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Show Post Office Problems Brought To Light in Special Hearings mounted, but little or nothing was said alxiut the millions of pieces of mail that were liemg delivered and on time. That the Postal Service faces a bright future was voiced try P ostrnaster General Klassen a the Senate Hearings when he said "I say again that it is my firm conviction that reorganization reorgan-ization will work. I say to you with equally frank conviction that we need more time to do the job to achieve optimum service at minimum customer costs." "Improvements within that next couple of years will be substantial sub-stantial if all the energies now directed in the form of criticism are converted to constructive assistance. I know from my relations rel-ations with the members of this committee that through your investigations in-vestigations you will assist us in finding a way to convert criticism critic-ism into an improved postal system." sy-stem." Half of the world's mail is handled by less than 700,000 men and women intheU. Postal Pos-tal Service. It is one of the world's largest enterprises and it's success directly depends on each person doing his part to help move the mail. Volume mailers, newspaper and magazine publishers, businesses and even individuals presort and package their material mat-erial to help speed the mail system with minimum handlings. handl-ings. Each in his own way plays a key role in providing America's Amer-ica's good mail service. The fact that the new U.S. Postal Service has it's problems prob-lems was brought to light in the Senate Post Office and Civil Service hearings in Washington two months ago. The problems seem to be a combination of circumstances that go back not months but years. The old Post Office Department De-partment had been operating with antiquated facilities and equipment for many years before be-fore the new Postal Service was established. One always heard the cry that the Post Office was always "in the red", but little or no consideration con-sideration was ever given to the fact that most of the services provided by the Post Office were "free" with no hope of raising revenue through such services. Unfortunately, Congressional appropriations usually echoed the public sentiment to keep costs down, and it meant that the Post Office would have to continue to operate with outdated out-dated and outmoded methods and facilities. When the new VS. Postal Service was established just 22 months ago, this same cry to reduce costs seemed to be heard over everything else, and no doubt the heeding of this mandate has been the primary reason for many of the current problems and criticisms- facing the Postal Service today. Some 64,000 postal employees em-ployees who left the service through retirement and resignation res-ignation were not replaced and since many of the modern machines mach-ines and methods had not as yet been implemented, it was up to a reduced force to handle a volume of mail that had increased in-creased from 84.9 billionpieces in 1970 to 87.2 billion pieces in 1972. With the added burden and ever increasing costs, problems prob-lems arose and in some areas service suffered and criticism |