PRESENTED BY MR. MURDOCK, OF KANSAS

MARCH 2, 1915.-Ordered to be printed as House Doc. No. 1629, Part 2 of Senate Doc. No. 615, Sixty-third Congress, Second Session

WASHINGTON

GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

PNEUMATIC TUBE POSTAL COMMISSION.

REPORT OF VICTOR MURDOCK, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM THE STATE OF KANSAS, AS A MEMBER OF THE JOINT COMMISSION OF CONGRESS AUTHORIZED TO INVESTIGATE THE FEASIBILITY AND DESIRABILITY OF THE GOVERNMENT PURCHASING AND OPERATING PNEUMATIC TUBES FOR MAIL SERVICE.

I submit the following report as a member of the joint commission of the Senate and the House of Representatives appointed under an act of Congress approved August 24, 1912, to investigate the feasibility and desirability of the Government purchasing and operating the equipment for pneumatic-tube service in the cities in which such service is now installed.

The commission held extensive hearings, employed engineers to determine the physical condition of the properties and accountants to ascertain their value. On October 24, 1914, Senator Smith of Georgia and Second Assistant Postmaster General Stewart made a report recommending that the Postmaster General be authorized to negotiate for the purchase of the tubes, the purchase to be approved by the two Committees on Post Offices and Post Roads of the Senate and the House of Representatives. Mr. Fred L. Blackmon, a Representative from the State of Alabama, the only other member of the commission besides myself, made a report at the same time declining to join in a recommendation for the purchase of the tubes.

I do not believe that a purchase of these tubes by the Government would be warranted by the facts.

I am not only opposed to such purchase, but I also believe that certain parts of the present tube service should be discontinued.

HISTORY OF MOVEMENT FOR GOVERNMENT SERVICE.

The pneumatic-tube service made its first appearance in the postal service in 1893, in Philadelphia. It started with a congressional appropriation of $10,000 for experimental purposes, after the construction of the tube had begun in Philadelphia. The promoters of the tube, under the easy optimism of that period, had entered the field apparently in the belief that it would develop rapidly into a profitable proposition. The United States Government, the tube's only customer, was accounted in those days a most liberal patron. Tube construction in Boston and New York followed and by 1898 the system had reached in those cities and in Philadelphia a total length of 8 miles. The annual rate of pay had mounted to an average of $28,830 per mile. In the same year the Congress ushered in a new era in pneumatic-tube history by absolutely prohibiting any new contracts for this service.

From the day of this prohibition, which continued until June 30, 1901, there has been a growing desire among the owners of these tubes, to sell them to the Government. In later years, it has waxed to an anxious desire to have the Government take them over. With considerable regularity commissions have been appointed to inquire into the desirability of Government purchase. The congressional commission which investigated the question of railway mail pay in 1900 had recommended the discontinuance of the tube service. The commissions which followed, however, never reported this decision, but recommended not only operation but extensions. A commission in 1901 introduced for the first time the idea of desirability of Government ownership. Its qualification was that the Government should purchase the tubes whenever the system had passed the experimental stage. In 1905 a commission reported in favor of extension of the system. In 1908 another commission investigated the desirability of Government purchase, and withheld a favorable recommendation because mechanically the tube service appeared to be still in an experimental condition.

In the meanwhile the question of the tube service had been a matter of yearly controversy in Congress. The rate of pay was of a magnitude to challenge easy attack, and the benefits of certain portions of the service, undeniably actual, were difficult of effectual presentation in debate. In 1902 Congress in terms of prohibition upon the Post Office Department forbade a payment in excess of $17,000 a mile per annum and fixed an arbitrary limit of the total amount which could be expended. Contracts were made for tube service in Chicago and St. Louis, the total mileage contracted for in these two cities and New York, Boston, and Philadelphia reaching 49. In 1905 Congress permitted the extension of tube service to the cities of Baltimore, Cincinnati, Kansas City, Pittsburgh, and San Francisco. Contracts for these extensions were not secured.

In 1912 the present commission was authorized by Congress to investigate the desirability of Government purchase of the tubes, the total mileage of which is now 55.49, which calls for an annual expenditure of $943,408. The present contracts expire June 30, 1916.

THE UTILITY OF THE TUBES AND THEIR LACK OF IT.

Any considerable survey of this service as it stands to-day brings out strongly two features

First. The difference of degree of utility of the tubes in sections where the mail is heavy and where, comparatively, it is not heavy. Second. The undeniable advantage of larger tubes where the mail is heavy.

To take up the first feature and explain it: The carriers can be dispatched through the tubes at the rate of four a minute-that is, the maximum efficiency of the tube is a dispatch of a carrier every 15 seconds in each direction for 20 hours a day. For the most part, because of the size of the carriers, mostly 8 inches in diameter, only first-class mail, letters, is forwarded in them. The table given below will show the percentage of the tube capacity utilized in 1913: