dance with these successive recommendations, provision was made in the act of March 3, 1891, for the office of Fourth Assistant Postmaster General."

The act of 1891, however, did not undertake to redistribute the duties of the department, as recommended by Postmaster General Dickinson. Such a redistribution was effected through the issuance of a departmental order by Postmaster General Wanamaker, dated August 1, 1891. This order assigned to the First Assistant Postmaster General supervision over the Divisions of Salaries and Allowances, Supplies, and Correspondence, the Dead-Letter Office, and the offices of the Superintendent of Free Delivery and Superintendent of the Money Order System. The Second Assistant Postmaster General was placed in charge of contract and transportation management, including the Division of Inspection and the offices of Superintendent of the Railway Mail Service and Superintendent of Foreign Mails. The Divisions of Stamps, Finance, and Registration were placed under the jurisdiction of the Third Assistant Postmaster General, while those of Mail Depredations, Appointments, and Bonds were assigned to the Office of the Fourth Assistant Postmaster General. The offices of Topographer and Disbursing Clerk continued as separate agencies, under the general direction of the Postmaster General. Commenting upon the reorganization of the department under this order, the Postmaster General said: "The creation of the office of Fourth Assistant has permitted a thorough reorganization of the departmental forces to be made. The bureaus are doing better work because it is a special work, and the Postmaster General is able to do better work because it is special."" This distribution of the duties of the department

had been no distribution of powers or redistribution of the functions of that department since 1836; that the statutes left the organization of the department and the distribution of its duties to be fixed by regulations and orders of the Postmaster General; and that officers and clerks in the department had been added from time to time who had no direct responsibility save to the head of the department. Concluding, he declared: "What is demanded, and what must speedily come, is a redistribution of the powers and responsibilities of the Post Office Establishment."-Progress and the post, North American Review, Vol. 149, 401-05 (October, 1889). 18 26 Stat. L., 908, 944.

17 Postmaster General, Annual report, 1891, 9-10.

received statutory recognition in the legislative, executive, and judicial appropriation act of July 16, 1892."

New Divisions Established; Partial Redistribution of Duties Effected, 1900-1904. The general organization of the department, as it was established in 1891, was not substantially altered until 1905, although several new divisions were created, beginning in 1900." The appropriation act of April 17, 1900, made provision for a Contract Division and a Mail Equipment Division in the Office of the Second Assistant Postmaster General, while the Third Assistant Postmaster General's Office was enlarged by the establishment of a Classification Division and the Office of Superintendent of the Registry System." The act of March 3, 1901, authorized the establishment of a Redemption Division and a Division of Files and Records in the Office of the Third Assistant, and the office of Superintendent of City Delivery Service in the Office of the First Assistant." Upon recommendation of the First Assistant Postmaster General, whose office supervised the administration of the Rural Free Delivery Service, first instituted in 1890, that service was permanently organized by act of April 28, 1902,

19 27 Stat. L., 183, 218. The Inspection Division in the office of the Second Assistant Postmaster General was charged with enforcing the proper performance of mail service for which the department had contracted. The Division of Mail Depredations in the office of the Fourth Assistant, which later received the title of Division of Post Office Inspectors and Mail Depredations, was charged with the supervision and assignment to duty of all the inspectors employed in the postal service, the preparation and issue of all cases for investigations, and all matters relating to depredations upon the mails, foreign and domestic. Cf. Postmaster General, Annual report, 1893, 177. The Division of Correspondence, assigned to the office of the First Assistant, had formerly been located in the office of the Assistant Attorney General for the Post Office Department.-Ibid., 1892, 171.

19 A Curator of the Museum was first authorized by act of May 28, 1896; that institution having been, prior to that time, under the supervision of the Chief Clerk.-29 Stat. L., 140, 173. Cf. Postmaster General, Annual report, 1890, 43.

20

31 Stat. L., 86, 128. The work of the Division of Contracts had been performed in the office of the Second Assistant since the establishment of the latter in 1810, and the Second Assistant's Office was often referred to in the early reports of the Postmaster General as the Contract Office. The Registry System was first established by act of March 3, 1855.-10 Stat. L., 041, 642.

as a branch of the Office of the General Superintendent of Free Delivery."

An appropriation act of February 25, 1903, changed the title of the Superintendent of Postage Stamps to the Superintendent of Postage Stamp Supplies and Postmasters' Accounts, to indicate the scope of the work performed in that office." By order of the Postmaster General, dated May 9, 1903, the Free Delivery Division, which included the offices of the General Superintendent of Free Delivery, the Superintendents of City Free Delivery and Rural Free Delivery, and a clerk in charge of the Special Delivery Service, was transferred to the Office of the Fourth Assistant Postmaster General. The office of General Superintendent of Free Delivery was discontinued on May 27, 1903, and the two branches of City Free Delivery and Rural Free Delivery were organized as separate divisions, the former including the clerk in charge of Special Delivery." The appointment by the President, with the consent of the Senate, of a Purchasing Agent for the Post Office Department was authorized by act of April 28, 1904, who should have supervision of the purchase of all supplies for the postal service, subject to the direction and control of the Postmaster General.25

Reorganization of Department, 1905-1906. A thorough reorganization and redistribution of the duties of the Post Office Department was effected on December 1, 1905, under authority of an order issued by Postmaster General Cortelyou on November 1, 1905. Mr. Cortelyou, in his annual report for 1905, emphasized what he termed the "unfortunate division of authority over certain intimately related branches of the service," under the existing

"Postmaster General, Annual report, 1901, 83; 1902, 110; 32 Stat. L., 120, 165. Experiments in village free delivery had first been instituted under the direction of the Postmaster General, in accordance with a joint resolution of Congress, approved October 1, 1890.-26 Stat. L., 686; Roper, op. cit.,

Postmaster General, Annual report, 1903, 601; 1904, 576; Checklist, 871, 873. This arrangement was given statutory recognition in the act of March 18, 1904.-33 Stat. L., 85, 132. The Special Delivery Service was first established by act of March 3, 1885.-23 Stat. L., 385, 387. Cf. Roper, op. cit., 75.

"23 Stat. L., 429, 440; Postmaster General, Annual report, 1904, 646.

organization of the department, and which he sought to rectify by the rearrangement of the department. The following changes were introduced in the organization of the Post Office Department by the order of November 1, 1905: (1) All the inspection work of the department, except that performed by the Division of Inspection in the Office of the Second Assistant Postmaster General in connection with the performance of railway mail contracts, was consolidated under a Division of Post Office Inspectors and Mail Depredations in the Office of the Postmaster General and in charge of the Chief Post Office Inspector; (2) the Divisions of City Free Delivery, Appointments, and Bonds were transferred from the Office of the Fourth Assistant to that of the First Assistant; (3) the office of Topographer and the Divisions of Dead Letters and Supplies were transferred from the Postmaster General's Office and the Office of the First Assistant, respectively, to the Fourth Assistant Postmaster General's Office; (4) the Division of Money Orders was transferred from the Office of the First Assistant to the Third Assistant's Office; and (5) the Division of Files and Records in the Office of the Third Assistant was abolished, and its work and personnel transferred to the Chief Clerk's Office."

The broad plan of the department, as organized under this order, gave to the Postmaster General the direction and supervision of the entire postal service; to the First Assistant, the control of Post Office personnel and management; to the Second Assistant, supervision over the transportation of mails; to the Third Assistant, the management of postal finance; and to the Fourth Assistant, the direction of rural free delivery and miscellaneous postal business. "Such branches of the department's work as are closely related," explained Postmaster General Cortelyou," are brought together as parts of the same working organization, and their control and management placed under one responsible authority."" This arrangement received statutory recognition in the legislative, executive, and judicial appropriation act of June 22, 1906.*

A further reorganization of the First Assistant Postmaster General's Office was effected on July 1, 1906, by the consolidation of the Division of Bonds and the Division of Appointments into a

28 Postmaster General, Annual report, 1905, 15-16.

Division of Postmaster's Appointments. This change also received legislative recognition in the act of February 26, 1907. The latter act made provision for the first time, under legislative, executive, and judicial expenses, for the Division of Railway Mail Service in the Second Assistant Postmaster General's Office. Prior to that time this service was provided for under the appropriations for the service of the Post Office Department."

Administrative Divisions, 1910-1911. The general organization of the Post Office Department, as it was effected under the direction of Postmaster General Cortelyou, has remained substantially unchanged until the present time, although new divisions have been created, existing divisions abolished, and minor redistributions of duties undertaken. A Division of Miscellaneous Transportation was established by departmental order on April 30, 1910, in the First Assistant Postmaster General's Office, and the same order directed that so much of the Division of Contracts in the Office of the Second Assistant as related to star routes should be transferred to the Office of the Fourth Assistant and combined with the Division of Rural Delivery under the title of Division of Rural Mails. The Division of Contracts was abolished following the issuance of this order." The Division of Inspection in the Office of the Second Assistant was discontinued on May 1, 1911, and its work transferred to the Divisions of Railway Adjustments, Miscellaneous Transportation, Railway Mail Service, and Rural Mails."

Postal Savings Banks; Parcels Post. The act of June 25, 1910, establishing the United States Postal Savings Bank System, provided for a board of trustees composed of the Postmaster General, the Secretary of the Treasury, and the Attorney General, acting ex officio, which should exercise control, supervision, and administration of the postal savings depository offices designated and established by the board. To discharge the administrative duties imposed upon the Postmaster General by this act, an office was established in the department in charge of a Director of the Postal Savings

35 Stat. L., 184, 232; Postmaster General, Annual report, 1907, 103. "Postmaster General, Annual report, 1911, 18; Checklist, 873n. This latter change received statutory recognition in the act of August 23, 1912.37 Stat. L., 360, 402.

a Postmaster General, Annual report, 1911, 18; Official postal guide, 1911, 3.