Mr. ARMSTRONG. First, is your investment, your depreciation, your gas and oil, your average breakage, everything that enters into the upkeep of an automobile. We find there are some things that can't be applied on a garage bill.

Senator LOGAN. What about a carrier keeping his car in his own garage or some other garage? Is that included?

Mr. ARMSTRONG. Yes; it should be. That was the fault of this questionnaire, I am sorry to say. I think I may say our figures would have been a little higher. The carriers were asked, in effect, if they had made a charge for housing their cars. Of course, a good many of them just felt that was their garage, they owned that property, and didn't include that. Had they been renting it they would have included it. Others have included that.

Senator LOGAN. Of course, they have to pay taxes and insurance. Mr. ARMSTRONG. There is another item that is lost sight of in this matter. Allusion has been made to the fact that the carrier uses his car for other things. When he divides his cost by the total mileage he has driven the car that is not exactly a fair average. because the driving he did over the main route was the hardest driving. The easiest driving was when he was off on a pleasure trip, driving on a hard-surfaced road. Some of the carriers do keep accurate accounts.

Senator LOGAN. About what is the average life of a car? I mean one used by a rural carrier?

Mr. ARMSTRONG. Of course, that is governed entirely by the length of the route and the type of road. Some roads grind out a car very fast. But the average car is used from a year to 18 months. They find that is the most economical point to trade. It saves an unusually heavy garage bill a little later if you can trade just short of that.

Senator HAYDEN. They have a higher trade-in value?

Mr. ARMSTRONG. Yes, sir. Automobile dealers, however, are becoming more skilled in that. They take advantage of the fact that it is a rural-route car, and he will have to go to some other town -away from there if he expects to get a fair deal and if he doesn't want to have to knock off $50 or $75.

Senator HAYDEN. I understand that under the new automobile code there is a fixed trade-in value for used cars.

Mr. ARMSTRONG. That would prevent that. I am speaking of what our experience has been. Here is a letter from Florida, where a carrier says:

It is claimed by the Post Office Department that carriers in Florida on an average only take 61⁄2 hours per day on a 50- to 60-mile rural delivery route. I don't understand how a rural carrier can serve a route of that length in 6% hours.

I serve a 53-mile route. In summer it takes me on an average of 7 hours and 38 minutes per day, and in winter 8 hours and 30 minutes per day. I serve about 180 boxes. When I have box-holder mail it means at least 180 stops.

There were certain companies furnished the Post Office Department with statements that they could run certain makes of automobiles for from 3% to 4 cents a mile. No doubt these companies traveled over good roads all the time and chose good weather, and not having to start and stop so much as a rural-delivery carrier. Of the 53 miles I make, 12 miles are good road, and 41 miles of very poorly improved road; several miles just settlement roads unimproved.

In the last 25 years, or since I have been carrying the mail, I have driven thousands of miles detouring around impassable roads and flooded creeks,

branches, and so forth, for which I got no pay, and I will have to continue this detouring until my roads are improved. Our pay with 1 cent per mile added to our salary doesn't compare with the pay of other employees, after deducting traveling expenses.

Senator LOGAN. Does a carrier have insurance to cover damages to someone else by reason of negligence?

Mr. ARMSTRONG. He has no greater right on the road than any other individual.

Senator LOGAN. Does the ordinary carrier insure against that? Mr. ARMSTRONG. Yes, sir. In this survey we found a percentage of the carriers carried insurance. That is another lamentable thing about the pay reduction, the fact that I get letters every day from carriers who have had to drop their life insurance, discontinue their telephones, go without insurance on their cars.

Senator HAYDEN. We are faced here with a very difficult situation. While you have given us a number of instances that indicate distressed conditions, nevertheless, we are faced with a bill that has passed the House of Representatives, and to which the Department objects in two particulars. Would you prefer to have no legislation at all, as compared with eliminating from this bill the section that relates to the $180 and the change from 6 to 5 cents?

Mr. ARMSTRONG. The answer is obvious, Senator, that the carrier body could not take that sacrifice of several million dollars. The present legislation, I would say, would have to be protected. We are already sacrificing better than $9,000,000 a year out of our equipment allowance. We are already making a tremendous sacrifice to the Government.

Senator HAYDEN. I would like to get an answer to this question. Mr. ARMSTRONG. Yes, sir.

Senator HAYDEN. Would the body of rural carriers throughout the United States prefer that they get no legislation at all, rather than to have this bill amended as suggested by the Post Office Department this morning?

Mr. ARMSTRONG. We are asking in lieu of this bill the removal of the Executive order that reduced our equipment allowance. I would say we would sooner have the other salary.

Senator HAYDEN. You would rather have the old salary and the 4 cents?

Mr. ARMSTRONG. Yes, sir.

Senator HAYDEN. And that means than to have this bill and 5 cents?

Mr. ARMSTRONG. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. Suppose that we cannot get that. We have the present law prohibiting us from doing certain things. We would have to change the economy act. Suppose that we cannot get that. Would you rather have the law as it is with this economy provision enforced, or what would you rather have?

Mr. ARMSTRONG. This is what we would rather have: We feel that this is imposing a pay reduction on a single group, and that it is absolutely discriminatory. The bill itself does not iron out the difficulty, the variations that are in the rural service. It merely effects a group saving. The bill could not be accepted by the average rural carrier in the United States without a 6-cent equipment allowance.

Senator LOGAN. Speaking only for myself. I would like to see what you are a-king for. The question is. If you cannot get thatand it looks to me like you cannot-then is it better to accept the bill with the amendments suggested by the Post Office Department, or let the old legislation stand as it is? Not what is right or wrong about it, but what is best for the carriers.

Mr. ARMSTRONG. We are coming to you for relief and justice in the matter. That is what we are appealing for.

Senator OMAHONEY. Before you answer the question, it might be well to refer to what happened when I was First Assistant Postmaster General and was handling the rural mail, when you were coming to me and Mr. McDevitt and Mrs. McDevitt were coming to me from time to time discussing these questions as you are discussing them now. You know the Bureau of the Budget demanded of the Post Office Department that the equipment allowance be reduced, and you know that reductions were made. You also know that I went to the Bureau of the Budget in October or NovemberMr. ARMSTRONG (interposing). October.

Senator O'MAHONEY. În October, and succeeded in persuading the Bureau of the Budget to allow us to give a certain restoration of equipment allowance. You remember all that! That is a fact? Mr. ARMSTRONG. Yes.

Senator O'MAHONEY. And you received that restoration for the winter months?

Mr. ARMSTRONG. Yes, sir.

Senator O'MAHONEY. And you also remember that at that time the Bureau of the Budget made that concession upon the condition that there should be a modification in the base pay of rural carriers, so that you were confronted with alternatives: If you don't have this legislation the Bureau of the Budget will continue to insist upon the exercise of the power not vested in the President to reduce the equipment allowance.

Mr. ARMSTRONG. Senator, that is very true. That is why we are before you now asking your protection from that authority. For the passage of the bill 9919 and the removal of the Executive order or the authority to issue the Executive order against our equipment allowance, we must come to you. You are the legislative body, you and the other side of the Capitol. The case is in your hands. It is within your power to do it.

Senator O'MAHONEY. The suggestion made by the Post Office Department this morning of amending the bill by reducing the equipment allowance from 6 cents to 5 cents does not strike me as being a very drastic cut.

Mr. ARMSTRONG. It is decidedly so. It is 4 million dollars.

Senator O'MAHONEY. I understand that, but you were getting 4 cents, and now you will be getting 5 cents, which is an increase.

Mr. ARMSTRONG. But they were getting $75 a mile, and they are not going to get only $60. If you will put $75 and $30 in there again, we will be happy to take the 5 cents.

The CHAIRMAN. The appropriations for the rural-carrier service have been reduced from $107,000,000 to $82,000,000. That deprives thousands of rural carriers of places, of course, It would seem to me that the $4,000,000 you speak of is nothing like as large a reduction as has been accomplished by reducing the appropriation from

$107,000,000 to $82,000,000. That is a reduction of $25,000,000, nearly one fourth of the entire appropriation. While that does not apply to those carriers now in employment, it certainly does apply to many worthy men and women all over the country who would be employed and drawing pay if that reduction had not been made. Mr. ARMSTRONG. That sacrifice was made by the carrier body in an effort to help out.

The CHAIRMAN. No. They say they have not discharged anybody, but they have not employed others that would naturally have been employed. That works a hardship on the carrier system. There is no doubt about that.

Senator HAYDEN. Is it not true that as a result of the consolidation of routes the average amount of money paid the rural carriers in the United States has been increased?

Mr. ARMSTRONG. Naturally so; yes, sir. At the same time, the rural carrier is doing more work for the amount he gets.

Senator HAYDEN. I am not disputing that.

Senator O'MAHONEY. He is not being overworked.

Mr. ARMSTRONG. Some of them are.

Senator O'MAHONEY. How many?

Mr. ARMSTRONG. That would be difficult to say. I might say a good many.

The CHAIRMAN. I think every member of this committee, certainly everyone from whom I have heard an expression, is tremendously in sympathy with the rural carriers. I know I am. Senator O'MAHONEY. I think you are right.

The CHAIRMAN. We want to help. We want to do what is right. I, for one, do not want to continue the process of increasing the salaries of those who are already in and virtually create a monopoly in the rural service. I think the service ought to grow. We ought to be willing to let others come in. These consolidations, to my mind, are perfectly monstrous and indefensible. I cannot see why we should continue to prohibit anyone else from coming into the service.

Mr. ARMSTRONG. We should not.

The CHAIRMAN. We will be in a serious condition after a while. If you confine it to the people already in it, somebody is going to come along and destroy it. I am not in favor of reductions. I am in favor of continuing it and giving the service. I would like to increase the service. There is a proposition we have got to work out. Mr. ARMSTRONG. We are in sympathy with your thought. The rural-carrier body as a whole would not be justified in taking exception to what you say. But don't lose sight of the fact that the rural-carrier body as a whole accepted the consolidation thought as a cooperative measure. We went along with it with that idea in mind. We would be glad to see placed in the bill restrictions on the length of routes to be consolidated.

The CHAIRMAN. I am in accord with that.

Mr. ARMSTRONG. We are not opposed to that. What we are pleading for is a salary that we can live on and support our families on, and that we can keep our heads up among other citizens.

Senator O'MAHONEY. But the complaint being made is that the carrier, with a few hours of work a day, is enabled by reason of

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his base pay to have a much larger income than the work seems to justify in the minds of the surrounding people. That is where the criticism comes from. When those statements are made, it furnishes some justification for the argument that the service could be put upon a contract basis and save the Government millions of dellars. I agree with you that it would be an impairment of the service. That is my feeling about it. That is my feeling about it. We are discussing facts here, and the condition with which the rural carrier is confronted, as well as this committee. What is the best way of solving that?

The CHAIRMAN. If I were in Mr. Armstrong's place, and Mr. McDevitt's place. I would go up to the Post Office authorities and work it out with them and accept a reasonable compromise or adjustment. A good compromise is better than a bad fight any time in the world.

Mr. ARMSTRONG. May I answer that?

The CHAIRMAN. Yes.

Mr. ARMSTRONG. We have endeavored to compromise. We have submitted to every class of carriers all over the United States our equipment allowance of 8.26 cents, and we welcome a check on it. But the Post Office Department comes back and proposes 4 cents, which is the lowest item we can find anywhere. We did not build ours up to 12 or 15 cents and insist upon that amount, because there were a few routes costing that much. We compromised between 15 cents and 4 cents. We brought in an average which we think is fair. We compromised to begin with. A further compromise cannot be considered without bringing down distress upon many carriers and their families. We made our compromise to begin with.

If you think that all the carriers are in accord with accepting the 6 cents allowance, I can bring you hundreds of letters saying that I have sold out for 6 cents, and they should have the S cents that it costs them. We must have a reasonable equipment allowance. We are trying to be fair and reasonable. Here is a statement from Arizona that shows in the city of Mesa they are allowing the city carriers 1 cent a mile for the use of bicycles. Surely if 1 cent a mile for the use of bicycles on a city route is a fair rate, 6 cents a mile for automobiles over all kinds of country roads is not out of

reason.

The CHAIRMAN. Here is a committee that I think is in entire sympathy with the rural carriers, but we have a situation to deal with where it does not seem to me we are in position to get anywhere. If we leave the law as it is, you are deprived of a tremendous amount of equipment allowance. If we pass the bill as it is now, it will mean a veto. It seems to me we are not getting anywhere. That is why I suggested you give us something to work on so we can help you, which we want to do.

Mr. ARMSTRONG. May I suggest that if you fulfill your duty, why you have done all you can do. If it is vetoed, that will be all. We are appealing to you. We have come to you for protection in this matter. We feel we have already borne a very heavy load. I don't want to criticize. I want to be reasonable and fair, and I know the ruralcarrier body wants to be reasonable and fair. But the thought in their minds is, "How is the Government going to defend against, while it is trying to raise wages everywhere else, and when every