Well and good. Following the foregoing, he mentions the fact that all assistant postmasters have been placed in the classified service by order of the President. Mr. Hitchcock, “as a still more important reform,” recommends that “Presidential postmasters of all grades, from the first class to the third, should be placed in the classified service.” He also speaks of efforts made and making to place the fourth-class postmasters under its laws and regulations. He points out some valid difficulties to be surmounted if such desired result is attained without impairment rather than betterment of the service. The First Assistant Postmaster General, C. P. Granfield, states in his report, that, under an executive order dated November 30, 1908, all fourth-class postmasters in _fourteen states_ have been put into the classified service. He also explains briefly the method of procedure in filling vacancies--_when they occur_. That is probably sufficient preliminary. Now for a few of the observed and observable conditions which govern in civil service as thus far applied in the Postoffice Department. Taking the fourth-class postmasters first, it may be said the method of appointing such postmasters by civil service examination scarcely rises to a dignity entitling it to serious consideration. While the method itself _reads_ well, its application, in many instances, is but a joke--a tame joke at that. Postmaster General Hitchcock substantially admits, as previously stated, that conditions are met with which make its application extremely difficult if not quite impossible. Certain it is that, so far as applied, the results have given a vast majority, if not all, of the certifications to persons of administration party affiliation. Then, too, it might be asked by a person addicted to the habit of doing his own thinking--a habit very obnoxious to party “leaders” and to politicians of the so-called “practical” breed--it might be asked by any capable, independent thinker, if it was mere chance that selected twelve administration and two “doubtful”--chronically doubtful--states in which first to make application of a civil service method to the selection and appointment of fourth-class postmasters? While there are, according to the last published department report, about 52,000 fourth-class postmasters in the country, a great majority of them are persons of little or no local political influence. Beyond their own votes, then, they are of little service to the administration party, save as distributing or disbursing agents of the party in power for its campaign literature and other promotion matter. They are used also to keep the county and state “bosses” of the party advised of local political conditions as they view them--flurries in the party atmosphere, as indicated by hitching-post and whittling discussions of party legislation and proposed legislation or of party policies, as set forth by the published utterances of state and national “leaders.”