Remarks About a New Policy on Appointment of Postmasters.

Ladies and gentlemen:

The Postmaster General appeared today before the Republican leaders meeting at the White House. After that meeting, a decision has been made which is historic, one that he will announce to you.

I will summarize it briefly before asking him to elaborate on it and to answer any questions you may have with regard to the decision.

As most of you who have covered Washington know, from the beginning of this Republic, as a matter of fact, even before the Constitution was adopted, when Benjamin Franklin was the Postmaster General during the Articles of Confederation, postmasters have always been the subject of patronage.

The party in power had the right to appoint the postmasters and the party out of power, of course, was waiting for the time when it would get that right as a result of winning an election.

It has been generally agreed by experts who have examined the operations of the Post Office Department that this had a detrimental effect on morale in the career service and that it also might have had a very detrimental effect on the efficiency of the operations of the Department.

As you will recall, during the course of the last campaign, one pledge I made emphatically over and over again was that we were going to take politics out of the Post Office Department and that we were going to improve postal service.

As far as the second objective is concerned, by bringing the Postmaster General into this position, a man with immense success in the business community, and a team, I would say among all the Cabinet teams, one of the best that I have in the whole Government, we think that we have moved toward efficient operation of the Department.

The first responsibility of taking politics out of the appointment of postmasters is one that is not only mine, but it is one in which we have to have the support of the members of our party in Congress.

This is difficult for a fundamental reason: When the party in power has the right to name postmasters, they don't want to give it up. It is always the party out of power that passes the resolutions suggesting that postmasters should be appointed on a merit basis. This is the time, we believe, to bite that bullet.

Consequently, I have made the decision, which has been recommended by the Postmaster General, that beginning now postmasters will be appointed on a merit basis without the usual political clearance which has been the case for the 190 years or more that this Nation has been a nation, and even before that time.

The Postmaster General will explain the significance of this particular action, and I hope he will elaborate a bit on what he thinks it may do in terms of more efficient postal service.