Word: mail
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Miles of Files. Easily the biggest item in Washington's paper problem is mail. Each working day the Government's typewriters and duplicating machines clack out 4,000,000 letters at the rate of 139 a second. In a year's time the flow swells to 1 billion letters. Average cost: $1 per letter. In the year 1912, the average Government worker wrote 55 official letters; in 1954 the average worker wrote 522. Some 750,000 U.S. employees do nothing but paper work...
...Mona is the Government's No. expert on letters. Her pamphlet on style, her precooked form paragraphs, and her mail-room short cuts are standard in many Government offices. Her nix-list of 150 avoidable words and phrases is well known to Washington letter writers. Samples: Held in abeyance (wait is better), at the earliest possible moment ("this may be the moment the letter arrives"), finalize, (a "manufactured" word), in the near future ("say soon"), attached please find ("attached is is adequate...
...devoted herself to belles-lettres, government style. In time she became the top expert on managing the enormous correspondence programs of Government agencies. Four years ago she went to work for the National Archives, as a troubleshooter who ranged all over the Government improving the flow of words and mail...
...multiplied costs. With an eye on expenses, the Committee has now merged these campaigns to cover all but the distant graduate schools. Even though it now has to send out nearly 4,000 letters to non-resident students, it feels that the value of a concerted drive offsets the mailing costs involved. Dudley will receive complete coverage, by mail, for the first time. In order to make the drive more appealing, the Committee has kept the number of benefiting charities at a minimum. The six recipients this year are not large nation-wide organizations to which a student's parents...
...another. Between the political and nonpolitical groups a line should be drawn defining a "clear division of labor," which the commission said does not presently exist. At the lower levels of Government service, the commission recommended less politics, suggesting that 1) political clearance be eliminated for 32,000 rural mail carriers; 2) U.S. marshals and field employees of the Customs Bureau and the Mint be brought under civil service...