MEN MAIL AND MACHINES

[Music] [Applause] we Americans have more male than all the rest of the world world combined and that makes some problems for us the man who can tell us most about our Postal Service and its problems is the Postmaster General of the United States Mr Arthur E Summerfield welcome to your United States Post Office Department my friends here is a map of the world in which we live and here is our country the United States of America and while we have approximately 116th of the world's population we do send and receive approximately 2/3 of the male of the whole world and this volume of maale is constantly increasing due to the every expanding population of the United States our great degree of national prosperity and our high degree of education however this ever expanding volume of maale poses some problems for the Post Office Department because after all we do have to handle this mail the film that you are viewing will attempt to show you some of the problems of the post office department and how we are attempting to solve them for you we write messages of Love or loneliness sympathy or good cheer and we write business letters too millions of them some of them are so important we register them for ADD safety and we also receive loads of mail Social Security checks for instance millions of them in total we send and receive more than 60 billion letters a year and packages too close to a billion pieces of parcel post annually have you ever wondered what happens between the time you mail a letter or package and the time it is delivered if you mailed it in a letter box it comes to the post office by postal truck the average piece of mail has to be handled about 17 times before it is delivered first of all the stamp has to be cancelled and for many years it was cancelled by hand like this nowadays the stamps are cancelled by machine so fast the letters appear as a blur of white then they have to be sorted according to address by region state city and finally by the route your mailman will walk and parcel post also has to be sorted the same way from big piles like this as you can see these postal people work under deplorable conditions they are so crowded they get in each other's way they walk many unnecessary miles the load is on men not machines work areas are dark dismal Dusty dank and it is just as bad outside look at this post office loading platform it's typical of all our big cities contrast what you just saw with a modern industrial plant where working conditions are good everything planned for for cleanliness and the comfort of the people on the assembly lines can these industrial principles be applied to handling mail they certainly can your post office department has been studying this problem with the National Bureau of Standards let's take a look at some of the results the Detroit post office now handles mail in the modern way this is the new mail flow system mail being moved by machines not men the supervisor pushes a button to tell the belts where to deliver the trays to clerks ready to sort them when it's time to move the mail for say Chicago the supervisor simply calls that City into the loudspeaker then all the clerks Place their Chicago mail on the cleated conveyers under their sorting cases this takes it to waiting dispatch Clerks and off it goes on powered conveyors speeding on its way to you never stopping always moving but by machines not men and women in Baltimore Maryland the handling of parcel post formerly required much manual labor just as everywhere else in the country clerks pushed and pulled heavily Laden hand trucks and hampers full of parcels they tried to move through hurly Burly congested work areas getting in each other's way they lifted Parcels for sorting and threw them into sacks by a dress this system is the same as it was when parcel post was first introduced nearly half a century ago but today in Baltimore another revolution in mail handling methods is underway the new greller system has moved the loads from men to machines the operator pushes the right key for the address on the package then an electronic eye which has measured the package tells the machine how many of these paddles should be dropped down so the package will be shutted off on the down shoot for that address last year the post office carried nearly a billion Parcels the greller system and others like it to come will reduce drudgery and improve service in Silver Spring Maryland is a new two-story letter sorting machine the transor with this five trained clerks can sort 15,000 letters an hour to 300 different addresses remember when mail is sorted by hand a clerk can sort for no more than 85 addresses at one time and he can't keep it up hour after hour day and night as can this miracle machine the Dutch invented here's how The transor Works conveyors take the letters upstairs to The Operators then a suction cup moves each envelope into place in front of the operator he pushes the correct keys for the address on that envelope then the machine moves the letter downstairs to the cubby hole for that address this machine will replace hands sorting methods almost as old as our nation itself not all mechanization is inside the post office so let's move outside and see what is being done to make the job easier for the postman the load he can carry is limited to 35 lb trucks must deliver relays of mail along his route so he can pick them up as he empties his satchel and the postman on foot can't carry packages so a par post truck also must travel his same route to deliver them but now the mailman's job is mechanized too here you see the mailster with this your mailman can deliver all your mail including Parcels in just one operation the mailster will carry 500 lb for him instead of the 35 lb the mailman can carry on his own back Parcels in the rear letters and other mail up front it is very maneuverable operates practically on air compared to those big trucks you saw earlier the maer is another example of how the whole postal operation is being improved to make work lighter to save time and money to get your mail to you faster now let's see what our new post offices look like this is the new one in mlan Virginia it's a single story building with large windows and Air air conditioning postal people serve their patrons at these new bank style counters under fluorescent lights even if the office is closed this Lobby is always open here you can serve yourself anytime Sundays or holidays day or night and with this new machine you buy your stamps without waiting in line you insert a coin dial the stamps you want the machine gives you the stamps and your correct change and there are slots for depositing outgoing mail as well as lock boxes where incoming mail can be picked up at any time this is an aroundthe clock post office which the Postal Service hopes to provide in many other communities these then are the Miracles of modern machines and methods being introduced to speed your ever growing mail volume machines to sort letters and Parcels to move mail inside post offices to take the load off your mailman's back and bright new always open post offices for your comfort and convenience all these modern advancements are practical timesavers money Savers and they move mail faster as rapidly as money is available they can be installed wherever needed you have just seen an interesting film showing the critical need of the post office department for modern buildings and equipment to handle efficiently the ever increasing volume of mail we know our mail service is considerably better than it was however our half million dedicated postal employees know that even greater Improvement can and should be made we have been working intensively with the Bureau of standards and leading engineering and research firm since 1953 to develop modern mechanical and electronic equipment to move mail faster to you as a result your post office Department today knows how to further improve your mail service however with your post office Department currently losing more than $2 million per day because our postal rates have not been adjusted upward to correspond with Rising costs of operations these improvements have been delayed we believe the American people want all users of the males to pay the cost of the services they receive then your post office Department can provide the still better mail service you need and should receive [Music]