every case, un¬ less surrendered by the Postmaster General in the contract. In this case there was no subsisting contract: and the last contract between the company and the department expressly recognised the right of the Postmaster General to alter this schedule. The endeavor to make out an admission by the department against its right to change this schedule is done, I regret to see, by means of a letter relating to a difwent schedule, which had been placed by the contract and the correspondence of the par¬ ties on a footing entirely the reverse of the schedule in question, in respect to the power of the Postmaster General over it. And as to its being unjust and unreasonable, I have to say it was submitted to the companies for their consideration before being ordered; was not objected to flp tlienf, and was duly and cheerfully WO* carried into effect. The average speed it requires is less per mile than on the principal railroad routes of the country. The deductions of pay complained of were for repeated mail failures highly injurious to the public, and for which no excuses were even offered. There are other points which I shall notice. As the foregoing is but a brief glance at the principal topic, I will pro¬ ceed to give a full exposition. 4 During last fall, more particularly in the month of September, there oc¬ curred on the New York and Philadelphia railroad line a most remarkable series of mail failures. Instead of arriving at Philadelphia, as they had been doing for months previous, in the time prescribed by the schedules, the cars did not reach that city until after the southern train had left for Baltimorej and in consequence there was a disconnexion as often nearly as every other day, which delayed the mails to the south and west about twenty-four hours. Widespread dissatisfaction and loud complaint were caused. When I came to adjust and order the pay for the service, which had to be made upon my special order, as there was no subsisting contract for the route, I discriminated between the trips that were performed in time and those that failed to make the connexions. Awarding to the former the highest rate of pay that the act of Congress permitted me to make, I allow¬ ed for the failing trips a reduced compensation . This is the complaint— that 1 did not pay as much for the defective as for the complete and perfect service. And in the pamphlet you referred to, u the joint board of directors of the Delaware and Raritan Canal and Camden and Amboy Railroad and Transportation Companies" appeal from my judgment to that of the public. The views of the department, in advance of my final decision, were fully set forth in a letter addressed to the company on the 10th of Septem¬ ber, 1S46, by the First Assistant Postmaster General, then acting as Post¬ master General. They were told that they would be allowed, as heretofore, the highest price which the law permits to be paid for the most efficient and expeditious service on a railroad of the first class, notwithstanding their contract had expired; but that that compensation could be given only upon the condition that they performed the required and appropriate service; that if they refused to run by the schedule furnished in March last, and thereby broke connexions daily at Philadelphia, and detained the most important mail in the Union, they could have no right to expect, nor could they receive, the same amount of compensation as if they adhered to that schedule, and thus not merely carried the mail, but carried it in the mode which the orders of the department and the interest of the service required; that paying for their services, in the absence of a contract, according to their value, their services could not "be deemed as valuable when they failed as when they connected at Philadelphia;, and that deductions from their pay would have to be made accordingly. When I came afterwards to order payment for the service performed in September, I made it, on account of the thirteen failures that had occurred in that month, less than it otherwise would have been by the sum of $130. It is in consequence of this, that the joint board of directors of the Canal, Railroad, and Transportation Companies aforesaid issue their pamphlet. 5 If I rightly understand them, the ground they assume is, that the depart¬ ment has no power to vary the service from the terms of the old contract; that, although that contract expired by its own limitation on the 30tb June, 1841, they are entitled to treat any order of the Postmaster General requir¬ ing a different mail service on the route as a nullity; and, further, that they have the right to take and carry the mails of the United States according to the expired contract, in disregard of any requirement of the department for different service, and demand and receive the pay that that contract stipulates. This ground involves too much absurdity and mischief to re- ceive my assent. I do not believe that the power of this department over its routes can be held in abeyance by an expired contract, or that service performed according to its terms is entitled to payment upon any other basis than the renewed and continued assent of the department—most as¬ suredly not, in disregard of its agreement and in defiance of its wishes. But it is unnecessary to discuss this matter. Let us see how the joint di¬ rectors maintain this ground. To do so, they take the following positions: 1. That, under the old contract, the Postmaster General had no right to order a change of the schedules of departures and arrivals; 2. That the department admitted in its letter, quoted on the fourth page of the pamphlet, that the Postmaster General had no such right; and, 3. That the department sent the mails to the cars and boats of the com¬ panies; and having continued to do so after the protest of the companies against the change of schedule, that act amounted to a virtual assent to have the service peformed upon the terms insisted upon by the companies. On each and all of these positions, the truth of the case compels me to make a direct issue. The old contract recognised the right of the Post¬ master General to alter the schedules of the evening line, which are the only schedules in question. The letter of the First Assistant Postmas¬ ter General, quoted in the pamphlet, gave no admission whatever against the right of the Postmaster General to change that schedule. It related to the morning schedule, the right to alter which was, by the contract, with¬ held from the Postmaster General and given to the companies, as that of the evening line was given to the Postmaster General. And, instead of the mails being sent by the department to the companies' boats and cars, they are obtained by the companies, through their own agents, at the department's offices, and conveyed by themselves to their cars and boats. And this sending for and obtaining the mails to carry over their road under a notice from the department that it must be done in a specified time and manner, is a virtual agreement, on the part of the companies, to carry them as re¬ quired. It will be kept in mind that the change of schedule complained of is 6 that of the evening line only; that the only deductions of pay disputed by the company are for failures of the evening line in not arriving at Phila¬ delphia so as to connect with the southern train by 10 o'clock at night. The distinction between the two schedules, the right of the Postmaster General to alter that for the evening line, and of the company to alter that for the morning line, with the power of annulment given in the event of the opposite party refusing compliance, distinctly appear upon the contract. And the correspondence between the parties at the time it was entered into shows the perfect agreement between them on this point. The letter of the department to the president of the company, proposing the terms of the contract, says: "One of the daily lines is to be under the control of the department as to the hours of arrival and departure; the company allowed the privilege, however, of flinging up the contract if they prefer that to the changes that may be ordered. No different running of the main or evening line is at present contemplated. The morning line is to be ar¬ ranged to hours of departure and arrival that will suit the company." To this the president of the company assents in the following language: "The hours of starting the morning line must be, as stated in a former letter from me, under our control; and if the hour for the evening mail should be al- I tered, we must be at liberty to give up the contract." I know it can be said that the Postmaster General cannot carry out the change without the consent of the companies. They have the power to re¬ fuse. The road is theirs, and under their control and management. But, be it observed, this is a question of compensation for service rendered for the Post Office Department, and at its request. The presumption of request is necessary to the validity of the claim. Certainly there is no legal or equi¬ table basis for that claim when the service rendered is not such as the de¬ partment, having the recognised right to call for, requires. This is too plain a proposition to need an argument, and it covers the whole case. As the period approached when the contract was to expire, the depart¬ ment issued an advertisement inviting proposals for a new contract. But the company declined even to make proposals. They give, as the princi¬ pal reasons for this, in their letter of 15th April, 1844, that "the compen¬ sation, as regulated by act of Congress, has always been regarded by them as inadequate to the service rendered, independently of the injury sus¬ tained by them by the regulation of their hours of departures, to which, as contractors, they are bound to conform; and because they cannot be al¬ lowed the privilege "of leaving the cities of New York and Philadelphia at 4 o'clock p. in., or any hour between 4 and 5, as may be most bene¬ ficial to them." This is the very departure ordered by the department in the schedule to which the company now object. The company continued, after the 30th June, 1844, to carry the mails as they had been doing under the contract that expired on that day. The Postmaster General recognised this service from time to time as satisfac¬ tory, and directed payment for it at the same rate that was given by the old contract, by special orders; for the expired contract, of course, conferred no authority for this purpose upon the pay officers. On the 3d January, 1845, the department wrote to the company " that the public seriously complain of the detention of the southern mail at Phil¬ adelphia, which it is reported lies over at that place until 9 a. m. „ You are requested to run in conformity to the hours heretofore agreed upon be¬ tween the company and the department, the latest of which is to leave Phil¬ adelphia at 7 a. m., and arrive at New York by 1J p. m." The company reply, that the department labors under a misapprehension. "You will find, (says their letter,) by examining the schedule, that the morning line is to leave Philadelphia at 9 o'clock a. m., or 7 a. m." r The department ac¬ knowledges its mistake as follows: " By referring back to the last contract executed by your company, it is perceived that the schedule attached to that contract places your departure from Philadelphia at 7 or 9 a. m. That contract had expired by its own limitation on the 30th June, 1844, and my letter of the 3d instant was written in reference to the schedules drawn up for the government of the service of the route under the present term, commencing 1st July, 1844. But no contract has yet been entered into under the last advertisement, and the service you render is that pre¬ scribed by the last contracts, under which you hold over. You are there¬ fore right in claiming the privilege of departing with the morning mail from Philadelphia at 7 or at 9 a. m., and the department can only express its desire," &c. This was not, what the joint directors (strangely enough) call it, an order " to change the hours of departure at Philadelphia in the morning line." It was the reverse—a request to observe the old schedule. Neither was the acknowledgment made of the mistake as to the schedule- hours a waiver, any more than it was an assertion, of the right of the department to rearrange the mails on the route. But supposing it was; what justification have the joint directors for drawing inferences bearing upon the schedule in question from remarks md.de respecting the morning schedule, and withhold from their publication the important and material fact, that the contract places the evening schedule, which is the one in question, on an entirely different, an opposite, footing from that of the morning line, in respect to the power of the Postmaster General to alter it? The old schedule, which was made at the commencement of railroad service in the United States, allowed the company 7} hours to run from New York to Philadelphia, making the arrival at the latter place at a quar- 8 tef past 12 at night. During the period of the last contract, and of those that preceded it, it was a matter of indifference, so far as mail connexions were concerned, whether the trip was run in less time or not, as no mails left Philadelphia till the ensuing morning. But, early in 1845, the public became restive at the long detention of the mails in Philadelphia; and in the spring of that year a line was run, conveying the mails from Philadel¬ phia to Baltimore between the hours of 10 at night and 6 the next morn¬ ing. With this line the New Jersey companies readily connected, though laboring under the disadvantage of the old hour of departure, of 5 p. m. In May, 1845, the Philadelphia and Baltimore company withdrew their night line. Under the pressure of the public importunity, the department exerted every effort to re-establish it. On the 28th May, 1845, it sent let¬ ters to every railroad and steamboat company on the great Atlantic route, and particularly to the New Jersey company in question, submitting a scheme of departures and arrivals for the several routes, so as to give a con¬ nected line through from New York to New Orleans. It proposed to the New Jersey companies a departure from New York at 4 p. m., and an ar¬ rival at Philadelphia by 9 J p. m. To this no objection whatever was made, although it was submitted in advance of its adoption by the department, to learn if any objections were to be made. Shortly prior to sending out this circular, and whilst the New Jersey company were connecting with the Baltimore train at 10 o'clock at night, the department received a letter from the president of that company, stating, " We have been informed by the president of the Philadelphia and Baltimore Railroad Company that the Post Office Department will consent to have the hours of the departure of the evening line between Philadelphia and New York changed from 5 to 4 o'clock p. m. This change the Camden and Amboy Railroad Compa¬ ny and the Philadelphia and Trenton Railroad Company will be prepared to make whenever you shall signify your wishes to them in reference to it, and will take this occasion to say that the travelling public will be greatly accommodated by the change." At length the department succeeded in effecting the restoration of the night train to the Philadelphia and Baltimore road, and issued its orders for the necessary changes of schedules to make the desired connexions. It ordered a departure from New York at 4 p. m., instead of 5, and an arrival at Philadelphia by 9J p. m., with a margin of half an hour, as the southern train was not to depart till 10 p. m. A change of the morn¬ ing departure was made in the same circular, by fixing it at 7 a. m. the year round, instead of part of the year; but as this last was objected to by the company, it was abandoned by the department, and never insisted on.. The joint directors say "that an immediate protest was made, and it was 9 supposed the schedule had been abandoned/' "as the mails had been, regularly sent and delivered as formerly." Now all this is intended by the joint directors to be understood as applying to the change of the eve¬ ning schedule—for it would be idle in this controversy, which relates solely to that change and the deductions for failures under it, to talk about a morning schedule, the change in which was abandoned by the depart-, ment, and under which no deductions have been made. I call especial attention to the^e averments, and will proceed to investigate their ac¬ curacy. : In the letter of the president of the company, dated March 5, 1846, which is quoted by the joint directors as their protest, I find the following passage, not published, however, in the pamphlet: "So far as the company is concerned, they will be glad to have the evening hours of departure changed from 5 to 4 p. m., and will be prepared to adopt them, if so di¬ rected by the department, on and after the 15th instant." Glad to have^ the change ! Prepared to adopt it! Is this a protest? The letter pro¬ ceeds: "But we cannot consent to change the morning hour," &c. Here is the protest against the change of the morning schedule—a matter that has nothing to do with this controversy. The letter adds: "Notwithstand¬ ing the route is very frequently run in five hours, from city to city, yet the company are not willing to bind themselves for any less time than is stipu¬ lated in their former contract with the department." Here it is to be re¬ marked, that they refused to be bound for that; for they have wholly de¬ clined to enter into any contract since 1844. In this respect, then, there is not a particle of difference between the new and the old schedule. Their unwillingness to be bound is made for the same reasons that they would not enter into contract. The letter says: "You are aware that we have always regarded our compensation as inadequate," &c., £ p. m., and arrive at Philadelphia by 9.} p. m. The interval is 3 hours and 15 minutes: add the lee-way time of a half hour, as the out¬ going train docs not depart till 10 p. m., and the time is 3 hours and 45 11 minutes. Rejecting the small fraction in the distance in making the cal¬ culations , and it appears that the speed required by the new schedule, to anive by 9|- p. m., is 16r\ miles per hour; or to arrive by 10 p. m., which would be in time, is 14T2X miles per hour: about two miles to the hour faster than the steamboat time on Long Island sound, and about one mile to the hour faster than the steamboat time on the North river, with all its landings. This is a remarkably small difference in speed, considering the difference in the facilities of the routes, and still smaller when you come to compare the compensation. The Stonington Steamboat Company receive/ $72 per mile per annum; the Hudson River $91§; and the Philadelphia and New Brunswick $319, without embracing the $3,950 paid them for the side supplies. The company show, with great minuteness, that they are obliged to run on some portions of their route with much greater expe¬ dition than on others. This occurs on every route. The superior skill, experience, and wealth of this company have unquestionably succeeded in rendering the hindrances on their route less important and less frequent than on any other road in the United States. And no doubt is entertained that if the impediments and delays occurring on other routes were brought minutely into view, it would greatly increase the results of the comparison against them. The pamphlet finds fault with the wisdom of the department in allowing so large a portion of the time as two hours and fifteen minutes to the East Jersey railroad; "less (they exclaim) than 16 miles an hour." As finally adjusted, and that, too, by the concurrence of the joint directors that issue the pamphlet, the time of running from New York to New Brunwick is from 4| p. m. to 6J p. m—one hour and forty-five minutes; and requiring a speed of abo&f"20 miles to the hour. That company can, to be sure, leave at 4 p. m.; then their speed would be 16 miles to the hour. So the joint directors, whose highest aggregate speed is but 16^ miles per hour, can take the half hour to 10 p. m.; and then their speed in the aggregate would be but 14x23 miles. Allowing them the pamphlet distance, which on the face of it embraces 3J miles belonging to the other road, and their speed, to arrive by 10 p. m., is on the average but 15J miles per hour. Now, on the Long Island railroad and steamboat line to Norwich, embracing steamboat service as well as railroad, the average speed is 182- miles per hour, and they receive a compensation of about $75 per mile. The joint directors cite the slow running on the Philadelphia and Baltimore road as a criterion, well knowing, as does the department, that the crippled and defective condition of that road excludes it, in all fairness and justice, from the comparison. Why not take the Baltimore and Washington road, the Charleston and Augusta road, and the like, 12 which, though inferior to their own, are in a sound condition, and run over IT miles to the hour? But it is idle to waste time to show that the speed required is perfectly practicable, for these gentlemen have, since the pendency of this controversy, offered to increase even this speed on one day of the week, if the department would consent to a change of hours for that day—Sunday. It is stated in the pamphlet that there is a mistake in regard to the actual distance run by the joint companies. The length of their road to the junc¬ tion with the East Jersey road is, they admit, but 53 miles; but the cars continue to New Brunswick village, which is 3J- miles further. True; and so they continue on to the end of the route at New York, or rather at Jer¬ sey City. But how does this amount to a mistake? The East Jersey Rail¬ road Company is paid and is allowed time for their part of the road, which is proved by the affidavit of its engineer, exclusive of the distance across the river, to be 33-^ miles long instead of 30, as stated in the pamphlet. The Philadelphia and New Brunswick company are paid and allowed time for their part of the road, according to the length given in the affidavit ot their engineer. The junction of the roads of the two companies is in the town of New Brunswick, about 3| miles from the village of that name. But where that village is situated is a matter of indifference in this ques¬ tion, each road having its own schedule and its own pay, according to its own length, and the same car performing the entire trip over both roads. If the Philadelphia and New Brunswick company performs service on the East Jersey road, that is a matter to be adjusted between the companies.- Certain it is, it is not done at the request or with the knowledge of this department. But allow the alleged mistake; still the average speed, to arrive by 10 p. m., is not 16 miles to the hour.t,. The pamphlet notices the subject of mail agents, which the company re¬ fuses to convey over their road. They say they are unnecessary, because their conductors can perform all the duties, and that the mail agents would transact business for others in the respective cities as express men do now, and thereby prevent the latter from travelling over their route, thus depri¬ ving the company of the fare of passengers. Between New York and New Brunswick, it is admitted to be impossible for the conductors to do any of the duties of mail agent, and the attempt has never been made. Between New Brunswick and Philadelphia, the duties have been under¬ taken in part, but are unavoidably, without any just ground of complaint against the conductors, very defectively performed—mails to and from the side offices are delayed, niissent, and flung into confusion, from which it seems to be impossible to extricate them. This results from the incongru¬ ous nature of the two kinds of duties: the business of the train and the 13 road being of a hurrying and exacting character, demanding instant and earnest attention, that of the mails has to be neglected and left unperform¬ ed. There has been no attempt, by the conductors, to keep accounts, make out way bills, or render returns, although it is the business of the mail agent to receive pre-paid postage, mail letters, and, through his re¬ turns to the Auditor, to operate as an important check upon post offices. It is difficult to utter a looser remark than to say the conductors perform all the duties mail agents would have to discharge; or a more unreasonable imputation upon men of worth and standing, than to say that the travel¬ ling postmasters will transact business to the detriment of the company, in violation of the instructions of the department; or to advance a stranger proposition, than that the company shall appoint the department's agents. This is the only instance in the United States where this important accom¬ modation is denied to the public; and the pretences under which it is ex¬ cused are to be lamented, as well as the injuries it inflicts upon the service and revenues of the department. But all refusals and omissions, the joint directors think they have made ample satisfaction for, by having offered "to the Post Office Department the free use of their road for the transportation of the mails at any hour or at any rate of speed they might adopt." This, they say, shows "that no fair imputation can rest upon the company of want of disposition to ac¬ commodate the public." It is true that they made the offer, specifying that the department must furnish engines, cars, &c. And it is true they run no sort of risk in making the offer. It was utterly impossible for the Postmaster General to accept it, whether the company thought so at the time or not. He had no authority whatever by law to apply the funds of the department to the purchase and management of steam-engines and railroad cars; and would have acted as entirely out of his sphere, in em¬ ploying and supervising engineers, conductors, and breakmen, as would the joint directors in appointing the agents of the department. The organ¬ ization and machinery of the department are totally unsuited to such oper¬ ations. But how does this futile offer remedy the mail derangements among the New Jersey and Pennsylvania towns? or satisfy the south and west for the vexatious detention of their mails, caused by the disconnex¬ ions at Philadelphia? Notwithstanding the great length of this communication, I must notice another topic: the charge of injustice for not giving this railroad company (or rather combination of companies) a contract for carrying the mail on the Camden and Amboy railroad. The department already pays for two daily mails between New York and Philadelphia—one in the morning and one in the evening. The same company run a third line, partly by rail- 14 road and partly by steamboat, over another route, mainly for freight, leav¬ ing each city some two or three hours earlier than their morning mail line. So far as the mail from New York to Philadelphia and beyond is concerned, there would be nothing, or scarcely nothing, for this line to take. As to the southern mail going to New York, that might be somewhat facilitated, but not much; and this expedition is what the companies ought to make by changing the morning departure of their mail line from Philadelphia to an earlier hour. All that this line could accomplish more than the present, if its proprietors would conform to proper arrangements, is to give a daily railroad mail to certain offices which now yield in the total but $661 a year. And what do the companies ask for carrying this mail? Not a cent less, as they have assured both my predecessor and myself, than $13,000 per annum. When the law requires me to discontinue all routes (not needed as connecting routes) which cost four-fold what they yield, how can I place under contract one that will cost nearly twenty times the amount of its revenue ? I have the honor to be, respectfully, your obedient servant, C. JOHNSON, Postmaster General. To the Hon. George W. Hopkins, Chairman of the Committee on the Post Office and Post Roads.