International Correspondence Schools circular to postmasters for Civil Service Exam

Printed letter on I.C.S. pictorial letterhead promoting a "special course for Fourth-class Postmasters,"  with self-addressed reply postcard in original mailing envelope, posted June 10, 1913 to an Ohio postmaster Mr. Ernst H. Sproull (1873-1937). Heavy soil to the original mailing envelope, offsetting to the letter from the postcard, about Very Good. According to the register of U.S. postmasters, Sproull had been appointed postmaster of Tunnel Hill, Coshocton County, Ohio, in 1910 and held the position until his death in 1937.

Civil service exams had been in place since the Pendleton Act of 1883, but fourth-class postmasters, who primarily served rural communities in conjunction with an existing retail or farming operation, had been largely exempt. A series of reforms under Taft and Roosevelt in 1904-1908 had already reclassified many of the fourth-class postmasters as civil servants. Wilson required all applicants to pass exams, but his legacy in postal reform is based on discriminatory policies and racial segregation. Still, the I.C.S. circular uses the exam, and potential confusion about postmaster regulations, as a fear-mongering tactic: "You have heard of President Wilson's order requiring Fourth-class Postmasters to take a Civil Service examinations...This means that you may lose your position... A half-dozen men are probably after your office already. And one of them will get it if you let him" (emphasis theirs).

Ref: Fuller, The American Mail (1972) 324-325.