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Show Rep. King Protests Mail Change Plans Rep. David S. King of Utah has taken issue with the Postmaster Post-master General's proposal to airlift air-lift more first class mail and introduced in-troduced a bill requiring air mail postage on all pieces of mail transported by air. Airlifting first class mail between be-tween major traffic centers, as proposed, would strip the railroads rail-roads of an important source of business, Mr. King declared. "It could lead to the demise of the passenger service on the railroads, rail-roads, since the mails are helping to keep the passenger trains running. run-ning. "For more than a century the railroads have given the mails efficient and steadily improved service, and I can find no general gen-eral public demand to abandon this system for handling first class mail," Mr. King said. When the public needs high speed service, it can get it by paying the air mail postage, he said. "That's the whole principle behind the air mail service. "As I guage the public thinking, think-ing, the demand is for reduced governmental costs, and not for premium service on all first class mail." Airlifting the first class mail would sharply increase costs, he observed, "at a time when the Congress is earnestly searching for ways to put the postal service on a self supporting basis, and to put the postal employees on a wage scale more nearly comparable com-parable with the wage scales the private industries are paying." The first class mail right now is one segment of the mails that is paying its own way, "and I want to keep it that way," he said. The proposed airlift, he said, would inevitably increase first class postage. "It would put a gross disproportionate share of the cost on the first class mail, which was mailed locally and within the state, he said. "It woudl be a serious handicap handi-cap to the. retail merchants and other small business men and the professional people who use first class mail in handling their customer accounts," he said. Contrary to the fears of alarmists, alarm-ists, it's more and more a man's world. Now he's even taking over in the kitchen. |