Las Vegas Age

How Airplane Has Taken Place of Pony Express Shown in Report of Postal Chief; Mail Data Astonishing
Airmail Service Has Not Made Ends Meet, Says Postmaster General, But Has Contributed Its Share to Customary Deficit of His Department; Nearly Thirty-Six Million Pounds of Mail Handled in Year Without Postage Payment; 17,863,751,272 Distributions Made.

WASHINGTON, Dec. 2. (AP) How the romantic duties of the pony express have finally devolved upon the airplane was set forth in cold figures today by Postmaster General Brown in reporting to President Hoover that almost eleven and a quarter million dollars had been expended last year in sending mail by air over nearly ten and a quarter million flying miles.
But the deficit which has ridden the back of the Postoffice department for decades also touched this new method of transporting a share of the postal load. Congress had appropriated $12,430,000 for hiring private lines to do the work which was begun several years ago by the government. The expenditure was $11,207,957.07, and the mileage was 11,212,511 up to June 30 last. Nevertheless it was estimated that the cost of the service was $7,000,000 more than postage revenue.
Postmaster General Brown said the demands for new routes were far above the annual appropriations but that the department had followed a conservative but progressive policy with regard to this service. He informed the President in his annual report that while the expenditures for the air mail were above the estimated revenues, steps were being taken to adjust equitably the rates paid air mail contractors to square with existing legislation on the subject.
The department, on the whole, was far from making both ends meet for the year. In fact the burden of deficit grew noticeably heavier, the outgo exceeding the income by $85,461,176.24. For the previous year the unfavorable balance was $32,121,095.80. The difference was explained by the postmaster general as having been due to expenditures ordered by congress, such as increased postal pay, free mailing privileges, ocean mail contracts, and other such items.
It was shown in the report that the American people bought $527,706,790.28 worth of postage stamps and that other sources of revenue brought the total receipts up to $696,947,577.69.
The expenditures were $782,408,753.93.
In the maze of big sums set down in the report, it was disclosed that the department spends annually more than $50,000 in handling free mail for blind persons. The others, when added, totaled $31,232,906.52.
which, if paid for, would reduce the actual deficit to $56,752,934.61.
Mr. Brown frankly said that he did not like the idea of having the Postoffice department charged up with the cost of handling free mail and recommended that legislation be passed appropriating $9,931,240 to the department to cover such cost.
A total of 276,773,736 pieces of mail, weighing 35,998,676 pounds, was mailed by departments other than the Postoffice department, on which no postage was paid. The revenue which would have been derived from such mail would have totaled $8,169,170. In addition members of congress franked 37,273,270 pieces of mail which would have brought a revenue of $957,964 had postage been paid on it.
Not content with setting down astonishing figures about stamps and deficits the postmaster general turned mathematical again and informed President Hoover and congress there had been a total of 17,863,751,272 distributions and redistributions of pieces, exclusive of registered mail, by railway postal clerks.
The vast extent of the postoffice business had no better yardstick than the fact that the motor-vehicle service purchased more than 10,000,000 gallons of gasoline during the year, to say nothing of oil.