Section 2 of the at present governing statute, the commission advised

Transcriber’s Note: Punctuation and typographical errors have been

corrected without note. A list of the more substantial amendments made to

the text appears at the end.

[Illustration: “The primary step in connection with second-class mail

is taken in the forests of the American continent.”--_Senator J. P.

Dolliver._]

Postal Riders and Raiders

_Are we fools? If we are not fools, why then continue to

act foolishly, thus inviting railroad, express company

and postoffice officials to treat

us as if we were fools?_

By The Man On The Ladder

(W. H. GANTZ)

Issued By The Independent Postal League

CHICAGO, U. S. A.

1912

COPYRIGHT, 1912, BY THE AUTHOR

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Price $1.50, Prepaid to Any Address.

Independent Postal League,

No. 5037 Indiana Ave.,

Chicago

FOREWORD TO THE READER.

The mud-sills of this book are hewn from the presupposition that the

person who reads it has not only the essentially necessary equipment to

do his own thinking, but also a more or less practiced habit of doing it.

It is upon such foundation the superstructure of this volume was built.

It is written in the hope of promoting, or provoking, thought on certain

subjects, along certain lines--not to create or school thinkers. So, if

the reader lacks the necessary cranial furnishing to do his own thinking,

or, if having that, he has a cultivated habit of letting other people do

his hard thinking and an ingrown desire to let them continue doing so,

such reader may as well stop at this period. In fact, he would better

do so. The man who has his thinking done by proxy is possibly as happy

and comfortable on a siding as he would be anywhere--as he is capable

of being. I have no desire to disturb his state or condition of static

felicity. Besides, such a man might “run wild” or otherwise interfere

with the traffic if switched onto the main line.

Emerson has somewheres said, “Beware when God turns a thinker loose in

the world.” Of course Emerson cautioned about constructive and fighting

thinkers, not thinkers who think they know because somebody told them so,

or who think they have thought till they know all about some unknowable

thing--the ratio of the diameter to the circumference of the circle, how

to construct two hills without a valley between, to build a bunghole

bigger than the barrel, and the like.

There are thinkers and thinkers. Emerson had the distinction between

them clearly in mind no doubt when he wrote that quoted warning. So,

also, has the thinking reader. It is for him this volume is planned;

to him its arguments and statements of fact are intended to appeal.

Its chapters have been hurriedly written--some of them written under

conditions of physical distress. The attempts at humor may be attempts

only; the irony may be misplaced or misapplied; the spade-is-a-spade

style may be blunt, harsh or even coarse to the point of offensiveness.

Still, if its reading provokes or otherwise induces thought, the purpose

of its writing, at least in some degree, will have been attained. It is

not asked that the reader agree with the conclusions of the text. If he

read the facts stated and thinks--_thinks for himself_--he will reach

right conclusions. The facts are of easy comprehension. It requires no

superior academic knowledge nor experience of years to understand them

and their significance--their lesson.

Just read and think. Do not let any “official” noise nor breakfast-food

rhetoric so syncopate and segregate your thought as to derail it from

the main line of facts. Lofty, persuasive eloquence is often but the

attractive drapery of planned falsehood, and the beautifully rounded

period is often but a “steer” for an ulterior motive--a “tout” for a

marked-card game. Do not be a “come-on” for any verbal psychic work

or worker. Just stubbornly persist in doing your own thinking, ever

remembering that in this vale of tears, “Plain hoss sense’ll pull you

through when ther’s nothin’ else’ll do.”

As a thinker, you will now have lots of company, and they are still

coming in droves. Respectable company, too. Mr. Roosevelt suddenly

_arrived_ a few days since at Columbus, Ohio. Then there is Mr. Carnegie

and Judge Gary. The senior Mr. Rockefeller, also, has announced, through

a representative, that he is on the way. These latter, of course, have

been thinkers for many years--thinkers on personal service lines chiefly,

it has been numerously asserted. Now, however, if press accounts are

true, they have begun to think, a little at least, about the general

welfare, about the common good--about the other fellow.

Whether this change in mental effort and direction, if change it be, has

followed upon a more careful study of conditions which have so long,

so wastefully, or ruthlessly and viciously governed, or results from

the fact that the advancing years have brought these gentlemen so near

Jericho that they see a gleam of the clearer light and occasionally hear

the “rustle of a wing,” I do not know. Nor need one know nor care. That

they come to join the rapidly-growing company of thinkers is sufficient.

CHICAGO, March 1, 1912.

Postal Riders and Raiders

CHAPTER I.

MAL-ADMINISTRATION RUN RIOT.

This is nice winter weather. However, as The Man on the Ladder was born

some distance prior to the week before last, there’s a tang and chill

in the breezes up here about the ladder top which makes the temperature

decidedly less congenial than is the atmosphere in the editorial rooms of

my publisher.

But, say, the view from this elevation is mighty interesting. The

mobilization of the United States soldiery far to the Southwest; the

breaking up of corrals and herds to the West; the starting of activities

about mining camps in the West and Northwest; the lumber jacks and teams

in the spruce forests of the north are indeed inspiring things to look

upon; and over the eastern horizon, there in the lumber sections of New

England and to the Southeast, in the soft maple, the cottonwood and

basswood districts, the people appear to be industriously and happily

active; away to the South----

Say! What’s that excitement over there at Washington, D. C.?

“Hello, Central! Hello! Yes, this is The Man on the Ladder.”

“Get me Washington, D. C., on the L.-D. in a hurry--and get Congressman

Blank on that end of the wire. The House is in session, and certainly he

ought to be found in not more than five minutes.”

It is something unusually gratifying to see that activity about that

sleepy group of capitol buildings--the “House of Dollars,” the house of

the _hoi polloi_, and the White House--a scene that will linger in the

freshness and fragrance of my remembrance until the faculty of memory

fades away. There are messengers and pages flitting about from house to

house as if the prairies were afire behind them. Excited Congressmen are

in heated discourse on the esplanade, on the capitol steps and in the

corridors and cloak rooms. And there are numerous groups of Senators,

each a kingly specimen of what might be a _real man_ if there was not so

much pickled dignity oozing from his stilted countenance and pose. There

now go four of them to the White House, probably to see the President,

our smiling William. I wonder what they are after. I wonder----

“Yes, yes! Hello! Is that you, Congressman Jim?” “Yes? What can I do for

you?”

“Well, this is The Man on the Ladder, Jim, and I want to know in the

name of heaven--any other spot you can think of quickly will do as

well--what’s the occasion and cause for all that external excitement and

activity I see around the capitol building? There must be a superthermic

atmosphere inside both the Senate and House to drive so many of our

statesmen to the open air and jolt them into a quickstep in their

movements. Now go on and tell, and tell me straight.”

Well, Well! If I did not know my Congressman friend so well, I would

scarcely be persuaded to believe what he has just phoned me.

It appears that a _conspiracy_--yes, I mean just that--a conspiracy has

been entered into between our Chief Executive, a coterie of Senators,

possibly a Congressman or two and a numerous gang of corporate and vested

interests, cappers and beneficiaries, to penalize various independent

weekly and monthly periodicals. Penalize is what I said. But that word

is by no means strong enough. The intent of the conspirators was--and

_is--to put certain periodicals out of business and to establish a press

censorship in the person of the Postmaster General as will enable him to

put any periodical out of existence which does not print what it is told

to publish_.

It would seem that when the Postoffice appropriation bill left the House,

where all revenue measures must originate, it was a fairly clean bill,

carrying some $258,000,000 of the people’s money _for the legitimate

service of the people_. Of course it carried many service excesses,

just as it has carried in each of the past thirty or forty years, and

several of those _looting_ excesses so conspicuous in every one of the

immediately past fifteen years.

But otherwise, it may be stated, the House approval carried this

bill to the Senate in its usual normal cleanliness. It was referred

to the Senate Committee on Postoffices and Postroads, the members of

which, _after conference with the President_, annexed to it an alleged

_revenue-producing_ “rider.”

This rider I will later on discuss for the information of my readers.

Here I desire only to call the reader’s attention to the fact that under

the Constitution of the United States the United States Senate has no

more right or authority to originate legislation for producing federal

revenues than has the Hamilton Club of Chicago or the Golf Club at Possum

Run, Kentucky. But the conspirators--I still use the milder term, though

I feel like telling the truth, which could be expressed only by some term

that would class their action as that of _assassinating education_ in

this country. These conspirators, I say, did not hesitate to exceed and

violate their constitutional obligations and prerogatives. They added a

revenue-producing “rider” to House resolution 31,539. The rider was to

raise certain kinds of second-class matter from a one-cent per pound rate

to a four-cent per pound rate. Not only that, but they managed to induce

Postmaster General Hitchcock to push into the Senate several _ulterior

motive_ reports and letters to boost the outlawry to successful passage.

But, more of this later.

My friend Congressman Jim has just informed me that the conspirators were

beginning to fear their ability even to get their “rider” to the post for

a start; that many members and representatives of the Periodical Press

Association of New York City, as well as those of other branches of the

printing industry, hearing of the attempt to put this confiscatory rider

over in the closing hours--the crooked hours--of Congress, hurried to

Washington and sought to inform Senators and members of the House of the

_truth about second-class mail matter_. Congressman Jim also informed me

that a delegation representing the publishing interests of Chicago had

arrived a few hours before and were scarcely on the ground before “things

began to happen.” “People talk about Chicagoans making a noise,” said Jim

in his L.-D. message, “but when it comes to doing things you can count on

them to go to it suddenly, squarely and effectively. That delegation is

one of the causes of the excitement which you notice here. Good-by.”

Friend Jim, being a Chicago boy, may be pardoned even when a little

profuse or over-confident in speaking of what his townsmen can do,

but Congressman Jim is a live-wire Congressman, and has been able to

do several things himself while on his legislative job, even against

stacked-up opposition.

While reporting on Congressman Jim’s message from Washington, I phoned

the leading features to the office and have just received peremptory

orders to write up not only this attempt but other attempts to raid the

postal revenues of the country by means of crooked riders and otherwise.

So there is nothing to do but go to it.

Incidentally, my editor, knowing my tendency to write with a club,

cautions me to adopt the dignified style of composition while writing

upon this subject. I assure my readers that I shall be as dignified as

the heritage of my nature will allow and the subject warrants. If I

occasionally fall from the expected dignified altitude I trust the reader

will be indulgent, will charge the fault, in part at least, to my remote

Alsatian ancestor. He fought with a club. I have therefore an inherited

tendency to write (fight), with a club. So here goes.

In opening on this important subject, for vastly important it is from

whatever angle one views it, I wish first to speak of the governmental

postoffice department and then of Postmaster Generals.

First I will say that this government has not had, at least within

the range of my mature recollection, any business management of its

postoffice department above the level of that given to Reuben’s country

store of Reubenville, Arkansas.

The second fact I desire to put forward is that since the days of

Benjamin Franklin there have been but few, a possible three or four,

Postmaster Generals who had any qualifications whatsoever, business

or other, to direct the management of so large a business as that

comprehended in the federal postal service. Not only are the chiefs,

the Postmaster Generals, largely or wholly lacking in business and

executive ability to manage so large an industrial and public service,

but their chosen assistants (Second, Third and on up to the Fourth or

Fifth “Assistant Postmaster Generals”), have been and _are_ likewise

lacking in most or _all_ of the essential qualifications fundamentally

necessary to the management and direction of large industrial or service

business enterprises. I venture to say that none of them have read, and

few of them even heard of, the splendid book written by Mr. Frederick

W. Taylor explaining, really giving the A, B, C of the “Science of

Business Management,” which for several years has been so beneficial in

the business and industrial methods in this country as almost to have

worked an economic revolution. I equally doubt if they have even read the

series of articles in one of the monthly periodicals, which Postmaster

General Hitchcock and his coterie of conspirators tried to stab in the

back with that Senate “rider” on the postoffice appropriation bill. Yet

Mr. Taylor wrote these articles, and Mr. Taylor must _know_ a great deal

about economic, scientific business management. _He must know_, otherwise

the Steel Corporation, the great packing concerns, several railroads,

the Yale and Towne Manufacturing Company, the Link Belt Company and

a number of other large concerns, as well as the trained editors of

several engineering and industrial journals, would not have so generally,

likewise profitably, adopted and approved his recommendations and

directions.

Yet while most of these “Assistant Postmaster Generals” and _their_

subassistants have been glaringly--yes, discouragingly--incompetent

to manage and direct the work of their divisions, some of them have

shown an elegance of aptitude, a finished adroitness in using their

official positions to misappropriate, _likewise to appropriate to their

own coffers_, the funds and revenues of the Postoffice Department.

Reference needs only to be made to the grace and deftness displayed by

August W. Machen, George W. Beavers and their copartners. The one was

Superintendent of Free Delivery, the other Superintendent of Salaries

and Allowances, and the way they, for several years, made the postoffice

funds and revenues “come across” beat any get-rich-quick concern about

forty rods in any mile heat that was reported in the sporting columns of

the daily press.

General Leonard Wood, Congressman Loud and a few other reputable

officials induced President Roosevelt to institute an investigation. The

investigation was made under the direction of Joseph L. Bristow. Then

things were uncovered; that is, some things were uncovered. In speaking

of the nastiness disclosed William Allen White in 1904 wrote, in part, as

follows:

“Most of the Congressmen knew there was something wrong in Beaver’s

department; and Beaver knew of their suspicions; so Congressmen generally

got from him what they _went after_, and the crookedness thrived.

“When it was stopped by President Roosevelt, this crookedness was so

far-reaching that when a citizen went to the postoffice to buy a stamp

the cash register which gave him his change was full of graft, the ink

used in canceling the stamp was full of graft, the pad which furnished

the ink was full of graft, the clock which kept the clerk’s time was

full of graft, the carrier’s satchel tie-straps, his shoulder straps, and

his badge were subject to illegal taxation, the money order blanks were

full of graft, the letter boxes on the street were fraudulently painted,

fraudulently fastened to the posts, fraudulently made, and equipped--many

of them with fraudulent time-indicators. Often the salaries of the clerks

were full of graft. And in the case of hundreds of thousands of swindling

letters and advertisements that were dropped in the box--they were full

of graft.”

We will now get down to the present Postmaster General, Mr. Frank H.

Hitchcock. I have read, and shall later print in this volume the Senate

“rider” to the postoffice department appropriation bill, which, so far

as The Man on the Ladder has been able to learn, Mr. Hitchcock either

wrote or “steered” in its writing. I have also read his series of letters

to Senator Penrose, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Postoffices and

Postroads; also his 1910 report. At this point I shall make my comment on

Postmaster General Hitchcock brief but, mayhap, somewhat pointed.

Most Postmaster Generals for the past thirty or more years have been

incompetent. There have been a few notable and worthy exceptions,

but their worthiness was almost completely lost in the department by

reason of previously planted corruption and political interference.

Most Postmaster Generals, as has been stated, have had little or no

qualification for the management and administration of so large a service

industry as that covered by the federal postoffice department.

Mr. Hitchcock, in his administration of the department, in his reports

and recent letters to the Senate and the House, has shown himself

scarcely up to the _average_ of his incompetent predecessors.

Mr. Hitchcock’s “rider” to the 1911 postoffice appropriation bill and

his recent letters to Senator Penrose and others will convince any

fair-minded, informed reader that he is either an “influenced” man or

is densely ignorant. I wish to make this point emphatic: The careless,

loose, hurried--yes, even silly--wording of that “rider” and the false

and foolish statements in his letters to Senator Penrose, relating to his

demand for an increase of three cents a pound on certain periodicals now

carried in the mails as second-class matter at one cent a pound, he to be

given authority to pick out and designate the periodicals which should be

subject to the increased rate--his false and foolish statements in that

“rider,” and in his recent letters, I say, must show to any intelligent

mind that Mr. Hitchcock is either an “influenced” man or a six-cylinder,

chain-tired, hill-climber of an ignoramus in matters relating to

periodical publication, and also in many essential matters relating to

his department.

My previous statements regarding the government’s postoffice department,

about Postmaster Generals in general and about Mr. Hitchcock in

particular, may not be up to the broadcloth of dignity, but they do carry

the dignity of fact and _truth_, as I shall proceed to demonstrate to my

readers.

Let us consider first the government postoffice department and then Mr.

Hitchcock’s recent actions and utterances.

Most of the Postmaster Generals, including Mr. Hitchcock, appear to have

been greatly exercised about “deficits,” yet persist in pursuing methods

of business management and direction that must, almost necessarily, make

expenditures of the department exceed its receipts.

Also I may ask, in this connection, why so much agony, or “front,”

whichever it may be, about a “deficit” in the Postoffice Department? The

postal service of the country is a public service, _a service of all the

people. As such the revenues of the federal postoffice department should

not be permitted to exceed the actual cost of the service rendered under

honest, economical and competent management and direction._

The departments of war and the navy produce no revenue save the

comparatively speaking trifling sums received from the sale of junk,

abandoned equipment, accoutrements, etc. These departments render

personal or direct service to but a small fraction of the vast number

of people served by the postoffice department. Almost the entire

appropriation for war and the navy in the past forty-five years might be

called a “deficit” so far as any service they have rendered to the great

body of the Nation’s citizenship is concerned. Yet in the face of all

this, so loosely, carelessly and _crookedly_ have the departments of war

and of the navy been managed that there is scarcely a session of Congress

which is not appealed to for huge sums of money to cover “deficits,” to

meet extravagant, wasteful and, not infrequently, fraudulent expenditures

in excess of the vast sums set aside for them in their annual

appropriation bills.

_A few years since it was found that the navy department was employing

more clerks than it employed service men._

As to these strictures on the Postoffice Department, I will here quote

for the benefit of readers who may not have studied this postal service

question, a few authorities on the subject under consideration.

A few years ago the methods and abuses of the federal Postoffice

Department were investigated by a joint commission of Congress. One

paragraph of the commission’s report reads as follows and must be

regarded as officially significant:

“It appears too obvious to require argument that the most efficient

service can never be expected as long as the direction of the business

is, as at present, intrusted to a Postmaster General and certain

assistants selected without special reference to experience and

qualifications and subject to frequent change. Under such a system a

large railroad, commercial or industrial business would inevitably go

into bankruptcy and the postoffice department has averted that fate only

because the United States Treasury has been able to meet deficiencies.”

Pretty plain, straight talk that, is it not?

The resolution to appoint a commission of three members and appropriate

$50,000 for the commission’s use was tacked onto the postoffice

appropriation bill after the Senate “rider” was ditched. That resolution

was under discussion in the House March 3rd (1911)--the usual swan-song

day for those who failed to “arrive” at the November election. Mr.

Weeks, chairman of the House Committee on Postoffices and Postroads,

led the discussion. The discussion was participated in by several

Congressmen, among whom was Congressman Moon of Tennessee. Judge Moon is

recognized as one of the best informed men in Congress on postal matters,

and particularly informed as to present methods of transporting and

handling second-class mail. Mr. Moon, though a member of the conference

committee which had just agreed to the bill, Senate resolution and all,

as amended in conference, quite vigorously opposed the appropriation

of $50,000 of the people’s money for a “Commission” to investigate the

cost of transporting and handling second-class mail matter. He based his

opposition largely on the fact that two or three previous commissions had

been appointed to investigate the same question or matter; that these

previous commissions had gone into the subject thoroughly, had collected

every scrap of information that, under the present methods, or lack of

method, in the postoffice department, it was or is possible to collect;

that these commissions had spent hundreds of thousands of the people’s

money; that they had made complete and exhaustive reports covering all

the information obtained or obtainable; that these reports are on file

and easily accessible, and that _the postal committees of neither Senate

nor House had given any attention or consideration to those reports_.

From the many trenchant things said by Mr. Moon I take the following:

“If the gentleman will excuse me a minute, I am trying to get to

another reason which I want to present to the House as to why I deem

it inappropriate and unwise to pass this legislation. Now, when the

experts undertake to determine just exactly what ought to be paid for the

carrying of the magazines, how the government ought to be remunerated

for the carrying and handling of these magazines, or other second-class

matter, they are bound to take as the basis of the investigation the

manner in which the second-class matter is now handled and the manner

in which it is paid for. In other words, the basis of weighing and

the computation of paying are the basic facts upon which they must

rely in order to determine the question. I undertake to say to this

House deliberately, that in view of our method of weighing and of the

computation of railway mail pay, that no expert on the face of this earth

can today come within fifteen or twenty millions of dollars of what the

compensation ought to be for the transportation of second-class mail.

“If every fact has been adduced that would lead to a proper conclusion

as to what the pay ought to be, if we are to go again over the same

field of investigation with no possibility of any more light, tell me

what sense there is in expending the public money for that purpose? And,

then the very minute you undertake to reach the correct result you are

confronted with a proposition that you cannot justly charge the cost

of transportation and handling to a class of matter flatly _that in

itself produces a return to the government in another class of matter,

probably in excess of the charges of transportation and handling of that

matter itself_--the second class. How are you to draw the lines for the

determination of these questions? You are in the dark; it is a chaotic

proposition, considering the method by which it must be determined today.”

I take it, that however much they may differ from him in his political

and economic views, readers recognize in William Randolph Hearst one

of the most alert and best informed men in this country on the subject

of publishing and distributing periodical literature. He certainly

ranks among the largest, if he is not indeed the largest, publisher and

distributer of newspapers and other periodical prints there is in this

country,--yes, I may say, in the world.

On February 24, 1911, a letter over Mr. Hearst’s signature appeared

in the Washington Post. In this communication he touches upon the

efficiency--rather the inefficiency--of the Postoffice Department in

handling the postal service of this country. I would like to reproduce

the letter entire, but cannot. I will, however, reprint some of its

cogent statements which bear largely upon the point under consideration.

Mr. Hearst says:

I know something about the cost of distribution of publications.

I know something about the reasons for the excessive cost of

distribution of the postoffice. And I say that the high cost

of distribution in the postoffice is largely due to loose

and careless and reckless methods, to antiquated systems and

incompetent management.

It is estimated that 40 per cent of the charged weight of mail

matter is composed of cumbersome mail bags and their heavy iron

locks and fastenings.

How absurd to imagine that a man who wanted to break into a mail

bag would be deterred by a ponderous lock.

The postoffice department might as well insist that a

burglar-proof lock be affixed to every letter, under the inane

impression that the only way to tear open a letter would be to

pick a lock.

I know, too, personally and positively, of an instance where

the great mass of western mail was sent over one railroad and

when the bulk of it was transferred to another railroad, all the

postal clerks previously employed were maintained on the first

railroad for over two years after the mail had been transferred.

The Evening Journal, without any of the powers of the great

United States government behind it, distributes its product for

seven-tenths of a cent a pound, and included in this average

is the 1-cent-a-pound rate paid to the government for copies

mailed. Obviously, then, the proportion of the product which is

not carried by the postoffice is delivered for much less than

seven-tenths of a cent per pound.

The New York American distributes by mail and express 303,584

pounds of daily and Sunday papers every week at a cost of

$1,655.17, or little over one-half a cent per pound. This average

includes 28,028 pounds sent by mail at 1 cent per pound, so,

obviously, the average of matter not distributed by mail is less

than one-half a cent per pound.

The New York American sends 67,268 pounds of these papers over

the Pennsylvania Railroad at one-fourth of a cent per pound,

or one-fourth the rate paid to the United States postoffice

department.

That same rate--one-fourth of a cent per pound--is exactly the

rate charged by the Canadian Government for carrying magazines by

mail through its postoffice department and for distributing them

over a thinly populated territory even greater than the United

States.

How absurd, then, to assert that the government cannot distribute

the magazines profitably at this present rate when it handles the

magazines along with all other mail distributed and without any

particular extra expense because of them.

Even if, as I said, the government were handling the magazines

at a loss, it would be doing a creditable thing. But it is not

handling the magazines at a loss. It is carrying them at a

profit, and if it taxes the magazines out of existence it will

compel the postal department to be conducted at a greater loss

than the loss at which it is now conducted.

What inconsistency, too, for the administration to advocate a

government subsidy to restore a United States merchant marine and

at the same time advocate a measure to put out of existence a

much more important American institution.

If it is a Republican policy to promote business and encourage

industry, and a proper Republican and American policy to take

money out of the United States Treasury to subsidize a private

business in order to create an industry, why is it not a proper

Republican and American policy to continue to provide a cheap

mail rate in order to maintain a great American industry and

perpetuate a mighty educational influence already existent?

The evidence in support of my impeachment of the Postoffice Department

on account of its almost total lack of business method, its absolute

helplessness to tell, even with approximate accuracy, the loss of any

division of its service, or the revenues resulting from any given source

or class of mail carried, would not be complete without quoting Senator

Penrose and former Senator Carter.

Senator Penrose of Pennsylvania is Chairman of the Senate Committee on

Postoffices and Postroads, and former Senator Carter was conceded to be

one of the well informed men on postal matters in Congress.

The excerpt from Senator Penrose is from an address he made on the

floor of the Senate, within the year, when speaking to the subject of

second-class mail rates, and that from Mr. Carter is from his address on

the same subject made in March, 1910. Both follow:

It is idle to take up such questions as apportioning the cost for

carrying second-class mail matter or the proper compensation

of railroads for transporting the mails until we shall have

established business methods in postoffice affairs by a

reorganization of the whole postal system.--_Senator Penrose._

I deeply sympathize with the earnest desire of the department

officials to get rid of the deficiency they are fated to

encounter every year, but I submit that the first real movement

toward that end must begin with the substitution of a modern,

up-to-date business organization for the existing antiquated

system.--_Senator Carter._

Comment on the plain, blunt statements of these members of our highest

legislative body, each admittedly well informed on the subject to which

he speaks, is quite unnecessary.

In closing this division of my subject I desire to quote President

Taft; quote from his message to Congress under date of March 3, 1911.

It is an illuminating message and forcefully pertinent to the point

we are considering. I would like to reprint the entire document,

but fear I cannot do so. Of course, President Taft’s strictures and

adverse criticisms are general--since they apply to all governmental

departments--but every official in Washington knows, and none better

than the President himself, that they have both adhesive and cohesive

qualities when applied to the postoffice department.

In this message the President asks for an appropriation of $75,000 to

continue the work he has already begun, that of revising departmental

methods of doing business and of instituting a practical, commonsense

system of accounting under which, or from which, it will be possible

for administrative and legislative officials to learn, approximately at

least, just what departments have done--to any date--and just what it

has cost to do it, two items of information as appears from the message

of the Chief Executive which neither his nor any previous administration

has ever been able to learn, and is not _now_ able to learn with any

considerable degree of dependable accuracy.

As yet I have not learned whether the President obtained the $75,000

asked for. I hope he did. If Congress will appropriate $750,000 for the

purpose the President names in his message, and sees to it that the money

is judiciously and intelligently disbursed, it is the opinion of The Man

on the Ladder that _not less than $100,000,000 annually would be saved

in government expenditures_, or one hundred millions more of service,

material, equipment, etc., delivered for the money now expended.

Following is the essential part of the President’s message. The italics

are the writer’s:

_To the Senate and House of Representatives_:

I ask that you include in the sundry civil bill an appropriation

for $75,000 and a _reappropriation_ of the unexpended balance

of the existing appropriation to enable me to continue my

investigation _by members of the departments_ and by experts of

the business methods now employed by the government, with a view

to securing greater economy and efficiency in the dispatch of

government business.

The chief difficulty in securing economy and reform _is the lack

of accurate information as to what the money of the government is

now spent for_. Take the combined statement of the receipts and

disbursements of the government for the fiscal year ended June

30, 1910--a report required by law, and the _only one_ purporting

to give an analytical separation of the expenditures of the

government. This shows that the expenditures for salaries for

the year 1910 were $132,000,000 out of $950,000,000. As a matter

of fact, the expenditures for personal services during that year

_were more nearly $400,000,000_, as we have just learned by the

inquiry now in progress under the authority given me by the last

congress.

The only balance sheet provided to the administrator or to the

legislator as a basis for judgment is one which leaves out of

consideration _all assets other than cash, and all liabilities

other than warrants outstanding, a part of the trust liabilities

and the public debt_. In the liabilities no mention is made of

about $70,000,000 special and trust funds so held. No mention is

made of outstanding contracts and orders issued as incumbrances

on appropriations; of invoices which have not been vouchered;

of vouchers which have not been audited. It is, therefore,

_impossible for the administrator to have in mind the maturing

obligations to meet which cash must be provided; there is

no means for determining the relation of current surplus or

deficit_. No operation account is kept, and no statement of

operations is rendered showing the expenses incurred--_the actual

cost of doing business_--on the one side, and the revenues

accrued on the other. There are no records showing the cost

of land, structures, equipment, or the balance of stores on

hand available for future use; there is no information coming

regularly to the administrative head of the government or his

advisers advising them as to _whether sinking-fund requirements

have been met, or of the condition of trust funds or special

funds_.

It has been urged that such information as is above indicated

could not be obtained, for the reason that the accounts were

on a cash basis; that they _provide for reports of receipts

and disbursements only_. But even the accounts and reports of

receipts and disbursements are on a basis which makes a true

statement of facts _impossible_. For example: All of the trust

receipts and disbursements of the government, other than those

relating to currency trusts, are reported as “_ordinary receipts

and disbursements_.” The daily, as well as the monthly and annual

statements of disbursements, are mainly made up from advances to

disbursing officers--_that is to say, when cash is transferred

from one officer to another it is considered as spent_, and the

disbursement accounts and reports of the government so show

them. The only other accounts of expenditures on the books of

the Treasury are based on audited settlements most of which

_are months in arrears of actual transactions_; as between the

record of cash advanced to disbursing officers and the accounts

showing audited vouchers, there is a current difference of from

_$400,000,000 to $700,000,000, representing vouchers which have

not been audited and settled_.

Without going into greater detail, the conditions under which

legislators and administrators, _both past and present_, have

been working may be summarized as follows: _There have been no

adequate means provided whereby either the President or his

advisers may act with intelligence on current business before

them; there has been no means for getting prompt, accurate

and correct information as to results obtained; estimates

of departmental needs have not been the subject of thorough

analysis and review before submission; budgets of receipts

and disbursements have been prepared and presented for the

consideration of Congress in an unscientific and unsystematic

manner; appropriation bills have been without uniformity or

common principle governing them; there have been practically

no accounts showing what the government owns, and only a

partial representation of what it owes; appropriations have

been overencumbered without the facts being known; officers

of government have had no regular or systematic method of

having brought to their attention the costs of governmental

administration, operation and maintenance, and therefore could

not judge as to the economy or waste; there has been inadequate

means whereby those who served with fidelity and efficiency

might make a record of accomplishment and be distinguished

from those who were inefficient and wasteful; functions and

establishments have been duplicated, even multiplied, causing

conflict and unnecessary expense; lack of full information has

made intelligent direction impossible and co-operation between

different branches of the service difficult._

I am bringing to your attention this statement of the present

lack of facility for obtaining prompt, complete, and accurate

information in order that congress may be advised of the

conditions which the President’s inquiry into economy and

efficiency has found and which the administration is seeking to

remedy. Investigations of administrative departments by congress

have been many, each with the same result. _All the conditions

above set forth have been repeatedly pointed out._ Some benefits

have accrued by centering public attention on defects in

organization, method, and procedure, but generally speaking,

however salutary the influence of legislative inquiries (and they

should at all times be welcome), the installation and execution

of methods and procedure, which _will place a premium on economy

and efficiency and a discount on inefficiency and waste_ must be

carefully worked out and introduced by those responsible for the

details of administration.

Does that broad accusation of the President approve or disapprove our

previously expressed opinion of governmental department service in

general and of the postoffice department in particular? Notice the

statements I have taken the liberty to _italicize_. Permit me to repeat a

few of them:

“The chief difficulty in securing economy and reform _is the lack of

accurate information as to what the money of the government is spent

for_.”

Does not that fully bear out what Judge Moon said in discussing the

Senate resolution to appropriate $50,000 more for a second-class mail

commission--devote fifty thousand more after the government had already

spent several hundred thousands delving into the same subject and

got little or nothing of value, by reason of the loose, careless and

_wasteful_ methods of the federal postal department?

… “_There is no means for determining the relation of current surplus or

deficit._”

An _inviting_ business situation that, is it not? Especially “inviting”

is it to officials and subordinates who want something they have not

earned, who want to _find_ something.

“No operation account is kept, and no statement of operations is rendered

showing the expenses incurred--_the actual cost of doing business_--the

actual cost of doing business on the one side and the revenues accrued on

the other.”

Now, my dear reader, don’t you know that such a method or system, or

lack of method or system, would put a western corn farm in “financial

distress” the first season and out of business the second? A cattle

ranch, handled on such loose, _ignorant_ methods would be sold out in

a year. What, in reduction, does this _unqualified_ statement of our

President mean?

It means that the heads of governmental departments _do not know_; that

their subordinates _do not know_, and, therefore, our President, our

Senators and our Congressmen _do not know_. Nor can they, under existing

conditions and methods, _find out_. They cannot find out even the

common--the basic--essentials of business methods and management which

Job Fraser, down in “Egypt,” must know in order to keep his hen range out

of bankruptcy.

Do you remember a quotation, some pages back, from the joint commission

which investigated the postoffice department? The investigation which

_rummaged_ into the second-class mail schedule particularly? If you do

not remember, turn back and read it again. It fits like the skin of an

Alberta peach to what the President has just said (March 3, 1911), in his

message from which we have quoted.

While collecting millions of revenue beyond all possible expenditures,

under competent, honest management, our federal postoffice department

would have gone into bankruptcy save for the backing of the government’s

treasury--_for the backing of your money_.

“The only other accounts of expenditures on the books of the treasury

are based on audited settlements, most of which are _months in arrears

of actual transactions_; as between the record of cash advanced to

disbursing officers and the accounts showing audited vouchers, there is

a _current difference of from $400,000,000 to $700,000,000, representing

vouchers which have not been audited and settled_.”

Of course, I do not know how that may strike the reader. It strikes the

writer, however, as being about as near the limit as any individual or

corporation could go without falling over the financial edge and nearer

the limit _than any sensible, well and honestly directed government

should go_.

Again--No, I will requote no more. Turn back and read the quotation from

the President’s message again. Read carefully, and then read it once

more. Any citizen, whose mental tires are not punctured will be not only

a wiser but a bigger and better citizen for having done so.

It was my intention to close this division of my subject with the

excerpts from President Taft’s message. My attention however was called

to a move made by Postmaster General Hitchcock, and an interview had with

him bearing on said move. It was taken note of and “spaced” by a majority

of the newspapers having general circulation in the United States. What I

shall here quote is taken from a Chicago paper of date April 1, and the

“write-up,” nearly a column, is based, it is probable, on a wire to the

journal either from its Washington correspondent or a news agency. As the

article appeared in so many newspapers I take it that the information

conveyed is entirely dependable.

From the write-up it appears that Postmaster General Hitchcock has made

“a round dozen” of changes among the postal officials in the railway mail

service. Some of the changes were promotions--on the government’s pay

roll--changes of division superintendents from one division to another,

shifting of division chief clerks and of division inspectors, etc.,

etc. Theodore Ingalls, formerly superintendent of “rural mails,” is

now superintendent of the “railway mail service,” succeeding Alexander

Grant, who, the friendly space writer says, “is one of the most widely

known postoffice officials in the service.” Whether favorably or

unfavorably known, the write-up sayeth not. At any rate, Mr. Grant goes

to the St. Paul division of the railway mail service at $1,000 per year

less than he formerly drew from the postoffice department funds. Per

contra, Mr. Ingalls steps from “rurals” to railway mails at an increase

of $1,000. The other “round dozen” changes are of similar character,

though affecting positions subordinate or minor to the ones named. No

dismissals, just shifting the official pegs around, possibly for the

“good of the service,” as Mr. Hitchcock says; possibly for other reasons.

It is to be hoped that Postmaster General Hitchcock stated the entire

truth and that these changes are for the good of the service. The railway

mail service is certainly in dire need of betterment, as the reader will

learn before I finish, if he but has the interest and the patience to

follow me to the end.

Why Mr. Hitchcock did not make some _twelve hundred_ changes in the

railway mail service instead of a “round dozen,”--and many of them

dismissals--I do not know. Perhaps Mr. Hitchcock does know. Let us hope

he does and be thankful for small favors. Many people, however, who have

watched the Postoffice Department’s maneuverings during the past forty

years have seen too many “Sunday Editions” put to mail to be fooled by

any of this “shake-up” talk. This shifting of the official shoats from

one pen to another, still leaving them with their noses and four feet in

the trough, is a too common and well known practice in the police and

other public safety departments of our larger cities to fool anybody who

has had his eyes open since the first full moon in April, 1868.

Shake-ups which do not retire incompetent or “faulted” public officials

and servants, just as a “faulted” casting is rejected at “milling,” is

not a “shake-up” that will stand good in any strata of human intelligence

above that found in asylums for broken-down cerebral equipment. It is

_betterments_, not “shake-ups,” that are needed.

The reader will please understand that there is no personal animus in

what I here--or elsewhere--write. I have not had the pleasure, and

possibly the honor, of personal acquaintance with Mr. Ingalls, Mr. Grant

and others of the “round dozen” involved in the Postmaster General’s

“shake-up.” They are probably all fine gentlemen personally, whom it

would be a privilege to meet and to know. But we are writing to a subject

_infinitely larger than any man or set of men_.

The people of this country are “up against” a _postal service

proposition_--a proposition so stupendous in import, so far-reaching

in its application, so crucial in its effects upon us and the children

who follow us, and involving service so incompetent, so wasteful, so

_corrupt_ in its management and operation as to have appalled those of us

who have watched and studied its practices, and to have become a joke,

provoking a smile or laugh among postal officials of other nations who

render a service that _serves_.

For upward of forty years--a few bright spots excepted--our Postoffice

Department has shown itself not only incompetent in the matter of

business management, but disregardful in serving the people who _pay for

the service_. I am aware this is a bald statement, a “mere assertion,”

some postoffice official or sinecure postal “servant” may say, but it

will have to be said more often, more carefully and studiedly and far

more _eloquently_, in order to have it believed outside the family circle

than it ever has heretofore been said to get the people of this country

to stand for it.

In the “write-up” annexed to Postmaster General Hitchcock’s few

paragraphs of interview, the “space” artist gives us, in epitome, the

biography of the men Mr. Hitchcock promotes and demotes in that “round

dozen” of changes. Some of my readers may have scanned the “booster”

newspaper stuff of which I am writing. If so, much of what I have here

said may be bricks or straw, just as it may happen that they know or do

not know the true “innards” of the service status of this Postoffice

Department of ours. I will not do more here than to point to the epitome

biographical sketches of the promotes and demotes in the friendly

“write-up.”

In substance it says that Mr. Ingalls “is a highly trained postal

official” and “entirely familiar with the railway mail system, having

begun his postal work in that service.”

Now, we all sincerely hope that is true. I once ran a sawmill, but,

candidly, I do not believe that any sensible business man would hire me

today to run his saws in any mill turning out mixed cuts. It may be that

Mr. Ingalls has accumulated just the proper, and the proper amount of,

information in superintending “rurals” to enable--to qualify--him to

manage and direct that case-hardened, _looting_ division known as the

Railway Mail Service. Let us hope that he knows how to do it.

In the past twenty-five or thirty years it has been conclusively shown

that the postoffice department, _en tout_, knows about as much concerning

the _railroad_ end of the railway mail service as a mongrel spitz poodle

knows of astronomy.

So I might comment on other names mentioned in the write-up of this

“shake-up” of our Postmaster General. They have all _been_ good men.

Possibly they each and all are good men _yet_--for the jobs to which

the Postmaster General has promoted or demoted them. The people may

appreciate and even honor Jim Jones because he “worked his way up”

from mail carrier on a rural route at Rabbit Hash, Mississippi, to

Superintendent of the Cincinnati Division or the St. Paul Division of the

railway mail service, and even more so, if he got stilted to the position

of “Superintendent of the Railway Mail Service.” Still, listen. While we,

the people, at Rabbit Hash, Mississippi, may be entirely satisfied to see

our boy, Jim Jones, move up the ladder to official honor and salary, how

about you other 93,760,000 people? You want prompt, cheap service in the

railway mail and our Jim Jones fails to give it to you,--_fails when you

know the conditions and the facilities are at call and command to give it

to you_.

What is the answer? Simply that you 93,760,000 other folks may not think

so well of our Jim Jones’ railway mail service ability--or business

ability--as we of Rabbit Hash may think.

Now I have said enough about Postmaster General Hitchcock’s “shake-up.”

What I have not said the intelligent reader will readily infer--_and

there is a whole lot to be inferred_.

At the outset I intended to quote Mr. Hitchcock--quote Mr. Hitchcock

himself--in evidence or proof of my previously made and repeated

statement, that the Postoffice Department is incompetently, is

_wastefully_, if not crookedly, managed and directed.

I am now going to quote Mr. Hitchcock. Of course, he here speaks of only

the railway mail service. It is admittedly one of the worst divisions for

_waste and steal_. But there are others scarcely a neck behind.

The subjoined dispatch states (March 31, 1911), that “while signing the

orders necessary for the changes Mr. Hitchcock said:”

The investigation which we conducted so long and so carefully

indicated clearly that the action which I have taken was

absolutely necessary. _The railway mail service has suffered

greatly from poor management and lack of supervision._

In certain of the divisions it was found that the chief clerks

had not been inspecting their lines, as was their duty. _Some of

the routes had received no inspection for several years._ …

The inquiry showed that the business methods of the service in

several offices _were antiquated and that, as a consequence,

there was much duplication of work_. Instructions from the

department directing improvements, as for example the proper

consolidation of mail matter and the conservation of equipment,

received _only perfunctory attention_.

There had been a lack of co-operation also in carrying into

effect certain reforms which I had indicated, and it was made

evident by the inquiry that _no proper spirit of co-ordination

with the department existed in the railway mail service_.

CHAPTER II.

THE UNCONSTITUTIONAL RIDER.

We will now give our consideration to Postmaster General Hitchcock and

the “rider.” I may say some plain, blunt things of him. If so, it is

because I believe Mr. Hitchcock’s official action and statements touching

the recent legislative move were a deliberate, calculated attempt to

ruin some of the greatest periodicals the world has ever known, yes,

_the_ greatest periodicals the world has ever known. Not only was it

that, but the method and time of presentation in the session, as well

as the questionable secretiveness of that official in preparing and

advancing the measure, supply reasonably valid grounds for the charge

frequently made that this attempt at “snap” legislation was but a step in

a conspiracy to throttle the periodical press, to place a muzzle on the

most effective means of education which our people have had during the

past two decades.

Nationally we have far departed from the mudsill principles of the

democratic polity which our founders in their best judgment had framed

for us and bespattered the forest paths of the country with their blood

to _maintain_ for us--the forest paths not alone of the Atlantic states

but also of those vast acquisitions in the West, known in history as the

Northwest Territory and the Louisiana purchases, out of which the fathers

carved so many imperial states. So far indeed have we departed from those

principles, regained from tyranny and maintained for us by the founders

and builders of this governmental polity, that their original _intent_

has been lost sight of by many of our people.

As a result of the struggle for subsistence on the one hand and _corrupt

political practice_ on the other, we are traveling rapidly toward the

old, old way. As the kilted Scots put it, quoting Bulwer Lytton, we

are rapidly reaching that view of life which leads men, in the heat of

a justified anger, to say “Happy is the man whose father went to the

devil;” meaning thereby that our sons _can be happy_ if we manage to

steal and loot enough from the government, or from our fellow citizens

through _governmental favor and protection_, to build for those sons

stone fronts on “Easy street” and leave a bank balance and “vested

interests” sufficient to maintain them.

People happy in the enjoyment of unearned wealth seldom make good, safe

or dependable judges or lawmakers for people who are unhappy.

There may be, of course, some rare exceptions to that statement. The

history of twenty centuries, however--yes, of forty centuries--has

shown very few of them. This may appear to some as a digression from my

subject. Well, so count it, if you will. I have made it as a “foreword”

for three statements I wish to make--statements cogently asserted in

support of an assertion made some paragraphs back.

Mr. Hitchcock, in both action and advocacy, has not only been a

conspicuous member, as newspapers and other reports show, but a leading

factor, in the gang of “influenced” mercenaries and aspiring politicians

who sought to “submerge” certain periodicals which for ten or more

years _have been telling the people the truth--the truth about crooked

corporation practices and about crooked public officials_.

I am here going to make those three statements. I believe them statements

of _fact_. Think them over. _Study_ them. If, after, you think I am wrong

or overstate the facts, then--well, then, that is your affair, not mine.

Remember, I write with a _club_--not a pencil.

The first of the three statements I wish here to make is: The social and

political polity which patriotic and liberty-loving progenitors gave

us, established for us, has been adroitly led from its prescribed way.

Today our governmental and social organizations are _rich in policemen,

soldiers, prisons, poorhouses, organized charities, charity balls, owners

of unearned wealth and in politicians who helped those owners to acquire

that unearned wealth and who furthermore continue to protect them in its

possession_.

The second statement I wish my readers to consider is: The periodical

monthlies and weeklies (and a few “yellow” newspapers), which Mr.

Hitchcock and his coterie of conspirators would muzzle or, by laying

an excessive mail rate upon them, suppress or ruin--and incidentally,

make the Postmaster General _an unrestrained censor of the country’s

periodical literature_----

Those periodicals, I started to say, have given more _real_ educational

benefit to the adult population of this country during the past ten

years _than has been given by all the “little red school houses,”

colleges, universities, and churches combined_.

I do not, as you will notice, include the “political stump.” I do not

care to comment on its peculiar didactic value or fascination for fools.

That means both you and me, reader. We each, occasionally, go to hear the

political “stumper” tell us a lot of _“influenced” lies_.

The third statement I wish to make is: Postmaster General Hitchcock is,

so far as the writer has been able to learn, a politician. Not only

is he a politician, the reports read, but he is a wise, smooth and

“_ambitious_” politician.

That is bad. “Why?” Well, because an “ambitious” politician is about as

useful to us, to you and to me, as are bugs in our potato patch, or dry

rot in our sheep herd. The “ambitious” politician is a disease, attacking

either our kitchen garden or our mutton supply.

“What’s the answer?”

Here is one answer: It is a long way between “three rooms rear and a

palace.” But even they who crawl about the earth, begging for leave to

live, _see_ things, _hear_ things, _feel_ things, and _read_ things. They

are beginning to _understand_ much of what they _see_, _hear_, _feel_ and

_read_.

Is that, Mr. Hitchcock, a reason, one of the reasons, why you who have so

energetically, likewise offensively, tried to shut us out from our main

source of information, from our mental commissary?

Arise, please, and answer.

There are still other remarks which I must make about Mr. Hitchcock’s

peculiar _recent_ action and talk. It may not be at all pleasant to him.

Yet the statements I shall make, I am ready to support by a “cloud of

witnesses.”

As before stated, this attempt to muzzle the press of the country, for

that appears to be the ultimate, likewise the _ulterior_, purpose of

Mr. Hitchcock and his coterie of senatorial and other abettors in their

recent attempt to outrage the _constitutional_ rights of our people, the

_constitutional_ rights of the Lower House and the rules of both Senate

and House, as Senator Robert L. Owen, in brief but pertinent remarks in

the recent closing days of the late session (February 25, 1911), pointed

out,--remarks rife with the cogency of truth.

In a previous paragraph I stated, in effect, that Postmaster General

Hitchcock is an “influenced” man or a densely ignorant one. That he

_is_ densely ignorant on matters pertaining to periodical publications

has been amply evidenced by subsequent quotations from his own reports

and letters. That he at least shares the prevailing ignorance as to the

methods, and the _result_ of methods, for handling the vast business of

the federal Postoffice Department, I have already pointed out.

Possibly I am in error here, but when Senators and Congressmen who have

studied for years the methods of handling business in the Postoffice

Department were--and are--convinced that it is impossible for the most

expert accountants to collect and collate _dependable_ information,

relating either to any of its divisions of service or to the department

in general; when old and tried students of the loose, wasteful methods

of this department, of its utter lack of business system, yes, of its

_crooks_ and _crookedness_--when, I say, such experienced students

frankly and bluntly state their complete inability to gather any

dependable data as to the business done by Mr. Hitchcock’s department, I

am in doubt as to the correctness, or lack of correctness, in my previous

intimation that Mr. Hitchcock is ignorant of his departmental affairs and

practices, as well as of matters pertaining to periodical publication and

distribution.

Mr. Hitchcock has been at the head of his department something like three

years, I believe. He has talked so much and written so much about postal

“deficits,” about the cause of those deficits and how to remedy them by

holding up periodical publishers, that, maybe, he has learned more about

his department, more about deficits and the cause of them--learned more

about these things in _three years_ than older and more experienced men

have learned in ten years--yes, twenty.

Maybe he has. If so, then I was in error when I intimated that his

ignorance extended to departmental matters as well as to periodical

publishing. If, however, I was in error as to Mr. Hitchcock’s knowledge

of his departmental matters, I find myself in a multitudinous and

_growing_ company of intelligent and informed people to whom he will have

to talk and write much more, and to talk and write far more eloquently,

persuasively and _wisely_ than he has thus far talked and written, to

convince them that he has accumulated more departmental wisdom in three

years than numerous older students of the subject gathered in ten.

What training or opportunity Mr. Hitchcock had, previous to his

installation in his present position, to qualify him for the

office--training and opportunity which enabled him to grasp so

comprehensively, as he would have it appear, the duties, functions,

faults in accounting, _frailties_ in the service personnel,--in short,

all the essentials of knowledge and information pertaining to a competent

administration of the department, general, divisional and in detail, I do

not know.

Of course, Mr. Frank H. Hitchcock was chairman of the Republican National

Committee in 1908, which committee, with the aid of “a very limited

campaign fund,” as one colossally profound “stumper” put it, steered the

votes to Judge Taft and himself to his present exalted position. Now,

this experience of Mr. Hitchcock may or may not have especially qualified

him for ready, quick and comprehensive understanding of all that the

Postoffice Department needs to _make it yield even a half of what the

people of this country are today paying for_.

It may have done so. Thoughtful people, however, are numerously

entertaining a private opinion, and thousands of them are publicly

expressing it, to the effect that, so far, Mr. Hitchcock’s voluminous

talk about the affairs, methods, needs and “deficits” of his department

displays a knowledge of the subjects he talks about far more

comprehensive than comprehending. That is, he has talked assertively

or persuasively, as his auditor or audience fit into his purpose, upon

numerous departmental phases of administration, regarding which final

analysis in the crucible of “plain hoss sense” shows he knows little.

And he knew _less_ when he talked than he now knows. The periodical

publishers of the country have been “handing him” some information,

_after they got notice of what he was trying “to put over,” since he went

to President Taft not later than October or mid-November last_. I say

that, because President Taft _covered Mr. Hitchcock’s idea_ (or scheme)

_of removing the postal department deficit in his December message for

1910_.

Now, did Mr. Hitchcock influence President Taft, or did President Taft

influence Mr. Hitchcock?

That is the question; whether it is better to be the “influenced” or the

“influencer.”

The above query may be awkward, or even an uncouth way to state the

question, but in evidence that it is a question with thoughtful

people--_informed people_. I desire here to quote some statements written

by [1]Samuel G. Blythe. With no thought of discriminating praise I can

positively say that Samuel G. Blythe _stands with the best of you boys

who are doing so much for our enlightenment_--FOR OUR EDUCATION--IN

MATTERS RELATING TO OUR NATIONAL GOVERNMENT.

Is not that right, boys?

I hear a unanimous “aye.”

In this connection, however, I wish to remind you boys that many of

you--most of you, probably--have done as much to help the people of the

country in your _local_ fields of interest and activity as you have done

to enlighten us as to Washington’s politics, policies and _tangential

peculiarities_.

With this explanation for my taking our “Sam” instead of you other

boys for quotation, maybe _mutilation_, just here in the context of

this book, I may add that his article in the Saturday Evening Post of

date, April 15, 1911, is before me. It so _fits_ the point I am now

considering--whether Postmaster General Hitchcock was “influenced” or

“influencing”--that I am going to quote, and, possibly, take all sorts

of liberties with Mr. Blythe’s splendid presentation of Mr. Hitchcock’s

attitude, action and _animus_.

Mr. Blythe, in his article in the Saturday Evening Post, (published by

the Curtis Publishing Company, Philadelphia, and, by the way, one of the

most educative weekly periodicals the world has ever known), tells us

something of Postmaster General Hitchcock’s procedure since in office.

I am here going to appropriate some of the information furnished in Mr.

Blythe’s article. Whether I use quotation marks or not, I want the reader

to know that Samuel G. Blythe has “wised me up a heap” regarding our

Postmaster General’s peculiar official gyrations since the latter arrived

on his present job.

First, it would appear that Mr. Hitchcock arrived with the “deficit” in

his brain. I mean, of course, the Postoffice Department deficit was _on_

his mind, and being fresh from that state of splendid attainments and

beans--Massachusetts--Mr. Hitchcock came to his job brimful of nerve,

purpose and postal service deficits. He was determined to do things,

especially to that _deficit_. Well, he has been doing things, but

scarcely in a way that one would expect from a man coming from the people

who grow up there. The writer cannot say whether or not Mr. Hitchcock

“growed up there.” If he did, some cog must have slipped or “jammed” in

his raising. Most born Plymouth rock men whom I have met, and I have had

the pleasure of meeting many, start out, _and live_, on life lines which

clearly and _cleanly_ recognize the fact that _the end is on its way_,

and that they are going to meet it--meet it with a brave, honest face and

a moral courage that will answer “Here” at the final round-up.

I presume, however, there are a few Easterners who grow haughty,

supercilious and dictatorial in proportion to the square of the distance

they are removed (by fortuitous circumstance, political preferment

or other means), from the “down-row” in the fall husking, the spring

plowing, the free lunch and other symptoms of human industry or need.

This is wholly an “aside.” How it may apply to Mr. Hitchcock must be left

to readers who have a more intimate personal acquaintance with him than

have I.

At any rate, he came to his present official job, it appears from most

dependable information, with a “deficit”--the postal service deficit, of

course--in his mind, and he immediately began in his vigorous, though

somewhat peculiar, way to work it off. Whether his dominating intent

was to work that deficit off the department books or merely work it off

his mind, has not thus far appeared, save, of course, to the coterie in

the circle of Mr. Hitchcock’s intimates and a somewhat numerous body of

periodical and newspaper reporters on the job in Washington.

The latter, of course, know everything. And what they don’t know they go

to all extremes to find out. It was, therefore, a hopeless attempt of

Mr. Hitchcock’s (though he yet seems scarcely able to understand how so

much information got to the public), to keep his _scheme_ to remove the

Postoffice Department’s deficit by shunting the _whole of it onto some

twenty or thirty periodicals_--it was, I say, a hopeless task for him to

keep that scheme safely within the periphery of the corral where herded

the “influenced” and the “influencing.”

But why go on? Mr. Blythe in his article tells some things I want to say

and he says them so much better than I can tell them that I will give

the reader the benefit of that difference and quote him on a number of

points. As showing the studied attempt at snap legislation in the very

closing hours of Congress, Mr. Blythe says:

The Sixty-first Congress expired by constitutional limitation

at noon on March 4th, last. On Friday afternoon, March 3, the

postoffice appropriation bill was up for consideration in the

Senate. It was being read for committee amendments. At half past

4 page 21 of the bill was reached, and with it the amendment

proposed by the Senate Committee on Postoffices and Postroads to

increase the rate of second-class postage in certain specified

cases and in certain contingencies. Second-class postage is the

postage paid by newspapers, magazines and periodicals.

There had been several speeches. Senator Carter spoke for the

amendment, and Senators Bristow, Cummins and Owen against it.

Senator Jones, of Washington, had a few observations in favor of

the amendment also. At 5 o’clock Senator Boies Penrose, Chairman

of the Senate Committee on Postoffices and Postroads and in

charge of the bill, rose in his place, withdrew the amendment

increasing second-class postage, and submitted in its stead an

amendment providing for a commission to investigate the question

of fact concerning the cost to the Postoffice Department for

transportation of second-class mail matter. This amendment was

unanimously adopted and the Senate proceeded to the consideration

of other sections of the bill.

Postmaster-General Hitchcock sat immediately behind Senator

Penrose when this happened. He had been on the floor of the

Senate most of that afternoon, and a great portion of the time

for several days previous when the discussion of the postoffice

bill seemed imminent. When Senator Penrose withdrew the

amendment, the Postmaster General’s strenuously urged plan to

use the taxing power of the government to make himself a censor,

with almost unlimited power to declare what magazine and what

periodical should be taxed and what magazine and what periodical

should not be taxed; to give himself the sole determining power

to decide what is a newspaper and what is a periodical--his long

conceived plan, perfected quietly, put into preliminary execution

without warning to those concerned, to be jammed through if

possible, failed and failed utterly.

Mr. Blythe also refers to the fight Postmaster General Hitchcock put up

against _investigation_. Here I desire to quote him at some length:

The Postmaster General had enlisted the President. He had put

it up to the Republicans on the Senate Postoffice committee as

an _Administration measure_ to be supported by administration

men. He got the President to use the same argument. He contrived

an amendment, after much labor, so drawn as to give _him the

greatest_ powers of discretion in the application of the increase

in second-class postage. He had the regulation of the magazine

and periodical press of this country in his own hands, he

thought; and he was preparing to regulate it according to his

ideas--when he met with a sudden check. It was a good scheme, a

far-reaching scheme, but it didn’t go through. The Postmaster

General, being a small-bore politician, took a small-bore view of

the situation. He underestimated the force of public opinion.

It is my purpose to tell here the full story of Mr. Hitchcock’s

attempt to put through this legislation. Before starting,

however, there is this to be said: There never has been a minute,

since this contention began, considerably more than a year

ago, when the publishers of the country have not been willing

to submit the disputed question of fact to a proper tribunal,

to determine exactly what _it should cost_ the government to

transport second-class mail. There never has been a minute

when the publishers of the country have not been willing to

pay exactly what, under a businesslike administration of the

department, it should cost to transport their publications. They

do not desire any subsidy from the government, and never have.

The publishers have held that the statement of Hitchcock that it

costs 9 cents a pound to carry second-class matter is absurd; and

they have further held that if the postoffice department were

run on proper business principles, instead of being run as a

political machine, there would be no deficit.

Notwithstanding, Mr. Hitchcock fought the idea of a commission to

the last gasp. He spent day after day at the capitol, for three

weeks before the session closed, in the corridors, in committee

rooms, on the floor of the Senate, working for his plan to

increase second-class postage, granting concessions here, putting

out explanations there, assuring certain publishers they would

not be taxed, writing letters to Senators and Representatives

showing how their districts or states would not be affected,

utilizing every resource of his department, of his political

connections as former chairman of the Republican National

Committee, to get support. He had the votes in the Senate, too,

if he could have brought the matter to a vote. That was where he

failed. A united opposition was organized, an opposition composed

of men who think and act for themselves and who were prepared to

fight until noon on March 4.

When Frank H. Hitchcock, after being chairman of the Republican

National Committee in the campaign of 1908, was made Postmaster

General as a reward for his political services, he inherited,

in his department, a deficit, an antiquated, cumbersome and

unbusinesslike organization, and several sets of figures.

_Hitchcock is young and ambitious._ He has been in the government

service, in various capacities, most of his life since leaving

college. He was anxious to make a record. As Postmaster General

_he was political paymaster_ for the administration, to a great

degree, as there are more postmasters than any one other kind

of public officials, and postmasterships are perquisites of the

faithful politicians in the Senate and House of Representatives.

This kept Hitchcock in politics, in a way, for he knew what the

obligations of the administration were, having made most of them

as national chairman, and he paid them off as circumstances

permitted.

He thought, too, that if he could put the Postoffice Department

on a self-sustaining basis--where it had not been for years,

if ever--he would do a great stroke for himself; and he began

work along those lines. There need be no discussion here of the

methods by which he made apparent reductions in the expenses of

the department. Whether by bookkeeping or otherwise, he did make

some apparent reductions, mostly by not spending appropriated

moneys, by reductions in force, by elimination of substitute

carriers and by other similar means.

Mr. Hitchcock, it would seem, was a peculiarly active public servant. Mr.

Blythe also speaks of how Mr. Hitchcock got a cue from a predecessor,

Charles Emory Smith. Mr. Smith in the _industrious activities of his

official duties_, signing of reports which subordinates wrote, vouchers

for contracts and other payments, and drawing his salary--Mr. Smith had

laboriously (?) figured it out that the second-class mail rate ought

to be 7 cents a pound. Mr. Hitchcock goes Smith two cents better. This

statement of Mr Smith’s grew on Mr. Hitchcock. “It opened the way to two

things,” as Mr. Blythe ably points out as follows:--

First he could increase the revenue of the department if he could

increase the second-class rate; and second, he could get a whip

hand over the magazine press.

He reported his assumed facts to the President in time for Mr.

Taft’s message to Congress, sent in in December, 1909. In that

message Mr. Taft made the statement that it costs the government

9 cents a pound to transport second-class mail matter, the total

cost being more than sixty million dollars a year, and asked

that there should be an increase in second-class rates. Mr. Taft

instanced this as a subsidy for the magazine and periodical

press. Mr. Hitchcock’s report as Postmaster General contained

substantially the same statements.

The House Committee on Postoffices and Postroads, where the

postoffice appropriation bill originates, took cognizance of

these statements by the President and by the Postmaster General,

and ordered a hearing on the matter, which was held early in the

session. The various publishers of the country, representing

not only the Periodical Publishers’ Association but many other

organizations of publishers of various classes of periodicals,

sent representatives to Washington, and there were full hearings

before the committee, extending through several days. The

publishers stated their side of the case and the committee took

the matter under advisement. The House committee reported out the

postoffice bill with no recommendation of any kind in it for an

increase in second-class postage; and no separate bill providing

for the increase was prepared, introduced or reported.

Then Mr. Blythe, under the subcaption of “Running Down the Nine-Cent

Myth,” says:

Some years previously the congress authorized what was known as

the Penrose-Overstreet Postal Commission, composed of members

of the postoffice committees of the Senate and House, of which

Senator Penrose was then the Senate chairman and the late Jesse

Overstreet the House chairman. This commission met in various

places, had long hearings and made a report and prepared a bill.

Before making its report or preparing its bill the commission

employed, at a cost of seventy-five thousand dollars, or

thereabouts, chartered accountants and business experts to make a

thorough examination into the business methods of the postoffice

department, its expenditures and its resources. The results of

the work of these examiners was incorporated in the report to

Congress by the Penrose-Overstreet commission. It is notable that

this commission _asked the late Postmaster General, Charles Emory

Smith, of Philadelphia, who was responsible for the statement

that it cost seven cents a pound to transport second-class mail

matter, where he got his figures, and he did not remember, nor

would he testify concerning them_.

At any rate, when the Penrose-Overstreet bill, providing for

the reorganization of the Postoffice Department and the placing

of that great institution on a business instead of a political

basis, was introduced in the Senate and the House, it contained

no recommendation for the increase in second-class postage,

_because the commission had been unable to find any figures of

cost of second-class transportation on which such an increase

could justifiably be demanded_, even after expert examination of

the books of the department by unprejudiced men.

Of course, I may be mistaken--_I_ may be. But how, in the name of

Jehosaphat, Pan and all the other ghostly deities of antiquity, does

it happen that men like Samuel G. Blythe and hundreds of others,--men

in position to learn and _know_ the facts, likewise, who have both the

ability and the courage to tell what they know--agree with me? Why, I

ask, if I _am_ mistaken in what I have said and am trying to say, do

so many other men who have studied this question, all of them probably

of greater ability, most of them certainly of far greater opportunity

than have I, why, I inquire again, do they so unanimously concur in the

_judgment I am trying to pass on Mr. Hitchcock and his department_?

I shall probably take the liberty, later, further to use the data

given in Mr. Blythe’s timely and informative contribution, quoting or

otherwise, for which I confidently feel he will excuse me. Just here,

however, it is fitting that the reader be given a reprint of that _night_

“rider” to which I have made so frequent reference.

House bill No. 31,539 brought the postoffice appropriation bill to the

Senate. In the Senate it was read twice and then on February 9, 1911,

it was referred to the Senate Committee on Postoffices and Postroads

from which it was reported back by Senator Penrose, Chairman of the

Committee, “with amendments.” It is only one of those amendments we

shall here care to consider. That one appeared on page 21 of Senate Bill

(Calendar No. 1067), and the “rider” portion begins at line 7. Following

is the “rider:”

(Page 21.)

7 “Provided,

8 That out of the appropriation for inland mail transportation

9 the Postmaster General is authorized hereafter to

10 pay rental if necessary in Washington, District of Columbia,

11 and compensation to tabulators and clerks employed in connection

12 with the weighings for assistance in completing computations,

13 in connection with the expenses of taking the

14 weights of mails on railroad routes, as provided by law:

15 And provided further, That during the fiscal year ending

16 June thirtieth, nineteen hundred and twelve, the rate of postage

17 on textual and general reading matter contained in periodical

18 publications other than newspapers, as described in the

19 Act of Congress approved March third, eighteen hundred

20 and seventy-nine, entitled “An Act making appropriations

21 for the service of the Postoffice Department for the fiscal

22 year ending June thirtieth, eighteen hundred and eighty,

23 and for other purposes,” and in the publications described

24 in an Act of Congress approved July sixteenth, eighteen

25 hundred and ninety-four, entitled “An Act making appropriations

(Page 22.)

1 for the service of the Postoffice Department for

2 the fiscal year ending June thirtieth, eighteen hundred and

3 ninety-five,” shall be one cent per pound, or fraction thereof;

4 and on _sheets_ of any _publication_ of either of said classes

5 containing, _in whole or part_, any advertisement, whether

6 display, descriptive, or textual, four cents per pound or

7 fraction thereof; Provided, That the increased rate shall not

8 apply to publications mailing less than four thousand pounds

9 of each issue.”

As previously stated, and pointed out by Senator Owen, all amendments of

character with the above are clearly in violation of Section 7, Article

1 of the Constitution of the United States. Here is the wording of that

section:

“All bills for raising revenue shall originate in the House of

Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with amendments as

on other bills.”

That is plain enough, is it not, as to the Senate’s lack of right or

power to _originate_ revenue-producing measures either by bill or

amendment? A glance at lines 4 to 9 (page 22), as above quoted, will

convince even a stranger in a strange town or a market garden delegate

that this “rider” amendment, if it had passed, would _originate revenue_.

Mr. Hitchcock _talked_, so it is alleged, that it would produce

$6,000,000 or more, thus removing that “deficit” he has had in his

brain or on his mind. Some of the best qualified men in this country

have shown, _and they have used Mr. Hitchcock’s own figures in doing

so_, that the increased mail rate as this “rider” provided would not

produce over $2,000,000 additional revenue, probably not over $1,000,000,

after paying for the added clerical and inspection service which such a

_discriminating classification_ would require.

The reader will note (line 18 of the “rider”), that “newspapers” are

exempted from the increased tax. The reader should likewise note that

under both this “rider” and the present law, newspapers are carried

_free_ to addresses inside the county of publication, save to addressees

resident of towns and cities having carrier delivery. By this is

meant that this tricky rider, as will be readily seen, leaves the

present law--_the one-cent a pound rate_--in force and applying to all

“newspapers.”

Just here I want to ask the thoughtful reader a question or two, though

they are somewhat tangential to the direct line of thought we are at this

point following:

If such a breach of constitutional law, of the legislative rules

governing Congress and of plain, common and understood justice as was

covered in this, I believe, studiedly discriminating “rider” on the

postoffice appropriation bill--if such a breach was permitted, I ask,

how long would it be, do you think, before our newspapers would be made

victims of similar restrictions and injustices?

In short, how long do you think it would take the gang of conspirators

(the “influenced” and the “influencing” factors in the personnel of the

conspiracy) who tried to “put over” that rider, to make any nincompoop of

a politician who chances to be, or who may become, Postmaster General a

_censor of all periodical literature_, newspapers as well as magazines,

_published in this country_?

In this connection another thought comes which I desire to pass on

to the reader. If such censorship is permitted, such discriminating,

_abrogative_ legislation is tolerated, how long will it be, think you,

before our “banking interests,” our “steel interests,” our “packing

interests,” our “hide and leather interests,” our “rail transportation

interests” go into the periodical business?

Each of these have the country covered--yes, flooded--with agents. No

trouble whatsoever for them to get the postal department’s required

“bona fide” subscription list and thus be “entered” _at the one-cent

second-class rate_.

“Will they carry advertising?” Later, yes.

_When our children are paying the cost of our blunder they will be

advertising each other and--at the one-cent a pound rate._

Think it over and--well, wake up. If necessary, get _cogently brisk_ with

that Senator or Congressman of yours. At least, let him know that you are

on the job as well as he and that you _understand the job as well as he_.

Of course, the “steerers” and “cappers” for this press-muzzling and

official censorship game will tell you that such entrance of the

“interests” into our literary field is “quite impossible;” that “the

postal laws prohibit it;” that “it would be a foolish waste of money on

their part,” and a score or more of other equally silly, equally false

and equally “steered” arguments.

You can take it from me _flat_ that the man--_any man_--who hands you

that sort of talk is either _hired_ to talk it or he is mentally unsound.

The “interests” are _already_ in the periodical business. They own,

or control, at this hour, hundreds of newspapers, magazines and other

periodicals. This is a matter of common knowledge to every citizen who

_reads when he is awake_. Not only that, but the interests, banking,

industrial, transportation, etc., have gone into the book publishing

business (the bound book), _and hundreds of thousands of copies of their

capping “literature” have been distributed to the people_, either free or

at a price far below cost of production.

Not only that, but the “interests” are annually (_now_), distributing

millions, in the aggregate _hundreds_ of millions, of circular letters

and circular matter, under seal and open circular-matter sheets,

pamphlets, etc., first and third class, at a cost of _eight cents a pound

or more_.

So, I repeat, the man who attempts to controvert my previous statement

as to the intent, _the ulterior motive_, of the conspirators backing

that rider to the 1911 postoffice appropriation bill is either

hired--bought--or is a fool.

It is one of his easiest “stunts” for any writer to produce a “promotion”

story or article. For instance: The “Packing Interest,” monthly or

weekly, can print three or four “nice” stories. One, say, about “Lucy and

Her Window Garden,” another about “High Light Pink, the Broncho Buster,”

etc., etc. Then can follow a “literary” write-up of how “Jones Rose From

a Wheelbarrow Man to Foreman in a Steel Mill,” or about how “Cruiser

Miller Dropped His Blazing Ax and Became Partner in a Great Lumber

Company,” etc., etc. After this may come a “Home Department,” and then a

few local or “plant” news items.

In the first, your wife and mine will be told how to make her currants

(not her currency) jell; how to make children “bread winners;” how to

“crochet an art tidy,” or how to “Subsist a Family of Five on Thirty-Nine

Cents a Day.”

In the “Local” or “Plant” news may appear some explanation of how

Crawloffski, who had lost a leg in service, is “improving in the

hospital” (County), and “is under the competent care of the company’s

physician,” of the promotion of “Mr. James Field, formerly ‘run-way

driver,’ to the position of ‘hammer-man’ in the slaughter pen, with an

increase of $2.80 a week in salary.”

Of course, it will be understood that I am not giving the entire

scope and plan of an “Interest’s” periodical. The point I am trying

to establish is, that no “Interest” periodical will, for a time at

any rate, advertise _its own interests_, save as _news matter_, and

that each “Interest” can _and will_ advertise the others--_the mutual

interests_--and do it, too, at the _cent-a-pound rate_ and without

violating any postal law now existent.

I will now return to Mr. Hitchcock’s activity and arguments for this

“rider” to that postoffice appropriation bill. I call it “his,” as, from

the evidence, I am forced to the conclusion that it originated with

him. Most certainly he nursed it and pushed it forward with the urgent

solicitude which a fond father would display in advancing his first-born

or favorite scion. The excerpts which I have taken from Mr. Blythe

clearly evidence that fact.

Mr. Hitchcock is on record as stating that it costs “9.23 cents a pound

to transport and handle second-class mail matter.” I am quoting from

memory. Maybe he did not include “handling,” and put 9.23 cents per

pound as the cost of transportation only. At all events I remember that

one writer, with keen perception and a robust sense of the humor of

things, as well as the justice involved, pointed out the fact that any

of the competing railroads between New York city and Chicago (easily

proven to be twice the “average mail haul”), would carry Mr. Taft, our

300-pound “good fellow” President, the “run” at less than 9 cents a

pound. Incidentally the writer pointed out these facts: President Taft

would have a sleeping berth or compartment, a porter in attendance,

smoking room accommodations, likewise barber, manicure, buffet, library

and dining-room services and conveniences. The Chief Executive would

of course put himself on board and “discharge” himself at the terminal

station.

How about 300 pounds of second-class mail matter, say some monthly New

York periodical? This is brought to the mail car, wrapped and directed

to destination, Chicago for instance, to keep the comparison clear and

fair. It is dumped on the floor in a corner of a mail car, with all the

intermediate station deliveries atop of it or stacked about it, and at

Chicago it is tumbled off to the publisher’s agent or salesman. _That

is all the service rendered_ by either the railroads or the Postoffice

Department in handling that 300 pounds of second-class mail matter.

_Yet the Postmaster General says it costs the government 9.23 cents a

pound to render such service!_

Is not that rather jarring to one’s exalted opinion of Mr. Hitchcock’s

all-round, comprehending knowledge of a just and fair mail haulage rate?

If it does not jar the reader he should take his thinking apparatus to

the cobbler and have it half-soled.

A glance at freight schedules will show any reader that live stock,

cattle, hogs or sheep, are carried from Chicago to New York, Boston or

other eastern destination at only a small fraction of his dead-mail

rate. Again, while double-deck live stock cars are in extensive use

on long hauls, the stock is not corded up on the decks as much of the

second-class mail is piled up. Not only that, but the live stock must be

_watered and fed in transit_.

The rail rates for the carriage of dead-freight makes Mr. Hitchcock’s

9.23 cents a pound, which he figured as the cost to the government of

carriage and handling second-class mail, read so absurd as to be a joke,

were the purpose and purport of his statement not so grave and serious as

they are. Even the 4-cent rate that he and a coterie of his friends tried

to put over in the Senate rider--$80.00 a ton for carrying dead weights

the average mail haul, and dumping it off at destination--is a ridiculous

charge.

Why, the express companies are carrying hundreds of tons daily of

dead-freight over such average haul for less than a cent a pound; yes,

they are carrying tons of second-class _mail matter_ and carrying it

_at one-half a cent a pound_. It has been cited by Mr. Hearst and

other publishers that certain railroads carry second-class mail matter

over fast freight runs for about one-quarter of a cent a pound. In

this connection another thought presents itself: Did, or did not, Mr.

Hitchcock, at the time he was pushing his “rider” in the Senate, have

any adequate knowledge of the amount, of second-class mail matter which

publishers were then sending by express and fast freight? If he had such

knowledge, then he must have known of the fact that _thousands of tons_

of periodicals are now carried by the railroads and express companies at

a rate _lower_ than the government’s mail charge of one-cent a pound. If

Mr. Hitchcock had such knowledge when he was handing his string-talk to

President Taft, having his “heart-to-hearts” with certain senators, I

wonder if he intimated to them what must necessarily happen to the second

class mail division and to that deficit which, apparently at least, has

so continuously, likewise so effusively and diffusively, worried him?

If the fast freights and express are now taking thousands of tons of

second-class matter from the government in competition with the one-cent

a pound rate, how many thousands of tons more would they take from

the government if the latter advanced its rate to four cents a pound?

And what effect would the withdrawal of so vast a tonnage from the

government’s second-class service have upon the deficit our solicitous

Postmaster General has kept himself so exercised about--that $6,000,000,

or, to be exact, using Mr. Hitchcock’s own figures, $5,881,481.95? That

deficit, if converted into cash, would barely furnish parade money to our

army for a month. If the Atlantic squadron undertook a junket with such

financial backing its progress would probably end by rounding the Statue

of Liberty at the entrance of New York harbor. If Mr. Hitchcock’s attempt

to put up a four-cent rate on periodicals had succeeded, thus forcing the

prominent publishers to find cheaper means of carriage and distribution,

his $6,000,000 would have soared upward to a point making it worth very

serious consideration.

DEFICITS AFFECTED BY SECOND-CLASS TONNAGE.

In this connection I desire to show that deficits in the federal postal

service are largely governed by the tonnage of second-class matter

carried, the greater such tonnage the smaller the deficit. To do this I

shall take the liberty to quote from the “Inland Printer,” probably the

most widely read periodical among the printing crafts, as it certainly

is one of the best informed and most carefully edited journals of any

in matters relating to the publication and distribution of periodical

literature. The article speaks of several points pertinent to our subject

and is so instructively written that I know my readers will appreciate

it in its entirety. If the publishers of the periodical will pardon my

wholesale appropriation of their article, I am confident my readers will

do the same. The article is of date March, 1911, and was written by

Wilmer Atkinson, whose permission I should also ask for reprinting it in

toto:

In 1860 the postal deficit was $10,652,543; in 1910 it was

$5,848,566. The postage rate was four times greater in 1860 than

now.

Coming down twelve years to 1872 the total weight of second-class

matter was that year less than 65,000,000 pounds.

Now it is 817,428,141 pounds, more than twelve times greater.

Then the postage rate was four times what it is now.

Then the gross revenue was $21,915,426; now it is $224,128,657,

more than ten times as much.

Then there was no rural free delivery; now that system costs

$36,923,737.

Then there were no registered letters; now there are 42,053,574 a

year.

Then there were issued $48,515,532 of domestic money orders; now

there are issued $547,993,641.

Then postmasters were paid $5,121,665; now they are paid

$27,514,362, and their clerks are paid $38,035,456.62.

Then city delivery cost but little; now it costs $31,805,485.28.

In 1872 there were issued of stamps, stamped envelopes and

wrappers less than $18,000,000 (there were no postal cards); now

are issued, including postal cards, $202,064,887.96, more than

ten times as much.

Observe that the weight of second-class matter is 752,428,141

pounds greater than in 1872, costing therefore (according to

some official mathematicians), more than 9 cents a pound for

transportation, or a total of $67,718,532.69. The deficit for

1910 is almost identical with that of 1872.

1885-1910

As late as 1885 the government income from the issue of

stamps, stamped envelopes and wrappers and postal cards was

$35,924,137.70.

In 1910 it was $202,064,887.96, more than five times as much.

The number of registered letters issued in 1885 was 11,043,256;

in 1910 it was 40,151,797.

The amount of money orders issued rose from $117,858,921 in 1885

to $498,699,637 in 1910.

The total postal receipts rose from $42,560,844 in 1885 to

$224,128,657 in 1910, an increase of $181,567,813.

The postage rate on second-class matter in 1885 was double what

it is now.

During the intervening period the weight of second-class matter

had increased about 600,000,000 pounds.

Now we will get down a little closer in this business and see

what has happened within the last five years.

1906-1911

In 1906 there was a gain in weight of second-class matter of

41,674,086 pounds; in that year the deficit was $10,516,999.

In 1907 there was a gain in weight of 52,616,336

pounds--11,000,000 pounds more than in 1906; the deficit was

reduced to $6,653,283.

In 1908 there was a _loss_ instead of gain in weight of

second-class matter of 18,079,292 pounds; the deficit went up

to $16,873,223, an increase over the year before of more than

$10,000,000.

In 1909 there was only a slight gain in weight of 28,367,298

pounds; the deficit went up to $17,441,719.

In 1910 there was a gain in weight of 94,865,884 pounds, the

largest ever known; and the deficit dropped to $5,848,566.88.

From 1906 to 1910 there were 198,863,387 pounds increase in the

weight of second-class matter; the deficit was $4,668,432.12 less

in 1910 than in 1906.

The impression is prevalent that the amount paid for railway

transportation was cut down the past year, but the truth is that

the railroads were paid $44,654,514.97, the railway mail service

and the postoffice car service cost $24,065,218.88, a total of

$68,719,733.85, which is more by a half million than was paid in

1909, and over $7,000,000 more than was paid in 1906.

It is claimed that there is no definite relation between deficits

and second-class matter; very well, the foregoing are the

official figures; let them speak for themselves.

In the whole history of the Postoffice Department, neither an

increase of second-class matter nor a reduction of the postage

rate has ever increased deficits, no matter what burdens have

been piled upon the service in the way of an extension of

city delivery, the establishment of rural free delivery, the

multiplication in number and increase of pay of officials,

increase of government free matter, increase of railroad and

other transportation charges, nor an increase in the obstructive

energies of postal officials directed against the publishing

business. (See In Memoriam, page 49.)

It has come to be generally understood and conceded that

second-class matter originates mail of the other classes. The

Postal Commission testifies that “No sane man will deny that

second-class matter is the immediate cause of great quantities

of first-class matter.” Mr. Madden and Mr. Lawshe said the same

thing. Meyer said that “It is known that second-class matter is

instrumental in originating a large amount of other classes of

mail matter.” To what extent this is so can not be determined

with exactitude, but the official figures given throw a flood of

light on the subject.

There are four classes of (paid) mail matter--first, second,

third and fourth. The first comprises letters and postals, the

second newspapers and periodicals, the third circulars, and the

fourth merchandise.

How, of themselves, could the first, third and fourth classes

develop faster than the growth of population? Does not their

extension depend upon the business energy and the intellectual

activity of the people, and in turn do not these depend very

largely upon the circulation of the public press?

Will it, therefore, be deemed unreasonable to conclude that of

the $202,064,887.96 of stamps sold for the first, third and

fourth classes of mail matter last year, $150,000,000 of it

originated immediately, remotely and cumulatively from the second

class? How else than in some such way can we account for the

prodigious development of the postal business, which has outrun

population sixfold or more?

The late Senator Dolliver, at the American Periodical

Association’s banquet, at the New Willard hotel, at Washington,

a year ago, said: “I look upon every one of your little

advertisements as a traveling salesman for the industries of the

United States.”

The amazing development of the industries of the country is in

a large measure due to second-class matter; the great increase

of second-class matter is due to the low postage rate; and the

wonderful expansion of the postal establishment is based chiefly

upon the widespread distribution of newspapers and periodicals.

The foregoing figures are respectfully submitted; they are

official; and their significance can be interpreted by any

intelligent and thoughtful person. In the presence of these

figures, is it too much to claim that the government has never

lost a dollar in transporting second-class mail, that it is by

far the most profitable of any, and that, were it withdrawn

or greatly curtailed by an increase of rate, the postal

establishment would collapse into bankruptcy?

In view, also, of the foregoing figures it is hoped that the

government will assume a less antagonistic attitude toward the

publishing business, and encourage and promote the circulation

of the public press rather than repress and curtail it. Its

obstructive course has been pursued too long, having no basis in

justice, business foresight, or common sense.

Let there be a realization and an awakening!

IN MEMORIAM.

During the last fiscal postal year the death list of publications

footed up to 4,229. Of these, 504 died a-bornin, that is, were

denied entry; the others--3,725--were papers that had been

established.

In the decade from 1901 to 1910, inclusive, 11,563 publications

were strangled at birth (denied entry), and of established papers

that died there were 32,060.

How many of these were forced to give up the struggle for

existence on account of the hard conditions imposed by the

government, we have no means of knowing. It is not found in the

annual reports. It is beyond question that with sample copies

cut off and necessary credit for subscriptions forbidden, no

publishers without large cash capital to draw from can start and

keep going in competition with old established papers.

Why at this time, when the people are trying to get rid of

monopoly, the government should thus build one up, is hard to

comprehend.

We are informed that the rule in regard to expired subscriptions

“has met with strong approval and continues to grow in favor with

publishers and the public generally.” This statement is made by

the newly installed Third Assistant Postmaster General, but it

is a delusion which Mr. Britt has unfortunately inherited from

his predecessor. It may be true as to those benefited by the

monopoly, but not as to those who have been put down and out.

“Dead men tell no tales.”

I had intended to omit that “In Memoriam.” Then I carefully read it over.

The appalling slaughter of the “innocents” which it exposes was so new to

me, news of such a tragic nature in the domain of periodical publishing,

that I then and there changed my mind. I am of the opinion that the news

conveyed in its five brief paragraphs will be as new and as surprising

to most of my readers as it was to me. Think of 42,623 publications put

out of business in _ten years_? Of 4,229 sent to the commercial--in most

instances, probably, to the _financial_--junk pile in one year--last

year? Then think of the causes this conscientious writer holds chargeable

for a large share of the slaughter!

ATTEMPT TO BREACH THE CONSTITUTION.

We will now revert to the bold attempt made in presenting that rider

amendment to the postoffice appropriation bill to breach the federal

constitution, following which we will take up some of Mr. Hitchcock’s

efforts to show how much or how little he knows about the business of

publishing and distributing magazines and other periodical literature.

First let us inquire if Mr. Hitchcock and the coterie backing that

Senate “rider” _knew_ that, under the Constitution, all measures for

raising federal revenue must originate in the Lower House of Congress?

One scarcely dares conclude they were so densely ignorant as that. Then,

was theirs a deliberate, calculated attempt to breach the constitutional

prerogatives and rights of the Lower House? Did they figure upon putting

through that vicious rider in the congested closing hours of Congress?

I call them the _crooked_ hours of Congress. Did those backers of that

rider _hope_ that Senators and Congressmen would overlook or fail to read

that rider, hope that so many would be so fully occupied by the swan-song

chorus being sung during those closing hours that they would not notice

that “rider” jumping the constitutional hurdles?

Now, if either one of the last assigned reasons is valid, a word stronger

than “ignorance” should apply to such tricky, treacherous action, whether

it is practiced by Senators, Congressmen, cabinet chiefs or chiefs higher

up. One greatly dislikes to apply a fitting term to such ulterior motives

as lead high and respected public officials to breach the constitution by

trickery about on a level with that of the sneak thief or with that of

a “con” man who thinks he has done his full duty by the people when he

has sold Reuben the painted brick. But how could Mr. Hitchcock and those

Senators co-operating with him be ignorant of the plain letter of the law

and supported by a long line of precedents in both the Senate and the

House?

As to the Senate precedents for the House’s right to originate all

measures for the raising of revenues, Mr. Henry H. Gilfry, Chief Clerk

of the Senate, compiled in 1871 a work entitled “Decisions on Points of

Order with Phraseology in the United States Senate.” Mr. Gilfry cites the

attempt of the Senate to repeal the income tax. The House returned the

bill to the Senate with a reminder that the Constitution “vests in the

House of Representatives the sole power to originate such measures.” Mr.

Gilfry cites many other precedents.

In 1905 the Senate tried to originate revenues by amendment to the

postoffice appropriation bill. That amendment was very similar to the

“rider” of Mr. Hitchcock. I will here reprint it:

“That hereafter the rate of postage on packages of books or merchandise

mailed at the distributing postoffice of any rural free delivery to a

patron on said route shall be three cents for each pound or any fraction

thereof. This rate shall apply only to packages deposited at the local

postoffice for delivery to patrons on routes emanating from that office,

or collected by rural carriers for delivery to the office from which the

route emanates, and not to mail transmitted from one office to another,

and shall not apply to packages exceeding 5 pounds in weight.”

The House brought that measure to conference and flatly _refused to

recognize the power of the Senate in the premises_. The Senate receded

and the amendment was killed.

“Hinds’ Precedents of the House of Representatives” is a recognized

authority. In Chapter XLII, Vol. 2, under the caption, “Prerogatives of

the House as to Revenue Legislation,” Mr. Hinds cites many instances in

which the House had invariably insisted upon the _exclusive exercise of

its rights as defined in Section 7, Article 1, of the Constitution_.

Mr. Hinds cites in all one hundred and twenty-five precedents, each

of which raises the same point of order as was raised in debating Mr.

Hitchcock’s late “rider” and on each of which the House _maintained its

right to originate all bills for raising revenues_.

In view of the fact that some of Mr. Hitchcock’s supporters were men

of experience, skilled parliamentarians, in view of the fact that

some of them were trained lawyers, and in view of the further fact

that the works both of Mr. Hinds and of Mr. Gilfry are on file in the

reference libraries of the Senate and House and probably in most of the

departments, how, I ask, in view of the above facts, can either Mr.

Hitchcock or any of his supporters enter a valid plea of _ignorance_ of

the fact that their attempt to put over that rider was contravening the

constitutional rights and prerogatives of the House?

No, they were not ignorant. In my judgment, as based upon the reports

which have reached me, that “rider” was a deliberate frame-up and its

architects were a few conspirators who sought by means of that rider

either to put certain periodicals out of business or _force them to print

what they were told to publish_.

Possibly I may be in error as to this, but the careful observation of

the best informed and most experienced correspondents on the Washington

assignment, as well as a number of Senators and Congressmen, have, in

reports made, supplied ample evidence to warrant my statement to the

effect that there was a collusive understanding among a few people to

present that “rider” in the closing hours of the session with the hope

that in the rush of affairs it might escape notice and go through. And

that hope was born of an ulterior purpose to get even with some monthly

and weekly publications--publications of _independent_ thought and

voice and which have for several years been _telling the truth_ about

certain Senators and Congressmen. These independent periodicals have

also been telling a rapidly growing multitude of eager readers the cold,

unvarnished facts about some corporations and corporate interests which,

it is generally believed and openly charged, are represented in federal

legislation and in cabinet and other official circles in Washington _by

several of the very men who were so actively supporting Mr. Hitchcock in

pushing his “rider” over the legislative course_.

A brief summary of the history of that rider may be presented at

this point. The Penrose-Overstreet bill was before the House in the

early part of 1910. It carried no recommendation of an increased rate

on second-class matter. This Penrose-Overstreet bill was, however,

reintroduced in the House by Congressman Weeks, of Massachusetts,

Chairman of the House Postoffice Committee, and by Senator Carter in

the Senate. The House refused either to approve or take action on Mr.

Hitchcock’s recommendation. After consideration, the Senate approved

the House bill. That bill carried no recommendation for an increase in

second-class postage rates. Not a single member of the Senate during the

debate suggested nor introduced any bill or amendment recommending such

increase.

In his message of December, 1910, President Taft recommended an increase

in the second-class mail rates. His recommendation was couched in

language very similar to that used in his message of December, 1909.

Mr. Samuel Blythe, from whom I have previously quoted extendedly, says

some pertinent things in commenting on the situation at this point in our

brief outline of how this “rider” got mounted for a lap or two and then

was blanketed in the home-stretch:

“The Postmaster General had not been idle in the matter. He had it on

his mind. Moreover, his party had been defeated at the polls in the

previous November and about the only Republicans who were successful

were Progressive Republicans against whom the President had admitted,

in his famous Norton-Iowa letter, he had been discriminating and for

whom Mr. Hitchcock had no sympathy. The policies, and in many cases the

individuals, in the progressive movement had had large support from the

magazines and periodicals; and before that, the reactionaries who had

ultimately been defeated, had been assailed because of their misdeeds.”

There is a lot of bone and sinew in that. Of course, both the President

and his Postmaster General wanted to make good; wanted, as I have

previously intimated, to get rid of those pestiferous independent

periodicals which had been so conspicuous and powerful in unhorsing some

of their stand-pat friends in the elections of November.

Mr. Hitchcock is not one of the sort of men who rush in where angels

fear to tread. He is quite a general. He can make the waiting tactics

of General McClellan, it would seem, apply beautifully to a political

maneuver. He can wait and bide his time. At any rate, he waited. He

waited until the President and other friends had worked that announced

method of “discriminating” against the progressives, the so-called

“insurgents,” to the end of appointing a Senate Committee on Postoffices

and Postroads, the personnel of which suited Mr. Hitchcock’s quietly

nursed purpose--in fact suited him as well as if he had selected the

committee himself. Mr. Hitchcock, however, still waited, and while

he waited, the House Committee had been appointed and was engaged in

considering the postoffice appropriation bill. This House Committee

held numerous sessions and gave hearings to many newspapermen and to

publishers of periodicals. It went over the entire field of requirement

in the government postal services and appears to have gone into the

subject of second-class mail rates and the cost of its transportation and

handling most carefully and thoroughly. The result of its deliberations

was to tender to the House a bill carrying, as previously stated, an

appropriation of some $258,000,000 for the year’s salaries, maintenance

and operation of the Postoffice Department, a sum which must certainly

appear liberal to any informed reader.

In this connection, two points stand out in bold relief. First:--When the

House bill covering the 1911 appropriations for the Postoffice Department

was passed and advanced to the Senate, _it carried no provision or

recommendation for an increase of the second-class postage rates_.

Second:--As previously stated the House committee held many sessions

while considering and preparing its 1911 Postoffice Department

appropriation bill, and _at no session of that committee did Mr.

Hitchcock urge an increase in the second-class postage rates. He made no

propositions or recommendations to that committee touching on increases

in the second-class mail rate._

_In fact he made no proposition of any sort to that committee. Nor did

he submit any statements or figures to that committee, other than those

contained in his 1910 report and in the President’s message._

Rather a queer procedure that, is it not? Especially is it queer,

likewise suggestive, in a man who, for two years, had been running with

anti-skidding tires on and the high-speed lever pushed clear down, in a

wild chase to capture an increase in the second-class mail rate.

That is the way it looks to The Man on the Ladder, anyway.

Why did Mr. Hitchcock so completely ignore that House committee? Or why,

at most, did his attitude, when present at any of its sessions, manifest

so little interest as almost to indicate an _indifference_ as to what

was done or not done? Why, again, was Mr. Hitchcock so inactive, so void

of suggestions and recommendations when before that branch of federal

legislative authority with which he knew must originate _all_ measures

for the raising of revenues?

_Why?_ To that question there appears, to The Man on the Ladder, but one

valid answer. _Mr. Hitchcock was waiting._

When the House bill was sent to the Senate and referred to the Senate

Committee on Postoffices and Postroads, it appears from reports of people

whose business it is to watch things done and doing at Washington, D.

C, that Postmaster General Hitchcock livened up a bit, being careful,

however, not to put any noticeable pressure on his high-speed lever

_until those meddlesome publishers had left town and were well away_.

These publishers, knowing the constitutional prerogatives of the Lower

House, considered matters safe and settled when the House bill making

appropriations for the Postoffice Department was adopted and advanced

to the Senate. They knew it carried no section advancing second-class

postage rates nor any recommendations favoring such advance. With the

publishers that ended it. But they failed to consider Mr. Hitchcock. His

wiles and ways were, it appears, neither understood nor even suspicioned

by those publishers. So, confident and content, they gathered up their

belongings, packed their grips, paid their hotel bills and hied away

to their several homes. Then it was that Mr. Hitchcock got busy with

that discriminatingly selected committee of the Senate--the Committee on

Postoffices and Postroads.

To see how “discriminating” some one or more persons had been in

selecting that committee, let us look over its membership. At its head,

as Chairman, sat Boies Penrose. He is the reputed Republican boss

of Pennsylvania and an “organization” man. So is President Taft an

organization man. Therefore Senator Penrose is an Administration man to

the last ditch--that is, of course, if the administration is Republican.

Mr. Hitchcock is also an organization man, and if both the President and

his Postmaster General wanted this “rider” turned loose on the senate

tanbark, Mr. Penrose was willing to go along with them. The other members

of the committee were:--

Republicans:--

Scott, of West Virginia.

Burrows, of Michigan.

Dick, of Ohio.

Crane, of Massachusetts.

Guggenheim, of Colorado.

Democrats:--

Taliaferro, of Florida.

Bankhead, of Alabama.

Taylor, of Tennessee.

Terrell, of Georgia.

We will scrutinize that list and see how the members fared at the

November election. The first four Republicans and the first Democrat as

named in the list were defeated at the last senatorial selection--in

fact they were repudiated by the states they had been representing or

misrepresenting, as the reader cares to take it. As these defeated

toga-smudgers attributed their overthrow largely to newspaper and other

periodical attacks upon them, Mr. Hitchcock naturally found them in line

for anything he wanted to visit upon those offensive publications.

Of the other Republicans, Crane, is reputed to be lugging around with him

a large-sized aspiration to be Republican leader in the Senate. If he

cashes that ambition, he must necessarily stand pat with the President

and Hitchcock, in spite of the alleged fact that Senator Crane does not

carry an over-load of esteem for said Hitchcock. The other left-over

Republican member of the committee, Guggenheim, would not be worth

mentioning were it not for the fact that the methods pursued by himself

and his friends in his elevation to senatorial honors have put him in the

class almost removed from criticism. Those methods received much caustic

consideration from newspapers and other periodicals. Simon Guggenheim,

though reputed to be noticeably obtuse in comprehension and decidedly

pachydermatous of integument, is probably neither so dull nor so thick

of skin as not to have felt and to have remembered the exposure the

magazines made of the methods they asserted were used to secure his toga;

methods, it was asserted, which virtually bought his “friends,” both

those in and those out of Colorado’s legislature. Yes, Simon probably

remembers those exposures and the sources from which they emanated.

Entirely aside from that fact, Simon Guggenheim is a dyed-in-the-wool

Administration man. In fact, if reports be true, and his record in

the Senate appears to justify the reports, Senator Guggenheim could

not be other than an Administration man. First, it is said, there are

“official” motives and reasons for his being such, and, second, that

his intellectual equipment is so out of repair, or so lacking in native

operating power, as virtually to disqualify him for any part or position

save that of a nonentity in legislative procedure and affairs.

So Senator Simon “Gugg” must necessarily stand with the President and the

Postmaster General on the “rider” amendment as on any other proposition

_they_ wanted to forward.

As to the hold-over or returned Democratic members of that committee

little needs be said as the Democrats were in the minority anyway.

Senator Bankhead is quite generally recognized as a congenial, obliging

and accommodating politician. In all probability, he would not enter any

strenuous objections to Mr. Hitchcock’s proposed amendment, provided a

hint was given him that the President approved it. That such hint was

handed around quite freely before the committee’s report was submitted to

the Senate is a matter of common knowledge.

Senator Taylor first voted for the rider amendment. Later, however, when

he neared Jericho, the scales appear to have fallen from his eyes and

he then saw things differently. At any rate he later voted against the

amendment.

Senator Terrell of Georgia was ill, and therefore not present when action

was had. It will be seen, then, that the Postmaster General _had his

“discriminating” committee_.

Mr. Hitchcock began his advance on that committee February 1st. He

approached certain of its members on the 1st and 2nd and informed

them, in effect, that he wanted them to urge a second-class amendment

to the postoffice appropriation bill, which the committee had under

consideration. He, it is reported, also assured these senators that

President Taft most earnestly desired that an increase be made in

second-class rates. He got a committee appointed, consisting of Senators

Carter, Crane and others to confer with the President regarding the

matter. Owing, however, to the pending of other legislation in the

Senate (the ship subsidy bill in particular), the matter dragged along

until the 8th of February. During the delay, Hitchcock made sure of

the committee by nailing down Penrose, Crane, Burrows, Carter, Scott,

Bankhead, Taliaferro, Dick and Simon “Gugg.” On the date last named,

Senators Carter and Crane went to the White House “by request” to confer

with the President. The President, it is said on authority, flatly told

the two Senators that they “must” put the amendment into the bill. It

is also reported, and to their credit, that the two Senators argued

strenuously against the expediency of inserting it, pointing out the fact

that such an amendment would go out on a point of order under Senate Rule

XVI. Mr. Hitchcock was present throughout the conference. Incidentally,

it may be likewise noted that Vice-President Sherman dropped in, quite

“by accident” of course, but he showed no hesitancy, it is said, in

participating in the discussion as actively as Postmaster General

Hitchcock had been doing from the beginning of the conference. While the

President and his Postmaster General were arguing with the Senators to

prove to them how important the action was to the Administration; why the

“rider” must go into the bill as an amendment, and probably why it was

“time for all good organization men to come to the aid of the party,” Mr.

Sherman probably dropped a few timely hints to the effect of how easy it

would be, with the gavel in his hands and a quick, true and _favoring_

eye for floor recognitions, _to get around_ Senate Rule XVI. In the end,

Senators Carter and Crane were won over and a meeting of the Postoffice

and Postroads Committee was called for the afternoon of the same day,

Wednesday, February 8th, 1911.

When the committee got together it was found that there was not a single

proposition of any sort relating to second-class mail rates before it for

consideration. Neither was there a written suggestion, recommendation or

report bearing upon that subject before them. Mr. Hitchcock, however, was

present at this committee meeting. He formulated his proposition and the

committee went into session, the discussion being led by Senators Carter

and Crane, who had become “convinced” against their best judgment if

not against their will, in the forenoon of the same day, to support the

amendment. The discussion lasted for several hours, with Mr. Hitchcock’s

deficit occasionally buzzing as his wheels went round. Then the committee

adjourned until the next afternoon, February 9th.

Mr. Hitchcock left the room after the discussion and, it is said, went

immediately and reported to the President. Upon learning that the

attitude of the committee was unfriendly, the President at once began to

turn on more current, not hesitating to use his patronage club in doing

so, reports say.

The committee met, as agreed at its adjournment. _Mr. Hitchcock was

present with his rider amendment all written up and fully varnished and

frescoed, and in two hours Mr. Hitchcock’s rider amendment was tacked

onto the bill_, in wording substantially as it appears on another page.

Then the real fight began. Hitchcock stood to his embrazured guns, to his

reprisal rider, throughout the entire engagement. As an evidence that it

was his rider, or his and President Taft’s, I desire here to present to

the reader points in proof:

That picked “discriminating” Senate committee had a majority of defeated

or otherwise disgruntled politicians. They were defeated or disgruntled

because certain independent periodicals had, figuratively speaking,

peeled the varnish and smooth epidermis off them, thus exposing their

decayed or decaying carcasses to a public not only able to read and

understand, but a public _willing_ to read and understand.

I will offer a few other established facts. Mr. Hitchcock, during the

closing days of the fight, _devoted nearly his entire time to pushing

and advocating his measure, his carefully prepared scheme_. A canvass

of the Senate was made, which canvass led Mr. Hitchcock to believe he

had the votes to put his rider over the course a sure winner. In that,

however, he was mistaken. A number of the Senators had wised up as to the

real purpose and purport of that rider and, in the canvass, they _handed

back to him a little of his own peculiar brand of jolly, which he had

delivered to them in unbroken packages, freight prepaid_.

After his canvass, Mr. Hitchcock still kept his oil tank well filled, and

his “deficit” playing rag-time to boost his rider along. He even kept

his deficit buzzer going after nearly everyone about the Capitol _knew_

that Senators La Follette, Bristow, Owen, Gore, Cummins, Bourne, Clapp,

Beveridge, Borah, Brown and others intended to _talk his rider into the

ditch_ or talk the postoffice appropriation bill into the Sixty-second

Congress.

Yes, Postmaster General Hitchcock, though neither a very competent

nor scrupulous tactician, nor an able manager for any large business,

industrial or other, is a _good fighter_. That much must be said for him.

When a man fights to the last ditch for a lost or losing cause or purpose

as he fought for his “rider,” that man has courage, nerve, whatever we

may call it, in him. At any rate it is a quality which commands respect

and the man possessing such a quality will receive his just meed of

respect wherever men _are_ men.

Mr. Hitchcock worked up a vigorous support for what The Man on the

Ladder considers not only an objectionable cause, but a cause viciously

dangerous to our form of government, to the material welfare of our

people, to their educational advancement as well as to their moral and

intellectual betterment.

That is the reason he opposes the purpose of this rider amendment and

the methods used to enact it into law. In brief, that is why this book

has been written. How Mr. Hitchcock secured a following, even for the

brief period his followers followed, for such a cause and the methods

used to advance it is as difficult for me to work out or solve as

the “Pigs-in-Clover” puzzle or the “How Old Is Ann” problem. He must

certainly have learned some new “holds” or tricks in what Sewell Ford

calls “the confidential tackle,” or he could not have secured so many

“falls” in so short a time for a cause that was bad and for methods even

worse, if such were possible.

Now we will take up the Postmaster General’s somewhat prolific, if not

always lucid, verbiage, to prove that he knows more about the publication

and distribution of publications than the most experienced and successful

periodical publishers have yet learned, however experienced they are and

however hard they have striven to familiarize themselves with the many

intricacies which the business involves.

FOOTNOTES

[1] Now, see here, Samuel, if you have any knock to make about the

liberties I may take with your Saturday Evening Post informative article,

knock me, not my publisher. I may quote and even disfigure a little, but

I assure you the latter will be far this side of the ambulance.

CHAPTER III.

SOME PUBLIC-BUBBLING FIGURES.

Postmaster General Hitchcock’s persistent activity in seeking to push the

“rider” through the Senate was a noticeable feature in the closing hours

of that session of Congress, his industry showing in his daily contact on

the floor of the Senate with the members who seemed pliable or willing

to harken to his wishes in the matter pertaining to the legislation he

wished to have made into law. The following communications, adroit and

carefully worded to Chairman Penrose, boldly justified the increase on

second-class matter, and may be regarded as the dying struggle of the

postoffice head to gain his point.

The italics are the writer’s and set out the controversial

promiscuousness of the Postmaster General. The letters bear date February

14-15, 1911:

WASHINGTON, D. C., February 14, 1911.

MY DEAR SENATOR:--In response to your request I _submit the

following statement_ relative to the section of the postal

appropriation bill, H. R. 31539, now pending in the Senate that

provides for an increase in the postage rate on the advertising

portions of periodical publications mailed as second-class matter.

Under the provision in the bill the postage rate on the

advertising pages of magazines is increased from 1 cent to 4

cents a pound, _but this increase does not apply to newspapers

of any kind_, nor does it affect periodical publications mailing

less than 4,000 pounds each issue. By the terms of the provision

the privilege of carrying advertisements is for the first

time extended to several classes of periodical publications

enumerated in the act of March 3, 1879, namely, the periodical

_publications of benevolent or fraternal organizations, of

regularly incorporated institutions of learning, of trade union

organizations, and of professional, literary, historical, and

scientific societies, including state boards of health_.

As the advertising portions of magazines comprise on an average

about a _third_ of their total weight the effect of an increase

from 1 to 4 cents on the advertising pages will be to advance the

postage rate for second-class matter as a whole about 1 cent,

making the second-class rate 2 cents a pound instead of 1 cent,

as at present. In view of the fact that it costs the government

about 9 cents a pound to handle and transport this class of mail

the proposed increase is an exceedingly moderate one.

In a whole page newspaper advertisement printed on the 12th

instant, signed by 34 of the _principal magazine and periodical

publications_ of the country, it is stated that the increased

rate “will drive a majority of the popular magazines out of

existence, and with them the enormous volume of profitable

first-class mail their advertising creates.” _This charge is made

in the face of the fact that some, if not all, of the signers

of the statement are realizing tremendous profits from the vast

amount of high-priced advertisements._

It has been found _on investigation_ that one of the great

periodical publications signing this protest contained in 21 of

its successive issues, from January 1, 1910, to and including May

21, 1910, exclusive of cover pages, an average of 19,354 agate

lines of advertising matter, which, at the same rate, would make

a total of 1,006,408 lines for the year.

On October 1, 1910, the publisher of this periodical increased

the rate for ordinary advertising in his publication from $5

to $6 an agate line. At the higher rate the _gross value_ of

the ordinary advertising space for one year would amount to

$6,038,448. Increased rates charged for the inside and outside

cover pages would bring $650,000, making a total _gross value_ of

$6,688,448. Allowing a discount of 15 per cent, or $1,003,267,

there would remain as a _total net value_ of the advertising

in this publication for a single year the _tremendous sum of

$5,685,181_. The additional income from advertising resulting

from the increased rates would amount in a year _to $957,107,

which would be much more than sufficient to pay the proposed

higher postage rate of 4 cents a pound on the advertising pages

of the publication during the fiscal year ended June 30, 1910_.

In other words, _the advance in advertising rates for this

periodical will not only meet the higher postage charges, but

will leave a surplus of increased revenue to swell the annual

profits of the magazine_.

In a printed statement recently issued by the president of one

of the leading magazine-publishing companies of New York City,

_the exceedingly profitable nature of the magazine business

was clearly set forth_. According to his statement the profits

of his own magazine for the _month of October, 1910, showed

an increase over the corresponding_ month for 1909 of 100 per

cent on advertisements and 151 per cent on _subscriptions,

making a net annual profit for dividends and surplus, based

on a circulation of 500,000 copies monthly, of $348,980_.

Regarding the periodical-publishing business in general, the

same gentleman says in his statement that “magazine publishers

receive _gross_ incomes as high as $6,000,000 in a single year.

Dividends amounting approximately to $1,000,000 yearly have

been made.” Speaking of the publishers of some of the magazines

joining in the protest against the proposed legislation, he says

that one of them, according to his own statement, realizes a net

profit of $1,000,000 annually; of another, the principal owner

of two great publications, that his gross income is more than

$6,000,000 annually, and that his net profits for the same period

exceed $1,000,000; of another, that his magazine yields more

than 10 per cent on a capital of $10,000,000; of another, that

his net profits are $600,000; of another, that the value of his

advertising space alone is $1,500,000 a year; of another, that

his advertising receipts are $75,000 per month and his profits

are from $600,000 to $800,000 per year; of still another, that

his publishing business represents a profit of 100 per cent a

year to its stockholders.

MY DEAR SENATOR:--On February 13, 1911, Everybody’s Magazine

published in the local newspapers a full page advertisement

attacking the proposed increase in second-class postage carried

by the postal bill now pending in the Senate. In their statement

the publishers claimed to have a circulation of 650,000 copies

per issue and asserted that “the postal measure now before

Congress increases the cost of handling Everybody’s Magazine

$150,000 a year.” They further stated that in view of the fact

that the magazine makes “each year for its stockholders about

$100,000,” the proposed increase would “actually exclude the

magazine from the mails.”

The department’s figures for the calendar year 1910 show that

Everybody’s Magazine mailed at the New York City postoffice

2,898,372 pounds of its issues as second-class matter, on which

the postage at the cent-a-pound rate was $28,983.72. As an

average of one-half of the pages is devoted to advertising, the

proposed increase of 3 cents per pound on such matter would make

the additional postage $43,475.58 per annum instead of $150,000,

as stated by the publishers of the magazine.

Based on the publishers’ statement of 650,000 circulation, the

gross income of Everybody’s would be about $1,550,000 annually,

divided as follows:

200,000 subscriptions, at $1 (net) $200,000

450,000 news-stand sales, at $1 (net) 450,000

150 pages of advertising per month, at $500 per page 900,000

----------

Grand total $1,550,000

Since the publishers state that the magazine makes each year for

its stockholders only about $100,000, the approximate cost of

publication reaches the surprisingly high figure of $1,450,000.

Using their own statement showing a circulation of 650,000, it

appears that Everybody’s issues 7,800,000 single copies annually.

If their total net profits are only $100,000, it is evident that

it must cost the publishers approximately 19 cents to place a

copy of the magazine in the hands of a reader who can secure it

on the news stand for 15 cents.

Before your committee reported the bill providing for the

increased rate on second-class matter, the publishers of

Everybody’s Magazine announced that on and after March 6, 1911,

their rates for ordinary advertising would be advanced from $500

to $600 a page. On the extremely conservative estimate that the

magazine carries a monthly average of 150 advertising pages, this

advance will produce an additional income of $150,000 per annum.

As the proposed increase of postage during a like period will

amount to approximately $43,500, it is evident that out of the

increase of revenue alone the magazine will be able to pay the

additional postage and still retain a considerable surplus for

its stockholders.

Yours, very truly,

FRANK H. HITCHCOCK,

_Postmaster General_

Investigations recently made by the Postoffice Department

show that large numbers of periodical publications already

entered as second-class matter are in reality nothing more than

trade catalogues, which, under the law, ought to be treated

as third-class matter and subjected to a postage charge of 8

cents a pound, which is the rate for catalogues. By inserting

a few pages of reading matter, these publications succeeded

in being classed as magazines and thus secured admission at

the cent-a-pound rate. Among publications of this kind is one

containing 140 pages, 99 per cent of which are devoted to

advertisements; another containing 562 pages, 97 per cent of

which are devoted to advertisements; another containing 238

pages, 93 per cent of which are devoted to advertisements; and

another containing 268 pages, 89 per cent of which are devoted

to advertisements. Almost the entire space in these publications

is devoted to the carrying of commercial advertisements, and

this in defiance of the statute specifically excluding from the

second-class privileges “publications designed primarily for

advertising purposes.”

By the proposed law, magazines, in so far as they provide public

information, are left exactly on a par with newspapers and the

smaller periodicals, for the increase of rate of 3 cents a pound

attaches only to such portions of the magazines as are devoted to

advertising purposes.

The stock argument of magazine publishers that the profit to the

government on first-class matter induced by the advertisements in

their publications offsets any loss incurred by reason of the low

postage rate on second-class matter is disproved by the fact that

the government’s entire profit on first-class matter is less than

the total loss on second-class mail matter.

During the fiscal year 1910 over 800,000,000 pounds of

second-class matter were carried through the mails at a loss to

the government of $62,000,000. The profits on all other classes

of mail matter were more than swallowed up by this tremendous

loss, leaving a postal deficit for the year of about $6,000,000.

It is estimated that the annual saving to the government through

the proposed increase in postage will amount to about $6,000,000,

or enough to wipe out what remains of the deficit.

Magazines have repeatedly increased their advertising rates

as their circulation has grown, but the postal charges for

the handling and transportation of these magazines have

remained stationary for years, so that while this increased

circulation has swollen the profits of the publishers it has

added correspondingly to the loss sustained by the government.

It is clearly inequitable that the public in its general

correspondence, the publishers of books and pamphlets, and the

senders of small merchandise should continue to be taxed to meet

the deficit caused by a subsidy enjoyed by the publishers of the

large magazines.

Yours, very truly,

FRANK H. HITCHCOCK,

_Postmaster General_.

MY DEAR SENATOR:--Observing that the periodical publishers in

their opposition to the pending provision increasing postage on

second-class mail matter frequently refer to the low rate of

one-fourth cent per pound charged by the Dominion of Canada on

newspapers and periodicals, I think it well to point out the

fact that while this exceptionally low rate does prevail in

that country because of the peculiar conditions there, European

countries, so far as our information goes, charge a higher rate

than the United States, notwithstanding their much smaller

areas. The rates charged by Great Britain, Germany, and France

are considerably higher than the rate provided for in the bill

now pending in the Senate. I inclose herewith a memorandum giving

such information as we have regarding the postage rates charged

on newspapers and periodicals by European countries.

Yours, very truly,

FRANK H. HITCHCOCK,

_Postmaster General_.

_Postage rate, in cents per pound, on newspapers and periodicals

in European countries._

Cents.

Great Britain (one forty-first of the area of the United

States), 1 cent a copy for local delivery, but for general

distribution by parcels post in quantities, 6 cents for

the first pound and 2 cents for each additional pound up

to 11 pounds.

Germany (one-seventeenth of the area of the United States) 4⅘

France (one-seventeenth of the area of the United States) 4

Italy (one thirty-third of the area of the United States):

Daily newspapers 1⅛

Other publications 2

Holland (one two-hundred-and-eighty-fourth of the area of

the United States) 1⅘

Belgium (one three-hundred-and-eighteenth of the area of

the United States) 1⅕

Under the provisions of the International Postal Convention,

newspapers and periodicals are mailed by all the signatory

parties at the uniform rate of 1 cent for each 2 ounces or

fraction thereof--practically, 8 cents per pound.

Postmaster General Hitchcock in his letter, submitted under date of

February 14, 1911, quotes some publisher (name not mentioned), as saying

that “magazine publishers receive _gross_ incomes as high as $6,000,000

in a single year” … “that one of them, according to his own statement,

realizes a net profit of $1,000,000 annually” … another, “the principal

owner of two great magazines, says that his _gross_ income is more than

$6,000,000 a year;” of another “that his magazine yields more than 10%

profit on a capitalization of $10,000,000,” etc., etc.

Beyond stating that the foregoing declarations were made by the

“President of one of the leading magazine publishing companies of New

York city,” Mr. Hitchcock sayeth not, save as he quotes (see seventh

paragraph of the Hitchcock letter), this President as saying what Mr.

Hitchcock says he said. The Postmaster General does not name this

“President.”

Regretting this oversight of our Postmaster General very much, I would

like to know whether or not this “President” is the real, genuine

article of president, or is merely one of these “phoney” presidents who

laboriously support the honors of the corporate title and vote three

shares of stock, usually _given_ by the promoters of an organization for

the “influence” of an honored name in starting the wheels to revolve.

I mean by this that it would be _information_ to thousands of Mr.

Hitchcock’s readers, as well as to thousands of publishers and printers,

_and numerous millions of American citizens_, had he, Mr. Hitchcock,

told them whether this “President” he quotes so liberally, likewise

confidently and confidingly, is a real, live-wire president, active in

the management of his periodical, and, therefore, fully informed as to

its business, expenditures, profits, etc., etc., or, on the other hand,

whether or not he is merely a corporation stool-bird for the promotion of

a publication enterprise through selling the stock of the concern to the

E. Z.-Mark investing public.

The quotations which our Postmaster General makes from this publisher

“President” sound to me with quite a familiar _tang_. They read a

good bit like a promotion circular, like an “annual statement” which

corporations and companies as well as individuals print and distribute

to call attention to the prosperous _future_ they have in sight,

incidentally inviting _investment_ from savings banks accounts, stocking

hoardings, etc.

Nothing wrong about that method of “public bubbling” at all. Even banking

institutions, national and state, sometimes resort to it. Occasionally,

commercial houses have used it. So, also, has the Steel Corporation,

when it wished its employes to chip in a few millions for “a personal

interest.” Our friend, “Bet-You-a-Million-Gates,” used it to advantage in

reorganizing the Louisville and Nashville system, and it is a practice

now and again indulged in among our Napoleons of finance, as well as

great captains in the industrial realm.

For this reason I cannot--until our Postmaster General further

enlightens us regarding this publisher-president as to his personality,

individuality and general business activity in and knowledge of, his

own publication business,--say anything in adverse criticism of this

“President” Mr Hitchcock quotes so liberally, likewise unctuously.

However, having been a periodical publisher myself, in a small way, I

shall presume here to present a few figures _approximately_ applicable

to larger periodical enterprises. Mr. Hitchcock has much to say about

_gross_ receipts, _gross_ revenues, and other _gross_. I shall present

my estimate of _net profits_. For this purpose, I shall take a monthly

periodical reputedly issuing 650,000 copies a month, each number weighing

about one pound.

Now, let it be here distinctly understood by the reader that my figures,

mostly estimates, are those of a man with experience only as a small

periodical publisher, say of 50,000 a month, not 650,000.

Estimated income of the publisher of a standard monthly periodical

distributing 650,000 copies monthly of average weight of one pound each,

Mr. Hitchcock figures to be (see his letter), about $6,000,000. The gross

annual receipts from subscriptions on a periodical issuing 650,000 copies

per month, and retailing at 15 cents per copy, is less than $750,000.

Such periodicals realize about 12½ cents each for subscribed copies and

8 cents net for copies delivered in bulk to newsdealers and agencies.

The first item of expense the publisher incurs, therefore, is in the

issue cost of production over what he receives for the copies issued.

It is knowledge common to every periodical publisher, newspaper as well

as magazine, that every subscriber as well as news-stand buyer of his

periodical is a _subsidized reader_. Do you catch the import of that

statement?

Did you ever think of that, Mr. Reader? Frankly I confess that I did not,

until quite recently, when a large producer of trade journals and edition

books, and likewise one of our largest manufacturing printers, pointed

out the facts to me. His varied business interests are such that he must

necessarily buy at the lowest market cost, must know to the fraction of a

cent what those costs are--the cost of composition, of presswork, of ink,

of color work, of covers, of binding, of cartage, of rail haulage, of

distribution, etc., etc.

Well, this gentleman summoned me off the ladder, and “called” me in a way

which made my landing somewhat abrupt, in order to tell me some things

about periodical publishing which he had shrewdly, likewise correctly,

guessed that I did not know.

Among the things he told me, not only told me but proved to me, was the

one stated: that readers of periodicals get, _in net mechanical cost,

more than the publishers receive for the publication sold_.

In proof of this he cited the 8-page dailies issued in cities of the

second and third classes, and the 16 to 32-page dailies published in

our metropolitan cities; also the great “Sunday Editions” issued by the

latter, issues which run more largely to color and _tonnage_ than to news

and literature. The former, (the dailies), my publisher friend pointed

out, realize about _six-tenths of one cent a copy_--a little less, if

they do cartage for any considerable part of their local deliveries or

pay rail haulage charges on outside deliveries. Of course, my tutor

is speaking of news agents and carrier deliveries. On their regular

subscribed issues publishers realize a little more. But the difference,

when cost of wrapping and addressing is figured, is so trifling as not

to be worth considering. It can be safely figured that the net price

received by the publisher of a newspaper is six-tenths of one cent

for the daily and about three and a half cents--probably nearer three

cents--for the leviathan metropolitan Sunday edition.

Just here is where my publisher friend’s knowledge of _market costs_ came

forth for my enlightenment and, I sincerely hope, for my reader’s as

well. Having studied his business from the “stumpage” up, so to speak, he

began with the cost of pulp wood timber, “of stumpage,” from the spruce

forests of the north and farther north, the scattered linn or basswood

of the east and southeast, and of the soft maple and cottonwood of the

southeast and south. Then he told me of the prices paid the “lumber

jacks” to fell and saw this pulp-wood; of the cost of hauling it by ox,

mule or horsepower to the river “roll-way,” which river would carry it

down to the pulp mill, or hauling it to the railroad loading station for

rail carriage to the same point.

Nor did he do that only. He told me the price of the “web press roll”

and of “flat-print” papers into which the wood pulp is made, paper stock

on which is printed all our periodicals--both newspapers and monthly

and weekly periodicals. Next he told me of the price of composition,

(typesetting, as we used to call it), by the most modern methods, the

linotype and the monotype machines. Then he talked of ink and presswork

costs, of color work, folding, stitching and covering or binding; of the

cost of wrapping, addressing, cartage, rail haulage and distribution.

The result of the expert’s showing of the _cost_ of raw material and of

skilled and other labor in periodical publication, as the periodicals are

printed and marketed today, was to the effect that the reader gets his

daily, weekly or monthly publication, on an average, _at less than half

what it costs the publisher to produce it_.

Further, it was conclusively shown to me, that the publisher’s _net_

receipts for a newspaper, magazine or other periodical is often but a

third, sometimes less than _a fourth_, of the net cost to him of its

production and distribution.

With this preliminary, we will now go back to our magazine of 650,000

monthly issue and Postmaster General Hitchcock’s estimate of its profits.

Postmaster General Hitchcock’s talk of “gross” receipts of $6,000,000

a year is ill advised. Let us see what must be charged off from that

$6,000,000 before the publisher can count his profits.

First, we will figure the publisher’s loss on published copies. Taking

only the flat cost of paper, ink and composition; of the cost of fine

color and half-tone pages such as monthly periodicals must print; of

cover designing, presswork, and binding, of wrapping and addressing, say

150,000 copies of the monthly issue to individual addresses, that being,

approximately at least, the number of subscribed readers the publisher

will have on a total issue of 650,000 copies. Next comes the cost of

sacking his subscribed circulation and of bundling and wrapping, then

of cartage to mail trains. The prominent periodical publisher not only

delivers his subscribed list _sacked_ to the mail car, but he _routes_

the larger portion of it, the railway mail clerks having nothing to do

with it save to dump it off at the designated stations. Then he must

meet the carriage and delivery cost, about 1 cent a pound, or $20.00

a ton. All these I consider _flat_ costs of producing and delivering

the publication. To this flat cost must be added the expenditures for

contributing writers, for editors, proofreaders and special investigators

(including travel and other expenses), stenographers, postage and

stationery for a large correspondence, clerical, messenger and other

administration service, rents, insurance, etc., etc. And, finally, the

expenditures made in the way of commissions and premiums to work up a

subscribed issue.

A monthly periodical of the size and character which Postmaster General

Hitchcock has reference to--of the size and character to win its way to

an issue of 650,000 copies a month--must cost its publisher not less, on

an average, than 30 cents per copy, probably more. The subscribing reader

pays 12½ cents per copy for it--pays directly to the publisher. The

news stand buyer pays 15 cents a copy, but the publisher, after paying

newsdealer and agency commissions on the latter sales, realizes but _8

cents per copy_. Here let us see how this publisher’s circulation-cost

and receipts figure out. Six hundred and fifty thousand monthly issue

figures to an issue of 7,800,000 copies for the year. At 30 cents’ cost

of production, which is rather low than high, those copies cost the

publisher to produce, to get readers for and to distribute, the annual

total of $2,340,000. He realizes in return from subscription and news

stand sales about as follows:

From news stand and agency sales (500,000 per month,

or 6,600,000 copies a year), he realizes 8 cents per copy or $480,000

From subscribers (150,000 per month or 1,800,000 a

year), at 12½ cents each 225,000

--------

Total receipts $705,000

Thus it is clear that for an expenditure of $2,340,000 a year to produce

and distribute his excellent _low-priced_ periodical to readers, the

publisher gets in return only $705,000, thus standing a net loss of

$1,635,000 on his mechanical output--no, on his _literary and educational

output_. And, mark you, that $705,000 Mr. Hitchcock must, necessarily,

have included in his “gross” receipts. How, then, is the publisher able

to furnish his readers such literary and educational nourishment at so

great a loss on production?

There is but one answer: The advertising carried by the periodical

must recoup the loss on publication and yield the publisher whatever

profit he may realize. Yet Mr. Hitchcock, in the profound profundity of

his knowledge of periodical publishing, figures that the advertising

receipts are clear profit to the publisher. True, he does, in one of his

urgent letters to Senator Penrose, I believe it is, incidentally admit a

possible maximum cost or expense of “fifteen per cent” in securing and

printing the advertisements. “Fifteen per cent!”

Omitting all undigestible words, I shall merely say that Mr. Hitchcock’s

fifteen per cent talk--about the cost of soliciting and printing

advertising matter by any of our high-class periodicals, shows a

knowledge of the subject nearly on the level of that of a cold-storage

egg.

Why, fifteen per cent of the gross receipts for advertising by any of

our high-class periodicals scarcely would meet--I doubt if in any such

case it does _meet_--the expenditures made for skilled “layout” men

and designers. Everyone knows that the advertising pages of any of our

standard weekly and monthly periodicals are _art pages_. People _read_

the “ads” in these periodicals. They are largely attracted to them by

their artistic arrangement, typographically and in design. It takes

_brains_ to make that arrangement, brains of finer fiber or better

trained than the cold storage variety. The service of such brains _costs

money_. Who pays it? _The publisher._ And the publisher who gets the

services of such brains at less than fifteen per cent of the “gross”

charge for his advertising must, in these days, be a wonder in business

acumen or a “pow’ful ’suadin’ boss,” as Rastus used to say, down on the

Yazoo, years ago, when he took a job at twenty-five cents a day less than

he had asked.

I say the people _read_ these “ads” and, fearing I shall forget it later,

I desire to interpolate here another thought: They are led to read them

because of the artistic letterpress, the designing, the attractive

phrasing, catchy wording, etc. They read them. _You_ and _I_ read them.

And--well, that is my point--my thought.

The “ads” in periodicals of the class of which we are speaking cover

almost every field and domain of life--of human life--of _our_ lives.

They tell us of the latest inventions and achievements in the mechanical

and industrial world; of the latest improvements in the cultivation of

the land; of the latest and best in “hen range” management and “run-way”

poultry raising; of the latest achievements of Luther Burbank, or some

other wizard in the domain of pomology; of kitchen and flower gardening;

of how to cut down our gas bills; to make the ton of coal deliver more

“duty”--more thermic B. T. U.’s--of the best new books and of bargain

reprint editions of the best old ones; of where to get a cheap home,

cheap acres around it and how to build and furnish a comfortable home

cheaply; in fact, of an infinity of daily and hourly needs. So what is

the use of my enumerating further? Every reader knows what those “ads”

in our standard periodicals do for us. They enlighten, they inform, they

_educate_ us. And that is why we read them, and that is why we should

continue to do so.

We will get back now to Mr. Hitchcock and his “wondrous ways” of figuring

a publisher’s profits on the advertising he prints. Postmaster General

Hitchcock appears to have ignored the fact I have already pointed

out--ignored the fact that the publisher’s heaviest loss is on the

printing and distribution end of his periodical, and thus is a charge

against his advertising receipts.

Mr. Hitchcock, so far as I have been able to read him, furthermore

ignores the important fact that advertisements are secured for a

periodical largely by solicitation. Of course, the “Want,” “To Rent,”

“For Sale” and similar small line “ads” come to newspapers largely

without personal solicitation. But the display advertiser does not

frantically rush to the publisher and say: “Here’s my check for $500.00.

Give me a page display for this line of goods.” Not at all. The publisher

must go after him and, not infrequently, go after him numerous times

before he lands his $500.00 or $5,000.00 contract or order. To secure

such advertisements the publisher employs the most skilled advertising

solicitors within reach of his bank balance. Such men, if carried on his

regular payroll, are among the “high-salaried” human units which make

up the operating, managing and service personnel of his business. If

they are not on regular salary the publisher must pay such men a liberal

commission on the contracts secured, a commission seldom or never as

low as 10 per cent and I have known them to range as high as 40 or 50

per cent of the gross price received on the first or initial contract,

“just to show the advertiser what we can do for him,” as the publisher

frequently reasons.

TESTIMONY UNDER OATH.

Senate Document No. 820 presents a reply by some publishers to

Mr. Hitchcock’s loose or reckless statements on the point under

consideration. I wish to appropriate for use here some very manifestly

truthful statements made in that Senate Document No. 820. I shall

summarize or quote as best fits my line of presentation.

In 1909 the publishers of five standard magazines, admittedly carrying

“the largest amount of advertising” among the monthly periodicals,

made _a sworn statement_ covering their receipts, expenditures and net

profits. That sworn statement is on file in the Department of Commerce

and Labor and is easily accessible to the Postmaster General if he

desires to know a little something of what _the publishers know about

their own business_. The publishers of the five periodicals thus making

sworn statements to the government of their incomes, expenditures and

profits, are the publishers of “Everybody’s,” “McClure’s”, “The Review

of Reviews,” “The Cosmopolitan” and “The American.”

The named periodicals, it will be at once recognized, if not the

strongest, at least are among the strongest monthly periodicals of this

country. Yet these sworn statements show that Mr. Hitchcock’s proposed

increase of 3 cents a pound in their mailing rates would, under present

conditions, _exhaust “81.8 percent of their net profits_.”

If Mr. Hitchcock’s proposal, prompted, it would appear, by ulterior

motives, as was recently evidenced by his _voluminous_ buttonholing of

interested or “interests” Senators and Congressmen to put his “rider”

over--no, maybe it is not really his, but _it looks like him_--for an

increase on second-class matter would, if made operative, would so

seriously impair the financial strength of five such _strong_ periodicals

as those named, what, it is the part both of duty and of honesty to ask,

will become of the _scores_ of smaller periodicals, especially of those

periodicals which issue more than “two tons” at a mailing and which

serve, inform and _educate_ a reading patronage that needs them?

If Mr. Hitchcock’s actions in this matter are clean and open--not

“influenced”--he might not only serve himself but a good and worthy

cause as well, if he would give some pointers to these smaller

publishers--those between his “4,000 pounds an issue” exemptions from

his four-cent rate and the stronger periodical publications, five of

which are before him in sworn statement. If he would give, I say, these

middle-class publishers--we may so call them for the comparison in hand,

though their published matter is of the _highest class_ all the time--if

he would give such publishers some method or scheme to keep from the

financial rocks, they, I am quite sure, would greatly appreciate it.

Possibly they would put him on their free lists in perpetuity.

Mr. Hitchcock appears to be a phenomenon at “figurin’” and for the

devising of methods to obliterate postoffice “deficits;” also at

following the ulterior motive and its “influence,” and still provide,

by exemptions or otherwise, to protect the “fence-building” country

newspapers,--indeed newspapers in general, now that I read him again.

Likewise he protects the farm, the religious, the scientific, the

mechanical and other publications whose influence, it appears, does not

_obstructively_ influence the “influences” which have directed his recent

action.

I do not know who wrote that Senate Document No. 820. Whoever it was,

he certainly knew “a gob of things,” as our splendid friend, the

washerwoman, would put it, about the United States Postoffice Department,

its management and its methods. I shall probably “crib” or plagiarize

several times from this Senate Document No. 820, but just here I desire

to quote a paragraph from it:

“Postmaster General Hitchcock’s profound ignorance concerning the

relation of magazine advertising to magazine profits is shown by the

fact that although these magazines received in 1909, $2,463,940.39

for advertising, the aggregate of their net incomes was only

$230,734.57,--less than one-tenth of their advertising receipts.”

This Document No. 820 is all good, so good that I believe I will reprint

from it further and at this point:

Postmaster General Hitchcock proceeds in the first and second

paragraphs on page four to cite a recent increase of advertising

rates of a certain magazine, and to consider, and use in

figuring, as net profits the _total amount of advertising it

carries for the year_.

(It is of incidental interest, in showing the _partisan attitude_

of the Postmaster General, that in calculating the total amount

of advertising received by this publication, he takes the number

of lines actually printed in this weekly’s _richest advertising

season_, ignoring the fact that in the summer this periodical

is sometimes published at a loss, and makes an estimate of its

advertising patronage for the whole year on the basis of what it

received in the months when advertising is at its height).

But the gigantic error of the Postmaster General is in

calculating the additional income from advertising for this

weekly resulting from its increased advertising rate, and

assuming that this increased income is all profit. This error

arises from the Postmaster General’s _total ignorance_ of the

publishing business in general; and in particular, of the fact

proved above, that the magazines save only a small fraction of

their aggregate advertising income as net profits after paying

the expenses of production and administration.

Then the Postmaster General finds out how much money the

increased rate brought the periodical and observes with an air of

finality that this income was more than sufficient to meet the

higher postal charges.

The facts are, of course, that to get this higher advertising

rate, the “great periodical” had to publish enough more copies

and additional reading matter in those copies to justify the

increased rate; and that to manufacture and supply these

additional subscriptions it costs magazines more than twice as

much as they get from subscribers. Furthermore, the Postmaster

General takes gross advertising income as net profit, apparently

thinking that advertising flows into periodical offices without

the asking, where, as a matter of fact, it is necessary to spend

enormous sums for high-priced men to solicit advertising, for

other men to lay out plans and make designs for advertisers, and

for a large clerical force to handle the advertising department.

The calm way in which the Postmaster General ignores the cost of

presswork and paper on which the advertising is printed, exhibits

his ignorance of the fact that there is in business an expense

side of the ledger as well as an income side.

If a magazine has 100,000 circulation and a fair corresponding

rate for advertising and if the circulation is then increased to

200,000, the publisher has the same right and the same necessity

to charge more for the doubled circulation that a grocer has

to charge more for two pounds of tea than for one pound. But

what possible relation has this to the fact that postage rates

have remained stationary? _The postoffice gives no more service

than it did before magazine circulations and advertising

increased_--in fact it gives less, as it now requires the big

magazines to separate and tag for distribution, and, in many

cases, deliver to the trains, _a vast quantity of magazine mail,

formerly handled entirely by the postoffice_.

I wonder if Mr. Hitchcock ever read “Job Jobson, Nos. 1, 2 and 3.” If

he has not there is something due him which he ought to take immediate

steps to collect. “Job Jobson” in three little pamphlets tells _more_

than either Mr. Hitchcock or myself will ever be able to learn about

second-class mail carriage and handling--unless, of course, we read those

three booklets of Job Jobson.

Why are Job Jobson’s three booklets so important? A very pertinent

question, indeed, at this stage of our consideration. Job Jobson’s three

booklets are toweringly important inasmuch as they were written by Wilmer

Atkinson, publisher of the Farm Journal of Philadelphia, one of the most

successful as well as the most _useful_ farm periodicals the world has

ever produced.

More than that, Mr. Atkinson has so long and so thoroughly studied this

second-class mail rate question that both Mr. Hitchcock and myself would

have to take our places in the kindergarten class where he is tutor.

I haven’t those three “Job Jobson’s” by me. I have thumbed two of them

out of existence, but from the one I have I desire to quote a couple of

paragraphs which I hope it will do Mr. Hitchcock as much good to read as

it does me to re-read. Here they are in all their vigor:

Publishers, one and all, should take their stand upon the

immutable principle that newspaper circulation is not a crime,

and it is not a fault, that neither a law on the statute books,

much less arbitrary power outside the law, should ever be invoked

to curtail the liberty and independence of the press, which are

a sacred inheritance from the fathers; or to cripple newspaper

enterprises or bankrupt those engaged in this noble calling.

That to send their papers into the very confines of the republic,

into every home, however rich, however humble, to brighten and

to bless, is a great and beneficent work, worthy of all praise

and all honor--worthy of the nurturing care, rather than the

antagonism of government.

And that was written only a few years ago--written _true to the facts_. I

desire here to quote a couple more paragraphs. They have been published

generally throughout the country and universally indorsed. They are

written by the Hon. Woodrow Wilson, Governor of New Jersey:

A tax upon the business of the more widely circulated magazines

and periodicals would be a tax upon their means of living and

performing their functions. They obtain their circulation by

their direct appeal to the popular thought. Their circulation

attracts advertisers. Their advertisements enable them to pay

their writers and to enlarge their enterprise and influence.

This proposed new postal rate would be a direct tax, and a very

serious one, upon the formation and expression of opinion--its

most deliberate formation and expression--just at a time when

opinion is concerning itself most actively and effectively with

the deepest problems of our politics and our social life. To make

such a change, whatever its intentions in the minds of those who

proposed it, would be to attack and embarrass the free processes

of opinion.

CHAPTER IV.

BUREAUCRATIC POWERS SOUGHT.

I have before me the Postmaster General’s report for 1910. It presents

a large amount of information both in statistical tabulation and in

“straight matter.” A portion of the former, however, leaves the average

lay mind rambling around in circles, wondering what in the name of all

that is lofty it was compiled for, what service value it can possibly

have and what was the ailment from which the fellow who compiled it

suffered; that is, was his a case merely of bad liver or indigestion, or

a serious case of ingrown intellect, struggling to help his fellowmen

know how real dizzy and foolish tabulated figures can be made to appear?

Mr. Hitchcock in this 1910 report has separated himself from some

striking oddities, about as serviceably valuable as a smoking compartment

would be to a laundry wagon. Of course, it may be that Mr. Hitchcock

did not write the division of this report signed by him. Some talented

secretary, clerk or assistant may have cranked it up. However that may

be, do not let what I here say deter you from looking through this 1910

report should it come your way. It contains a variety of excellent

things, some valuable information, well collated and intelligibly

presented. The foolishness and fooleries in it are--well, they are of

the kind common to all, or at least most, departmental reports, federal,

state, county and city. Much of the tabulated “statistics” in each can

have no possible service value either in this world or the next--even

assuming that statistics and statisticians will be recognized at all in

that division of the “next” to which we all aspire.

As to the “straight matter” in these departmental reports, one often

finds in it some most excellent suggestions, as is certainly the case

with Mr. Hitchcock’s 1910 production. One also finds a lot of other

suggestions and space-written stuff that would make a totem laugh--that

is, of course, presuming a totem could laugh and had advanced as far as

the third grammar school grade in reading.

And the “literary style” of these official reports; so aerial in

elevation, so officially dignified in “tone,” so profusely profound or

profoundly profuse in elaboration and detail, and often so _trivial_ in

significance or import!

If they were still with us, the “literary” standard of most of these

departmental reports would make Bertha M. Clay hug the rail and E. P. Roe

carry weight. But, of course, one must not look for nor expect literary

exaltedness in a departmental report. It should, however, tell us--_we

people_--a good many things we wish to know, in fact, _ought_ to know.

It should not give us too much talk merely to show us how much--or how

little--some chief or assistant knows. If you get the opportunity, read

the Postmaster General’s 1910 report, and you will find many things in it

that will jar you loose from your expectations, but do not be alarmed at

that. Just keep in mind the fact that you can come as near reciting the

Rubaiyat backwards as can Postmaster General Hitchcock, and that you at

least know Old Mother Hubbard “by heart” as well as he knows it.

The point I am trying to make--to emphasize--is that Mr. Hitchcock’s

1910 report presents much valuable information for you and me. So

you should not allow its follies to scare you off. For instance, the

Postmaster General’s fifty notations of “Improvements in Organization and

Methods.” Why he should stop at a round fifty I do not know. I believe

he could easily have added twenty or thirty more _of kind_. Some of

these “improvements” are most excellent; some of them are so assumedly

conclusive on matters previously--for years--in doubt and controversy as

to touch off the risibles in any man who has made anything like a careful

study of conditions governing the Postoffice Department. For instance,

his “Improvement” numbered 10 reads:

“The successful completion of an _inquiry_ into the cost of handling and

transporting mail of the several classes and of conducting the money

order, registry and special delivery services.”

We can _hope_ that the aforesaid “inquiry” was so carefully and

comprehensively conducted as to entitle it to be classed as “successful”

as Mr. Hitchcock’s statement is assertive. However, just how far we may

prudently indulge such hope is a matter for grave consideration. The

Postmaster General’s Third Assistant, James J. Britt, attempts to tell us

(pp. 328-329, 1910 report), all about it. Mr. Britt will be referred to

later.

Again: Mr. Hitchcock in his No. 11 “Improvement,” reports “the

successful prosecution of an inquiry into the cost _to the railroad

companies_ of carrying the mails, the result of which will form

a _reliable basis_ for fixing rates of pay for railroad mail

transportation.”

Now, if Mr. Hitchcock has really and truly so conducted an “inquiry” as

to ascertain a “_reliable basis_” of pay for the mail haulage service

rendered by the railroads--“a reliable basis” that can be built upon,

acted upon and _enforced_--if he has done that, then he deserves a niche

in the Hall of Fame. But here, again, I am doubtful. Did you take Britt’s

word for it, Mr. Hitchcock, or did you steer the “inquiry” yourself? The

only point of interest to us of the commonalty involved in your eleventh

improvement is: Can you, or any other Postmaster General, compel or

persuade the railroads to carry the mail at a reasonable rate? Will such

rate be based upon that “reliable basis” you say you have ascertained?

Grant us but that and we shall ask no more nor will you have any

“deficits” to worry about. I know you explain quite fully (pp. 18-20),

as to how you went about it, how Congress made appropriation for a force

of “temporary clerks” to tabulate the information, the data which your

“successful” inquiry brought to the surface. Still, knowing something

about the _devious_ peculiarities of the railways in the past--say, back

to the Wolcott investigation (at this moment I forget the year when this

was made and have neither the time nor the opportunity to climb down

and look it up)--unless the railways have had a rush of honesty and

conscience into their reports, accounts and _practices_, I am gravely

_doubtful_ as to the dependability of the data your “inquiry” uncovered.

Of course, if you went after them, backed by a court order calling for a

showdown, Mr. Hitchcock, you may have arrived somewhere in the vicinity

of the facts. Otherwise--well, you got about what other _inquirers_

got--_got what the railways wanted you to know_.

I shall make no further specific reference to the fifty improvements the

Postmaster General claims to have covered into operative effectiveness.

It is due, however, that I say, in this connection, that the majority of

those named in the report are sound, sane and _serviceably_ economic. It

is also due from me to say that I personally know that Mr. Hitchcock has

already made a number of them effectively operative in his department

and to the betterment of its service. My contention with the Postmaster

General is chiefly concerning three points, viz.:

_First_--His manifest intent to throw the burden of his departmental

deficit upon a few _independent_ periodicals which, by reason of their

independence, have indulged the proclivity or practice of _telling the

truth about corporate, vested and other favored interests, and about

corrupt officials--city, county, state, national, executive, legislative

and juridic_.

_Second_--His colossally unjust and unfair way of figuring his “deficit”

against such periodicals. Maybe it was Britt, Third Assistant Postmaster

General, or some other “pied” subordinate who did the figuring. I do

not know. However, in common with other citizens, I hold Mr. Hitchcock

responsible for those figures, as we are fully warranted in doing by

reason of his official position.

_Third_--Mr. Hitchcock, it appears, in his reports and letters, gives

us a lot of talk that is _twisted_, “pretzel talk,” someone has aptly

called it. This “night-crawler” talk quite naturally--legitimately, if

not naturally--leaves thoughtful people to wonder what he wants, _what he

is after_, what interest or interests he is trying to subserve and what

“influences” have _influenced_ him to go after certain periodicals in so

_bald and crude a way_.

Still, that does not altogether fully express my third objection to Mr.

Hitchcock and his methods. His letters and special reports in support of

the absurd claim that the transportation and handling of second-class

mail matter costs 9.23 cents per pound, a figure above or equal to that

which will carry gold or currency bills _by express_ for the average

mail haul, furnish valid grounds for doubt as to the good faith of

his intent, to suspicion an _ulterior motive_ back of his action and

writings. To this I do not hesitate to say that his 1910 report, I mean

his own personally signed section of it, is offensively _bureaucratic_.

Mr. Hitchcock, it appears from his own recommendations, would have his

bureau or department bigger than Congress. He wants powers and authority

centered in it which Congress _should not delegate, which Congress has no

rightful powers nor authority to delegate_.

Now, do not misapprehend me. Maybe Mr. Hitchcock has not done all this

on his own initiative. He may have acted wholly on a long-distance or

a central direction from the main stem. I shall, however, proceed to

support my accusation that Mr. Hitchcock evidences in his 1910 report a

desire--a tendency, if not a desire,--to make the Postmaster General not

only a censor of periodical literature (as indicated in the wording of

that “rider” amendment printed on a previous page), but to have delegated

to him powers over the mail service which not only contravene the basic

principles of a democratic form of government, but which, also, tend

to establish a bureaucracy that, if carried to its full flower, will,

necessarily _abrogate our form of government itself_.

Here let us note Mr. Hitchcock’s recommended legislation. In the report

before me he makes thirty-six recommendations. In each of these which

grants added powers or authority touching any matter, the wording of

the suggested legislation gives such added powers and authority to the

_Postmaster General_. In certain minor matters, especially such as relate

only to departmental methods of handling its service accounts, etc., such

grant of power is entirely proper. Among Mr. Hitchcock’s recommendations

are several of such character, and, so far as I have studied them, they

appear sound, and consequently their passage by Congress and their

application to the department would, in my judgment, effect material

savings or betterments in the service.

In a number of other instances, however, Mr. Hitchcock asks legislation

that will grant him (or any succeeding head of the federal Postoffice

Department), powers and authority which _should be granted to no bureau

or departmental division of our government service_. I mean that

the acquirement of such legislative powers and authority by bureaus

(cabinet service divisions), is inimical to the basic principles of our

government; in fact, it is a _stealthy_ move to establish in this country

the bureaucratic form of government which has proved a curse in every

existing monarchical government, causing their peoples to rebel against

them, or constantly a condition of unrest under the system--a condition

which indicates either _enforced_ submission to governmental wrongs and

impositions or a dwarfed and submerged manhood, “begging for leave to

live” and devoting most of its thought to a few questions, such as: “Why

did I arrive? What am I here for? I work, why does the government take

most of my earnings? Why does the government and its bureau heads live,

live in luxury, while I and my wife and children merely exist,--barely

subsist? _Why are hundreds of millions taken every year from people who

need it to secure the common comforts of life, and given, unearned, to

those who need it not at all?_”

It would require pages even to print the inquiries which the victims of

bureaucratic governments ask themselves daily, ask themselves daily so

long as they _exist above the level of the clod_, above the level which

Edward Markham so forcefully and eloquently depicts in his “Man with the

Hoe.”

The point I desire to emphasize is that when the great body of people

in any country--its “citizens”--begin to ask themselves such questions,

_their patriotism begins to dry-rot and die_, and when the patriotism of

a nation’s people begins to die, that nation is on the farther slope of

its existence; it has started on the decline, more or less sharp, _which

ends in rebellion_, dissolution, extinction. This is the uniform lesson

of history. He who reads it not so reads either not carefully or not

comprehendingly.

To a few of my readers the foregoing may appear to be a digression from

my subject. It is not intended as such. It is intended to call the

reader’s attention to some powers and authority Mr. Hitchcock seeks in

his recommended legislation, _legislation which should not be enacted_.

Let us look at a few of those recommendations. If space permitted, I

would take pleasure in commenting on several more of them.

On page 10 of his report, Mr. Hitchcock repeats a recommendation of his

1909 report. He repeats it “earnestly.” He also expresses the opinion

that “_as soon as the postal savings system is thoroughly organized_,

the Postoffice Department should be prepared to establish throughout

the country a general parcels post.” As a “preliminary step” to such

establishment of a parcels post Mr. Hitchcock seeks authority from

Congress to initiate a “limited parcels post service on rural routes.”

On page 26 of his report, Mr. Hitchcock suggests the _substantials_ of

the legislation he believes necessary to enable him to establish his

contemplated “limited parcels post service on rural routes,” _as an

experimental test_.

As evidence that he wants the power and authority to make this

“experiment” on his own lines and judgment and pursuant of his _own

purposes_ I shall here quote the form of his advised legislation. To

anyone who has made study of parcels post service it is needless to

say that among the civilized nations of the earth the United States

is so far in arrears in such service as to be generally recognized as

an international joke. It is quite needless to say to such that Mr.

Hitchcock’s prattle of a “limited” parcels post and of trying it on

certain _selected_ rural routes (with no privileges of service beyond the

geographical limits of such routes), as an “experiment,” is more than a

mere joke.

Informed people know that any such restricted test of a parcels post

service _is no test at all_. Informed men also know that our Federal

Postoffice Department needs make no “experiments” on the parcels post

service, “limited” or other. Every other civilized nation, and even

provinces such as Canada, Australia, New Zealand and others, have

made the “experiments,” likewise the successful demonstrations. The

experiments of these other nations and provinces, as well as the results

of them, are ours for the asking. Not alone that, but informed men _know,

and know positively_, that our Federal Postoffice Department is in

possession of--_or was in possession of_--all this information gathered

from the experiences and trials and tests of a parcels post service in

these other countries.

So, I repeat that Mr. Hitchcock’s talk about making an experimental test

of the general value of a parcels post service by putting it in operation

on a few _selected_ rural routes is a joke, _or else it is an evasion

in order to delay the installation of a service which every citizen

wants_, save, of course, the few individuals who now own and control

our railroads, _which individuals also own_, to a controlling extent at

least, _our express companies_.

But I must quote Mr. Hitchcock’s advised legislation in order to show the

reader that Mr. Hitchcock desires that the resulting powers and authority

center in him, or in his successors:

In order that the recommendation on page 10 of this report for

the introduction of a limited parcels post service on rural

routes may be promptly carried into effect, it is suggested that

legislation substantially as follows be enacted:

For one year, beginning April 1, 1911, the _Postmaster General

may, under such regulations as he shall prescribe_, authorize

postmasters and carriers on such rural routes _as he shall

select_ to accept for delivery by carrier on the route on

which mailed or on any other route starting at the postoffice,

branch postoffice or station which is the distributing point

for that route, or for delivery through any postoffice, branch

postoffice, or station on any of the said routes, _at such rates

of postage as he shall determine_, packages not exceeding 11

pounds in weight containing no mail matter of the first class

and no matter that is declared by law to be unmailable, and he

shall report to Congress at its next session the results of this

experiment (Page 26, 1910 Report.)

The italics are mine. They make all the comment that is necessary in

proof of my charge that Mr. Hitchcock seeks powers and authority which

should not be delegated to any bureau head.

As a companion piece to the foregoing Mr. Hitchcock asks the following

legislation--legislation which, if granted or enacted, must look to any

man who has given even a cursory study to the subject of parcels post

service, as merely a “stall,” a bit of dilatory play to delay effective

and efficient action to install a serviceable parcels post _until the

express company interests pull down two or three hundred millions more of

unearned profits_.

Following is the companion piece of the last preceding quotation. The

italics are mine and make the only comment that is necessary:

As suggested on page 10 of this report, an investigation should

be authorized as to the conditions under which the transportation

of merchandise by mail may be wisely extended. For this purpose

it is recommended that legislation substantially as follows be

enacted:

_The Postmaster General is hereby directed to ascertain by such

investigation or experiment as is found necessary_, and to report

to Congress at its next regular session, the lowest rates of

postage at which the Postoffice Department can carry by mail,

without loss, parcels not exceeding 11 pounds in weight; and he

is hereby authorized to place in effect for one year, beginning

April 1, 1911, _at such postoffices as he shall select for

experimental purposes_, such rates of postage on fourth-class

matter _as he deems expedient_; and the sum of $100,000 is hereby

appropriated to cover any expenses incurred hereunder, including

compensation of temporary employees and rental of quarters in

Washington, D. C. (Page 26, 1910 Report.)

We will here drop the subject of parcels post for the time. In a later

section of this volume I shall discuss the subject--largely aside from

Mr. Hitchcock’s attempts, as has been authoritatively reported to me, to

delay if not to block its successful installation.

I will make a few more quotations in evidence of Mr. Hitchcock’s desire

to acquire bureaucratic powers:

To provide for a postal note in accordance with the plan

outlined on pages 10 and 11 it is recommended that legislation

substantially as follows be enacted:

_The Postmaster General may authorize_ postmasters at such

offices _as he shall designate_, under such regulations as

_he shall prescribe_, to issue and pay money orders of fixed

denominations not exceeding ten dollars, to be known as postal

notes.

SEC. 2. Postal notes shall be valid for six calendar months from

the last day of the month of their issue, but thereafter may

be paid under such regulations _as the Postmaster General may

prescribe_.

SEC. 3. Postal notes shall not be negotiable or transferable

through indorsement.

SEC. 4. If a postal note has been once paid, to whomsoever paid,

the United States shall not be liable for any further claim for

the amount thereof. (Page 29, 1910 Report.)

Let us next look at a peculiar, “an unusual,” request for legislation

granting authority to the Postmaster General to do a most “unusual”

thing, the granting of salaries higher than $1,200 a year to clerks and

carriers, who are paid under the present law $600 a year, whenever the

postmaster “certifies to the department” that “unusual” conditions in his

community prevent him from securing efficient help. The italics are my

own and make comment unnecessary:

In last year’s report, attention was directed to the desirability

of authorizing the appointment of clerks and carriers at higher

salaries than $600 at offices where unusual conditions prevail.

Congress added to the appropriation for unusual conditions a

proviso that may have been intended to meet the recommendation

of the department, but subsequent experience has shown that it

fails to do so. The proviso referred to has effected so great

a reduction in the amount available for salaries of employees

at offices where conditions are unusual that the service at a

number of such offices cannot be maintained after the close of

the present calendar year, unless additional funds are provided

by Congress. The same law placed a restriction on the maximum

salary allowable, making it impossible for the department to meet

satisfactorily the unusual conditions existing in certain parts

of the country. In order that the needed relief may be afforded

legislation substantially as follows should be enacted:

Whenever a postmaster certifies to the department that, owing to

unusual conditions in his community, he is unable to secure the

services of efficient employees at the initial salary provided

for postoffice clerks and letter carriers, _the Postmaster

General may authorize, in his discretion_, the appointment of

clerks and letter carriers for that office at such higher rates

of compensation within the grades prescribed by law as may be

necessary in order to insure a proper conduct of the postal

business, and their salaries shall be paid out of the regular

appropriation for compensation of clerks and letter carriers:

_Provided_, That whenever such action is necessary in order to

maintain adequate service at any postoffice where conditions are

unusual _the Postmaster General may authorize the appointment

of clerks and letter carriers at salaries higher than $1,200_,

their salaries to be paid out of the appropriation for unusual

conditions at postoffices. (Page 30, 1910 Report.)

I wonder what our Postmaster General is after in asking _re-enactment_

of legislation of this sort, legislation granting him _censorial powers_

without so much as _intimating_ that fact. Maybe some of you organized

labor men, or mercantile tradesmen can tell me. I am listening. _So are

others._

By the act approved May 27, 1908, making appropriations for the

service of the Postoffice Department, it was provided:

That Section 3893 of the Revised Statutes of the United States be

amended by adding thereto the following: And the term “indecent”

within the intendment of this section shall include _matter of a

character tending to incite arson, murder, or assassination_.

The enactment of this statute accomplished beneficial results,

and it does not appear that injustice or undue hardship resulted

therefrom to any person or interest. However, the provision

quoted was not retained in the penal code adopted March 4, 1909,

and became void when the code went into effect on January 1,

1910. On the assumption that the omission was inadvertent, it

is recommended that the provision be re-enacted. (Page 37, 1910

Report.)

Following is one more reach by Mr. Hitchcock for bureaucratic power which

should _not_ be granted:

By virtue of his office the Postmaster General has the power

to conclude money-order conventions with foreign countries

and to prescribe the fees to be charged for the issue of

international money orders. In like manner he should be empowered

to determine, from time to time, as conditions may warrant, the

fees to be charged for the issue of domestic money orders. It is

recommended, therefore, that Section 2 of the act of January 27,

1894, be repealed, and that as a substitute therefor legislation

substantially as follows be enacted:

Section 2 of the act of January 27, 1894, entitled “An act to

improve the method of accounting in the Postoffice Department

and for other purposes,” is hereby repealed. A domestic money

order shall not be issued for more than one hundred dollars,

and the fees to be charged for the issue of such orders _shall

be determined, from time to time, by the Postmaster General:

Provided, however_, that the scale of fees prescribed in said

Section 2 shall remain in force for three months from the last

day of the month in which this act is approved. (Page 38, 1910

Report.)

I have probably quoted sufficient to show that Postmaster General

Hitchcock is _reaching_ for power and authority _which should not be

delegated to any bureau or cabinet head_. The last statement is made, of

course, in the confident belief that the reader joins me in the desire

and _confident_ hope that the basic principles of our government will be

neither superseded nor abrogated by legislative grants of bureaucratic

power and authority, which power and authority once granted is _seldom

or never recovered to a people without sanguinary action on their part_,

with all the waste of effort, vitality, money and human life usually a

concomitant of such action.

There are several more of Postmaster General Hitchcock’s legislative

recommendations I would like to quote, did space permit, but there is one

other which I will quote, because it wears a sort of humoresque drapery

when taken in connection with that “rider” Mr. Hitchcock so industriously

tried to put through the necessary three-ring stunts required in the

senatorial circus; also when taken in connection with a little, not

separately stitched, _brochure_ which Mr. Hitchcock turns loose on pages

7 and 8 of his most excellent, _though ulteriorly tutoring, report_.

On pages 7 and 8 the Postmaster General tells us, as best he can, under

_influenced and influencing conditions_, the why and wherefore for his

attempt to load his department deficit onto a few periodicals which he,

likewise certain of his “influencers” possibly, does not like. Well,

I want my readers to _read_ this bit of official effort, _in a wrong

cause_. I want them to read it in the _raw_, with no spring papering or

decorating on it.

As has been my practice in quoting, I shall take occasion to italicize

a little. But that will not cut any four-leaf clovers this early in

the season. I italicize merely to call the reader’s attention to the

elegant _assertiveness_ of Mr. Hitchcock’s “style” and to his _planned_

determination to “put it over” on those pestiferous periodicals--weekly

and monthly--in spite of _constitutional prohibitions_, Senate rules or

publishers’ opposition.

Stay! I have another reason for italicizing. I want the reader to read

those italicized phrasings of Mr. Hitchcock’s unstitched _brochure_ a

_second_ time, and to read them more carefully the _second_ time than

he did the first. If the reader will kindly do this we will be better

acquainted, also be mutually better acquainted with Mr. Hitchcock and his

dominating purpose, whether _ulterior_ or other, in attacking a special

class or division of periodical publications in order to recoup a deficit

_created wholly by the rural delivery service and by the free_ (franked

and penalty), _service rendered by his department_. We will first quote

his little second-class _brochure_ and follow it with his humoresque

legislative recommendation:

In the last annual report of the department special attention was

directed to the _enormous loss the government sustains_ in the

handling and transportation of second-class mail. Owing to the

rapid increase in the volume of such mail _the loss is constantly

growing_. A remedy should be promptly applied _by charging more

postage_. In providing for the higher rates it is believed

that _a distinction should be made_ between advertising matter

and what is termed _legitimate reading matter_. Under present

conditions an increase in the postage on reading matter is not

recommended. Such an increase would place a special burden on a

large number of second-class publications, including _educational

and religious periodicals_, that derive little or no profit from

advertising. It is the circulation of this type of publications,

which _aid so effectively in the educational and moral

advancement of the people, that the government can best afford

to encourage_. For these publications, and also for any other

_legitimate reading matter in periodical form_, the department

favors a continuation of the present low postage rate of 1 cent

a pound, and recommends that the proposed increase in rate be

applied only _to magazine advertising matter_. This plan would

be in full accord with the statute governing second-class mail,

_a law that never justified the inclusion under the second-class

rates of the vast amounts of advertising now transported by the

government at a tremendous loss_.

_Newspapers are not included in the plan_ for a higher rate

on advertising matter because, _being chiefly of local

distribution_, they do not burden the mails to any such extent as

the widely circulating magazines.

Under the system proposed it will be possible, without increasing

the expenditure of public funds, to utilize _for the benefit

of the entire people_ that considerable portion of the postal

revenues now expended to _meet the cost of a special privilege_

enjoyed by certain publishers.

In view of the vanishing postal deficit it is believed that

if the magazines could be required to pay what it costs the

government to carry their advertising pages, _the department’s

revenues would eventually grow large enough to warrant 1-cent

postage on first class mail_. Experiments made by the department

show that the relative weights of the advertising matter and

the _legitimate reading matter in magazines_ can be readily

determined, making it quite feasible to put into successful

operation the plan outlined. Under that plan each magazine

publisher will be required to certify to the local postmaster, in

accordance with regulations _to be prescribed by the department_,

the facts necessary to determine the proper postage charges.

The method of procedure will be worked out in such manner as

to insure the dispatching of the mails as expeditiously as at

present. (Pages 7 and 8, 1910 Report.)

That sort of a literary hand-out may be all right for certain of our

citizens transplanted from south European environment, likewise from

malnutrition and inanition, by the ship load to this country, where most

of them expected to find $1.50 or $2.00 per day growing on vines or low

bushes--and found it, in most cases, too.

But to the home-grown American citizen, “His Majesty,” such departmental

literature is a noise something like a “chuck” steak makes when his

hunger suggests a “porter house” and he is without the price. That is

“His Majesty” who _earns_ what he acquires and _pays_ for what he gets

and who does not take on an over-load of the sort of official talk Mr.

Hitchcock ships him in packages similar to the above. Our home-grown

American citizens like to have their officials say something that _means_

something. They do not want any literary ham-and’s served to them at four

prices, they knowing where to obtain them at first cost.

I intended to make further comment on the foregoing--or gone--quotation

from our Postmaster General. I shall, however, deny myself that pleasure,

confidently believing that my italicization of certain of its phrasings

and statements is sufficient comment for the reader who is following me

in this effort to peel the varnish and frescoe from a _planned_ bad cause.

The reader who has followed me thus far and has not discovered that I am

writing _against_ the men who are, I believe, trying _to set the brakes

on legislation in order to serve some_ “good interest” which pays them

a thousand or more for each of the twelve annual connections with the

cashier or “deposit certificates”--the reader who, I say, has followed me

thus far and failed to discover that fact should quit right here. It will

not cure him to read the rest of what I shall say. It is to be worse than

what I have previously said; in fact, it is going to be some distance

beyond “the limit.” My advice to any “frail” reader, therefore, is to

quit right at this point and give his brain a rest until he is able to

“come back” _and learn something_.

We will now take a look at the humoresque “throw” of our Postmaster

General for legislative action. To fully appreciate it, the reader

must bear in mind that Mr. Hitchcock’s division of his 1910 report is

of date, December 1st, 1910, and signed by himself. The reader should

furthermore bear in mind that Mr. Hitchcock had previously reported--and

more frequently _asserted_--that the transportation and handling of

second-class mail cost the government 9.23 cents per pound. The reader

should, in this instance, likewise take into his judgmental grinder the

fact that Mr. Hitchcock, in the quotation which follows, is _trying to

put up another hurdle for the magazines and other periodicals to jump_;

that is, for _such of them as he may not like_, to jump.

This recommendation for _legislative authority_ is intended to cut

out the sample copy privilege of periodicals, a privilege which the

government should _encourage rather than discourage_:

In order to discontinue the privilege of mailing sample copies at

the cent-a-pound rate, legislation in substantially the following

form is suggested:

That so much of the act approved March 3, 1885 (23 Stat., 387),

as relates to publications of the second class be amended to read

as follows:

“That hereafter all publications of the second-class, except as

provided by Section 25 of the act of March 3, 1879 (20 Stat.,

361), when sent to subscribers by the publishers thereof and from

the known offices of publication, or when sent from news agents

to subscribers thereto or to other news agents for the purpose of

sale, shall be entitled to transmission through the mails at one

cent a pound or fraction thereof, such postage to be prepaid as

now provided by law.”

While I have not the act of 1885 at hand, I am aware that it permits

what the Postmaster General asks for, _a 1-cent per pound rate_ for

periodicals admissible under the acts of 1879 and 1885. Mr. Hitchcock

asks for this legislation, a-cent per pound rate, December 1st, 1910.

Before that date and since he has repeatedly asserted, both in print

and “_interview_,” that second-class mail _costs the government 9.23

cents per_ pound to transport and handle. Do you see the _equivocating_

“ulterior” in this bit of recommended legislation? If you do not, just

go into the back yard and kick yourself until you awaken to the fact

and then come back and read Mr. Britt’s statement, page 328 of the 1910

report. Britt is Third Assistant Postmaster General and knows--well, he

knows so much that he has to _space-write_ in order to fill in about

sixty pages of this 1910 report. But, as I have to take notice of Mr.

Britt’s _furnished_ data later, I shall give him no more attention at

this point.

I believe that I have either furnished the evidence to prove the

purpose, _the ulterior purpose_, of Postmaster General Hitchcock, or of

his _influences_, to punish certain periodicals, _to penalize them for

telling the truth_, likewise to acquire bureaucratic powers to give his

department the right of censorship over our periodical literature; not

only that, but to have the successful introduction of a parcels post

_dependent on conditions of his own choosing_.

CHAPTER V.

THE PENROSE-OVERSTREET COMMISSION.

Next we will again take notice of Postmaster General Hitchcock’s

peculiar figures. I do not know where he learned how to do it, but his

“figerin’” has any expert accountant on the mat taking the count. He

is certainly a “phenom”--or his Third Assistant, Mr. Britt, or other

aid, is the “phenom.” At any rate the figures Mr. Hitchcock and his

third “assist” are wonderfully, likewise _mysteriously_, worked into a

little third-grade problem which makes it look like a proposition in

trigonometry or fluxions.

It’s too complicated for me. I never had the advantage of hulling beans

in Massachusetts. My cornfield arithmetic was all acquired in Illinois.

So, instead of permitting myself to become enmeshed in Mr. Hitchcock’s

figures, I shall resort to my frequently used tactics. I shall quote.

I have before me several analyses of Mr. Hitchcock’s peculiar application

of the “double-rule-of-three,” as the schoolmaster used to call it down

in that little school house at the cross roads in District 6, Town. 17,

R. 3 E. The schoolmaster used to divide his time between “’rithmetic” and

lamming. I graduated with honors in the latter. ’Rithmetic never seemed

to take kindly to me--save to push me along in the lamming course. But----

Well, that is sufficient explanation to the reader to give broad,

likewise legitimate, grounds for excusing me if I dodge, or try to dodge,

Mr. Hitchcock and his Third Assistant when they get down to “figerin’.”

Candidly I am at a loss to know why young men of their physical

robustness and their abnormal--yes, phenomenal--super-excellence in the

matter of figuring things out, should be frittering away their time on a

loafing job with the government. They ought to be holding down the chairs

of Mathematics and of Expert Accounting at Onion Run University, or at

some other advanced institution of learning.

But, as previously intimated, I am going to quote--am going to let

someone else into the maelstrom of official figures.

I would not, however, have the reader think for a minute that I lacked

the courage to take the plunge myself. Not at all. I know my limitations.

Mr. Hitchcock is not only a graduate of Harvard, but he is a graduate of

_two_ Republican party campaign committees. I’d be perfectly willing to

take chances against Harvard in any game of figuring, but when it comes

to sitting into the game with a graduate in two courses of party campaign

figuring, one as Secretary and the other as Manager of the National

Republican Committee,--well, when it comes to that, I believe the reader

will excuse me if I push some more expert arithmeticians to the front.

I will first quote from the 1907 Joint Commission which investigated

costs of second-class mail haulage and handling, and then I will quote

the publishers whose figures Senator Owen so pertinently presented in

connection with his remarks when speaking in opposition to the rider,

February 25, 1911.

Being perfectly familiar with the proceedings of the Senate Committee

on Postoffices and Postroads, he must, necessarily, have learned

something from the publishers who came with the open, frank--yes,

certified--information as to their business. Likewise, he must have got

fairly well acquainted with Mr. Hitchcock and also have learned something

of his _promotive_ methods of figuring.

I have, as yet, not had the pleasure--the honor--of meeting Senator Owen

or his strong, clean minded, clean acting colleague, Senator Gore, but I

like them.

Why?

_Because they stand on the floor of the Senate and fight--fight for what

is right._

Now that I have a copy before me, I will proceed to quote from that

report made by the 1907 commission--a commission which dug up more

information regarding the haulage and handling of second-class mail

matter than Mr. Hitchcock could possibly have gathered in two years

as head of the Postoffice Department. The commission was composed of

Senators Penrose, Carter and Clay and Congressmen Overstreet, Moon and

Gardner, men far better informed as to federal postal affairs than is

Postmaster General Hitchcock.

This commission was authorized by Congress to make inquiry regarding

second-class mail matter. The reader may remember that I made reference

to this report on a previous page. It presents much information and

collated data, which, if Mr. Hitchcock had studiously read would

have enabled him to avoid many of the egregious blunders he has made

at frequent intervals during the past two years when discussing the

subject. It would, at any rate, have prudently curbed or restrained

what appears in Mr. Hitchcock to be a native or acquired tendence to

volume or tonnage in talk when he is speaking of second-class mail

matters or of the publication and distribution of periodical literature.

I do not concur in a number of the conclusions of this commission as

presented in its report, but no fair-minded man can read that report

without being convinced that the commissioners delved into the subjects

of the classification of second-class mail matter and the cost, to

the government, of its haulage and handling most earnestly; also as

thoroughly and as deeply as the _lack of organization in the Postoffice

Department and its antiquated, careless and inaccurate accounting_ left

it possible for anyone to go.

This commission began its sessions in New York, October 1, 1906. It sent

advance notice to all the organizations of publishers in the country,

to publishers not in organization, to editorial associations, to boards

of trade, mercantile, commercial and trades associations and to other

individuals and organizations that might be interested, directly or

indirectly, in the subject matter to be investigated. It invited them

to present their views, complaints, objections and suggestions in

writing and also to send representatives to present their views and

their grievances, if any, to the commission in person. The notice

and invitation of the commission met with a large response from the

newspapers and other periodical publishers, also from other individuals

and associations interested in the distribution of periodical literature

by reason of the commercial, educational, religious, fraternal,

scientific or other benefits such literature conveyed to the people.

At the suggestion of this commission, the Postoffice Department prepared

and delivered to it “an elaborate statement with exhibits” to show the

“defects of the existing statute as developed in _actual operation_.”

Also, the then Postmaster General, Mr. George B. Cortelyou, his Second

Assistant, Mr. W. S. Shallenberger, and his Third Assistant, Mr. Edwin C.

Madden, prepared and presented personal statements to the commission.

Now some readers may wonder why I so particularly present the work

done by this commission for their consideration at this point in my

discussion of the general subject we have under consideration. In view

of my previous statement, to the effect that I do not agree with some of

the conclusions of this “Penrose-Overstreet Commission” some reader may

wonder why I make reference to it at all. Well, there are several reasons

why I do so and do it just at this point in the consideration of our

general subject. Among those reasons are, briefly stated, the following:

The inquiry and investigation of this commission were broad,

comprehensive and thorough.

Its report presents many arguments, recommendations and conclusions which

must appeal to any man who is fairly well informed as to our federal

postal service, as sound and sensible, however widely he may differ from

the commission’s conclusions on some other points covered in its report.

Some readers who have seen and read the Penrose-Overstreet Commission’s

report may possibly have concluded that it presents _all_ the information

collected and collated by the commission. The reader so concluding would,

almost necessarily, think the information it presents insufficient, both

in subject matter and in detail, to be as helpful to the Postmaster

General as, on a previous page, I have asserted the work of this

commission would be to Mr. Hitchcock, or would have been had he taken the

trouble to consult the voluminous but carefully collated data gathered by

the 1906-7 commission and on file in his department.

I will here quote a few lines from the report of the Penrose-Overstreet

Commission in proof of the fact that its inquiry, investigations and

work provided Postmaster General Hitchcock, had he but taken the time to

consult it, a store of information vastly greater than that presented in

its brief official report of sixty-three pages.

Read the following and you will readily understand why Representative

Moon, on March 3, 1911, so strenuously objected to the appointment

of another second-class mail commission and to spending $50,000 more

of the people’s money to investigate a matter already thoroughly and

comprehensively investigated and to collect and collate data _which is

already on file in the Postoffice Department_. The quotation is from page

6 of the commission’s report. The italics are the writer’s:

In accordance with this plan, (outlined in immediately preceding

paragraphs), which operated to economize the time as well of the

commission as of those appearing before it, _a great volume of

evidence was presented upon all aspects of the question_ from the

standpoint _both of the postal service and of the publications

involved_

…

The testimony taken by the commission at these hearings, with

statements submitted in writing by publishers not orally heard,

boards of trade, and the like, and other data collected by the

commission in the course of its investigations, _together with a

complete digest of such testimony, are embodied in the record of

its proceedings submitted with this report_.

To the end of getting our corner stakes properly located in order to

run our lot-lines correctly, I desire to quote further from the report

of this 1906-7 commission. It says some pertinent things and _says

them hard_. Before quoting, however, I desire to amplify a little on

the character of that commission, on the general character of the men

composing it as indicated in their official and public action.

The first point of interest for us commoners to note and appreciate is

that the photographs of none of them, so far as I have been able to

learn, have appeared in the rogues’ gallery. We may therefore presume

that they are not only intelligent but “square” men--men worthy of Mr.

Hitchcock’s consideration and respect as well as our own.

The second point worthy of note in considering the personnel of that

commission is that none of them, so far as public reports show, ever

had the advantages and opportunities of acquiring that peculiar and

specialized knowledge of federal postal affairs, second-class or other,

which may accrue to men from a postgraduate course in national party

management.

In this connection, however, it may be said that some members of the

commission may have come _near_ to such unusual opportunities as

just mentioned for acquiring expert knowledge of the classification,

transportation and handling of second-class mail.

It is also fitting for me to say in speaking of the gentlemen composing

that 1906-7 commission that, so far as I have been able to look up their

biographies in the Congressional Directory and elsewhere, I find nothing

to indicate that any of them ever tried to rob a smokehouse nor have

any of them ever tried to put over any piece of “frame-up” legislation

of the nature of Mr. Hitchcock’s “rider,” printed on a previous

page--_legislation to hobble, punish or ruin periodicals honest enough

and independent enough to tell the truth to a hundred millions of people_.

The foregoing are some of the reasons--there are many others--why I

think the membership of that Penrose-Overstreet Commission of 1906-7 was

possessed of an ability, character and qualification to have commanded

Mr. Hitchcock’s careful consideration of the information and data the

commission so carefully collated, after thorough investigation, and

submitted with its official report.

“Maybe he did make a careful study of that collated data?”

Yes, maybe he did. But if he did, then much of the “student discipline”

and of the “study habit,” which graduates of Harvard are presumed to have

acquired, must have lapsed in the shuffle of the cards from which recent

years have dealt his hands. I say this respectfully as well as candidly.

I cannot think of it as possible for a man of Mr. Hitchcock’s known

intellectual gauge to read--_studiously read_--the facts as presented in

the testimony before that 1906-7 commission, or so read even the 63-page

official report signed by five of the commissioners (Representative

Gardner being ill at the time the report was submitted)--I cannot, I say,

think it possible for any man of Mr. Hitchcock’s admitted intelligence to

read that testimony, collated data and report, and then proceed to talk

or write so wide of _known facts_ as does he in parts of his 1909 and

1910 reports and in his letters to Senator Penrose, printed in previous

pages.

It may be--yes, it is most probable--that the commission did not dig out

_all_ the facts. But admitting that, the further admission must be made

by any fair-minded man that most of the facts it _did dig out_ appear to

be the very facts which Postmaster General Hitchcock _ignored_--ignored

with the self-centered nonchalance of a “short story” cowboy when

“busting” a broncho before an audience.

I shall now present a few statements from the report of that commission,

first quoting some of the arguments presented by publishers who appeared

at its hearings personally or by representatives, or who presented

their views in writing on the various phases of the questions under

consideration. The quotations made, the reader must understand to be the

commission’s summary of what the publishers testified to, criticised

or recommended, and not the full testimony or reports as made by the

publishers.

I have taken the liberty to italicize certain phrases and sentences in

these quotations, my purpose being, of course, to bring the points so

italicized more particularly to the reader’s notice:

The primary purpose and function of the postal service being

the transportation of government and letter mail, second,

third, and fourth class matter are not strictly chargeable with

that proportion of the total cost of the service which would

be equivalent to their proportion of total weight or volume,

but these secondary classes, on the contrary, are chargeable

only with that fraction of total cost which would remain after

deducting all expenses of installation and general management

involved in the maintenance of a complete postal service for

government and letter mail. This method of computation should be

applied not only in respect of the expenses of administration and

handling, but especially in respect of the expense of railway

mail transportation, in which, by reason of the sliding scale of

payment, the additional burden of second-class matter entailed

but _an infinitesimal additional cost_. As an illustration of

this point, attention was drawn to the statement of Dr. Henry C.

Adams, in his report to the commission of 1898 (p. 404), that _if

the volume of mail had been decreased so that the ton-mileage had

been 169,809,000 instead of 272,000,000, the railway mail pay

would have been practically the same_.

In other words, the argument is that the true cost of

second-class matter is merely that part of total cost which

_would be saved if second-class matter were now eliminated_.

The foregoing is from page 9 of the commission’s report. On the same page

of the report it gives a summary of another set of reasons presented by

the publishers in their argument in support of their contention that the

mail rate on second-class matter should be low:

That second-class matter, by reason of the fact that it is

handled largely in bulk in full sacks already routed and

separated and requires little or no handling by the railway mail

service or the force at the office of mailing and of delivery,

is in fact the _least expensive class of matter_. With respect

to the proportion so routed and separated, it was variously

estimated by the publishers as from _70 to 93_ per cent of the

total weight. The assistant postmaster at New York fixed the

percentage for his office at _67 per cent_, and the assistant

postmaster at Chicago estimated it, for the country at large, to

be between 50 and 60 per cent.

The representative of the _American Newspaper Publishers’

Association_, speaking for the metropolitan daily press, stated

that less than _6 per cent of their circulation went into the

mail at all_, in many instances the proportion being as low as

two-thirds of 1 per cent; that the radius of circulation was not

more than 150 miles; that their mailings averaged _49 pounds per

sack_, and that 93 per cent of all second-class matter going out

of New York city, for example, _was already sorted and routed_.

It was admitted, however, that while the newspapers _avail

themselves of express and railway transportation_ for matter

sent out in bulk, single copies sent to individual subscribers

invariably went by mail.

Postmaster General Hitchcock appears to have largely ignored the fact so

clearly pointed out by the publishers in 1906--yes, pointed out as long

ago as 1898--that second-class mail matter is a _large producer of the

revenues_ received by the government from mail matter of the first, third

and fourth classes. Following is a summary of what the publishers pointed

out to the 1906-7 commission:

There is an immense indirect revenue on second-class matter, due

to the fact that second-class matter is itself the cause of a

great volume of first-class matter, upon which the department

reaps a handsome profit. While the extent to which first-class

matter is thus indebted to second-class matter is necessarily

indeterminate, attempts were made to illustrate it by particular

instances. This was done by computing the amount of first-class

mail arising, first, from the direct correspondence between a

publisher and the readers, and secondly, from correspondence,

between the readers and the advertisers, resulting from the

insertion of the advertisements. In the instances chosen,

the first-class matter thus stimulated appeared to be very

considerable. Upon this basis it was argued that any reduction in

the volume of second-class matter would inevitably be followed by

a corresponding reduction in first-class matter. This would not

only deprive the Postoffice Department of the revenue from the

first-class matter, _but by diminishing the total weight of the

mails would correspondingly increase the rate of mail pay_, so

that the net result of the elimination of the socially valuable

second-class matter would be an actual increase in the total cost

of the service.

The foregoing is taken from pages 12 and 13 of the commission’s report.

I desire to quote further from page 13--four paragraphs--and I urge

they be read with care. The reader, too, should remember that this is

not _all_ that the publishers said on the points touched upon. It is,

however, no doubt a fair epitome or summary of what they said or wrote to

the commission. The reader should also keep in mind the fact that what

they said and wrote was said and written in 1906, and _all_ they said and

wrote is on file and easily accessible to Postmaster General Hitchcock:

Within an average radius of 500 miles the express companies

and railways stand willing to transport second-class matter,

in bulk packages weighing not less than 5 to 10 pounds to a

single address or to be called for, at rates actually lower than

the second-class postage rate. Inasmuch as the average haul of

second-class matter was reported by the Wolcott commission (p.

319), to be but 438 miles, it is impossible that the government

should lose anything upon the transportation of this class of

matter, or if in fact it should be found to be doing so, _the

loss must arise from an overpayment to the railways_.

Even if it should be found that second-class matter was being

carried at a distinct loss, that loss would be entirely justified

by the _educational value of the periodical press_. From the

beginning of the republic it had been the policy of Congress

to foster and assist the dissemination of information and

intelligence among the people. Next to the great public school

systems maintained by the states, the newspaper and periodical

are the chief agency of social progress and enlightenment. So

far from this being a subsidy to the publisher the advantage of

the low postage rate had been passed on to the subscriber in the

form of a better periodical and a more efficient service. Any

substantial increase in the postal rates, while for the time

being bearing heavily on the publisher, must eventually fall upon

the subscriber, either in the form of an increased price for

his reading matter or of a deterioration in the quality of that

matter.

The correct method of dealing with the question of cost is to

treat the service as a whole, and if the revenue for the whole

service, _including allowance for government mail_, meets the

cost of the whole service, it is immaterial whether each class of

that service pays its own cost, or even whether the cost of one

class has to be made up by a greater charge upon other classes.

With respect to rates, with the exception of some of the

representatives of the _stockyards journals_, periodical

publications were a unit against any increase. It was urged

that the periodical publishing business has been built up

on the present second-class rates, and that a change from 1

cent a pound to 4 cents, as suggested by the Third Assistant

Postmaster General, would cripple, if not destroy, every existing

periodical. While some would, perhaps, be able to adjust their

business to the new rates and survive, the majority would perish,

and the loss would fall heaviest on the smaller and weaker

periodicals.

We will next note some things which that 1906-7 commission said on its

own account or quotes some one in whose opinion they concurred or did

not, as the case might be.

Some pages back, I told the reader, in effect, that while this

commission’s official report was a good one, presenting some valuable

suggestions, I did not agree with certain of its recommendations and

conclusions. Now, any adverse criticisms I intend to make concerning

that report are, I think, best made right here, after which I will quote

a few paragraphs from it which I believe highly commendable. There are

many suggestions and recommendations that I believe would be of great

value did the department but act upon them, and the vast amount of data

the commission collected and made a digest of would, had he but looked

into it carefully, most certainly have _persuaded_ Postmaster General

Hitchcock to speak and write less loosely on the subjects of second-class

mail rates and periodical publication and distribution, induced him

to talk in a way that would not leave the impression with studious,

thoughtful auditors and readers that he got his opinions at a bargain

sale during its rush hours.

I shall comment adversely on but a few points of the commission’s

report. Three of its members (Senators Carter and Clay and Representative

Overstreet) have _passed_--not off the edge of life but to official

retirement, or, maybe, to the political morgue. They, in time, may

be able to “come back.” The Man on the Ladder has heard varied

opinions--some of them decidedly variegated, too--anent the probability

of those three gentlemen coming back. Personally I am not sufficiently

acquainted with their official service careers to justify the expression

of an opinion of them. If, while in office, they directed their efforts

and activities to a service of their constituents and the interests of

the people in general, let us hope they may “come back.” On the other

hand, if while in office they were but working models of the so-called

“practical” politician, then, as a matter both of self-respect and of

duty, we must hope they stay in the morgue.

“The ‘practical’ politician is the _working_ politician.”

Well, yes, that may be. But most of those within range of my vision from

the ladder top appear to be devoting their most active and strenuous

industry to “working” the people.

No, I do not like that type of human animal popularly designated as

a “practical” politician. Especially do I not like him in public

office--executive, legislative or judicial--elective or appointive, and I

have run the lines on a good many of them. Most of them when in positions

of official power and _opportunity_ act as if their consciences had been

handed down in original packages direct from their jungle ancestors. At

any rate most of those in positions of official power and authority seem

to follow one working rule, and follow it, too, both industriously and

consistently.

_To conceal one theft, steal more._

The typical “practical” politician, when holding down a public office,

usually holds-up the people. They pose and talk as courageous patriots

and _large_ thinkers. Under close scrutiny, however, most of them will

show up or show down merely as _discreet private or personal interest

liars_.

But I have permitted my field glass to ramble from the specific to the

general. Whether the three _passed_ members of the 1906-7 commission

are politically dead or taking only a temporarily enforced rest, the

situation is one which suggests the propriety of that subdued and

respectful tone one is expected to use when standing by as a friend is

lowered to an enforced rest.

I shall now offer my strictures of a few recommendations made by the

1906-7 commission and of some of the arguments the commission’s report

offers to their support.

The first objection I find to the report of this Penrose-Overstreet

Commission is that several of its paragraphs indicate that the commission

appears to have been afflicted with Mr. Hitchcock’s current ailment--an

ingrown idea that some action, legislative or other, must be taken

in order to curb the circulation growth and keep down the piece or

copy-weight of periodicals. To The Man on the Ladder such an idea is not

only faulty to the point of foolishness but it violates long established

and successfully applied business practices in the transportation and

handling of goods or commodities, whatever their character. The idea,

it would appear, is based upon an oft-repeated but nevertheless false

statement of fact, to the effect that the government is losing money in

the carriage and handling of second-class mail at the cent-a-pound rate.

The falsity of that statement I shall conclusively prove to the reader

later, if he will be so indulgent as to follow me. Here I shall say only

this: If the government has ever lost a cent in rail or other haulage

and handling of second-class mail matter, such loss has been _wholly the

result of excessive payments to railroads, Star Route and ocean carriers,

to political rather than business management and to permitted raiding of

the postal revenues in various ways--from overmanning the official and

service force to downright thievery_.

I have adverted on a previous page to the stealings of the Machen-Beavers

gang, exposed by the investigation of Joseph L. Bristow, and a stench

still exhales from the Star Route lootings exposed some years previous.

In the Star Route case, the waste--a more fitting word is thievery--the

stealing was largely effected through the medium of “joker”-loaded or

unnecessary contracts, the contracts running to the advantage of some

thief who “stood in” with the party in power.

Nor has all the Star Route grafting and stealing been stopped, though

both Postmaster General Hitchcock and his recent predecessor, Mr. George

B. Cortelyou, deserve great praise for having eliminated much of it,

and Mr. Hitchcock’s active, continued efforts to further clean out that

Augean stable must command the hearty approval of every honest citizen.

But, as just stated, some of the original graft and steal still lingers.

Last year I personally investigated one Star Route. It was a twenty-mile

drive (round trip). The contractor was receiving $600 or more a year

for the service. What he paid the villager to cover the route with his

patriarchal team I do not know. The villager, however, picked up a little

on the side by hauling over his drive local parcels, some merchandise and

an occasional passenger. I watched his mail deliveries to the village

office for ten days. On no day did the revenue to the government _exceed

sixty cents, and on seven of the ten days it was below twenty cents. One

day it was but ten cents._

In this connection it should also be mentioned that the village which

that Star Route was presumed to serve was on a regular rural route and

received fully 95% of its mail by special carrier service connecting with

a trunk line station only six miles away.

But to return to my objection to the manifest efforts of the Postmaster

General and of recommendations in the Penrose-Overstreet report to

adopt methods or secure legislation to restrain increase in both the

circulation and the copy-weight of periodicals. Of course if the

government really sustains a loss on the carriage and handling of

second-class matter, the loss would be greater on 160 tons than on 80

tons. I, however, contend, and shall later prove, that--barring waste,

payroll loafing and stealage--the government now transports and handles

second-class matter at a profit.

Postmaster General Hitchcock, so far as I have found time to read

him, has made no particular effort to restrict or limit the piece or

copy-weight of periodicals. He was, seemingly at least, so occupied

in his efforts to “get” a few periodicals through the means of that

unconstitutional “rider” of his that he had little or no time for

anything else. But the 1906-7 commission boldly advocated a _penalizing_

of periodical _weight_ for copies mailed to piece, or individual,

addresses.

A table of graduated increases is given and some very peculiar argument,

to put it mildly, is presented to support the recommended scale, or

system, of weight penalization. Following I quote from pages 28-29 of the

commission’s report. The italics are mine:

The rate then for copy service would be one-eighth of a cent per

copy not to exceed _2 ounces_, one-quarter cent per copy not

to exceed 4 ounces, and one-half cent for each additional 4

ounces or fraction thereof to be prepaid in money as second-class

postage is now paid. Tabulated, it would appear thus:

Not exceeding-- Cents.

2 ounces ⅛

4 ounces ¼

8 ounces ¾

12 ounces 1¼

16 ounces 1¾

20 ounces 2¼

24 ounces 2¾

28 ounces 3¼

Etc., etc.

The net result calculated by the pound will be, upon the

periodicals above the average weight of 4 ounces and not

exceeding a pound, a change from 1 to about 1¾ cents per pound.

For heavier periodicals the rate would average 1⅞ _cents per

pound_ for those weighing 2 pounds, and increasing by an

_infinitesimal_ fraction with the proportion of weight above 4

ounces but never reaching, no matter how heavy the periodical may

grow, the limit of 2 cents per pound.

While the actual increase of rate upon the _normal_ periodical,

especially in view of the publisher’s right at all times to

send it by bulk at a cent a pound, would be so small as not to

upset his business, there would be two advantages to the postal

revenue, one at each end of the line.

(1) The making of a definite minimum charge for the handling of

the individual piece. (2) Increase of revenue as the periodical

grows heavier, due to the fact that the initial rate of

one-quarter cent for 4 ounces is _less than the incremental rate_.

This system of payment by the individual piece with a minimum

limit of weight and an increased rate for each increment of

weight is _common to the postal systems of the entire world_

with the exceptions of Canada and the United States. The only

difference is that in the present project the incremental rate is

higher than the initial rate.

Although this graduated scale would appear to be more favorable

to the smaller periodical than to the large one, it must be borne

in mind that the periodical weighing _less than 1 ounce_ and of

necessity paying the initial rate of _one-quarter cent_ would

be paying a rate (2 cents per pound), slightly greater than the

large periodical. This increase upon the periodical weighing less

than 2 ounces finds ample justification in the obvious fact that

the expense of handling second class matter is not to be measured

simply by gross weight. On the contrary, as was pointed out by

the representatives of the publishers in comparing the cost of

handling second-class with that of first-class mail, such expense

is to be measured by the number of pieces handled and frequency

of handling. _A pound of periodicals which is made up of 10 or

12 or, as is sometimes the case, 30 or 40 separate pieces, each

one of which requires a separate course of handling and delivery,

can not with justice be treated as the equivalent of a pound

of matter which requires but two, or, at most, four courses of

handling and delivery._

This increase would be offset, moreover, for the _normal_

periodical weighing less than 2 ounces, the country weekly, by

the retention of the free county privilege.

The foregoing is substantially the commission’s _whole_ argument, save

a little more talk about “normal” periodicals, “normal” weeklies, and a

statement to the effect that all countries, other than the United States

and Canada, increase the piece, or copy, postage rate as the weight of

the periodical increases--that is, these other countries do not give a

_flat_ pound, gram or other unit of weight rate.

Now, I shall briefly state my objections to some points in the above

quotation--those points I have italicized.

The reader, however, must bear in mind that the scale of increase in

mail rates above reprinted applies _only to single copies_--to copies

mailed to individual addresses. For copies mailed in _bulk_, in packages

weighing not less than ten pounds, to some agent of the publisher or

other individual, to be taken up by the agent or individual at train or

at central postoffice, the commission recommended the cent-a-pound rate.

In adverse criticism of the commission’s argument for penalizing

_weight_, because all foreign countries do so, I need but say:

1. There are more high-class newspapers--papers which, necessarily, have

weight--published in this country _than is published in all the rest of

the world_.

2. There are four times as many of what the 1906-7 commission--also

Postmaster General Hitchcock--would class as “periodicals” published in

this country _as are published in all the rest of the world_.

Sounds “loud,” does it? Well, look into the matter. Maybe I am mistaken.

If so, it is a mistake made after thirty years of study of the conditions

controlling in my country--in _your_ country--and of the prices paid in

other countries for _efficient, satisfactory service_.

3. Those “other countries”--the stronger ones, at any rate--either _own_

or _absolutely control_ the railroads which transport their mails. In

some of them, rail transportation of mails--also of government officials,

the service personnel of the army and the navy, and of other government

“weight”--are _carried free of charge_.

4. Those “other countries,” of which so much is said and written

ostensibly for our enlightenment, have gone through the mill--their

peoples have been _ground fine_ in mills of sophistry and special

pleadings, to which, _for fifty years_, we have been carrying our grists.

5. Those “other countries” are making their mail service a source of

_governmental revenue_.

The people of this country, today, no more expect a revenue from the

government’s postal service than they expect it from the War, the Navy,

the Interior, the Judicial or other service department.

The people want _service_, not revenues, from any federal service

department.

And you gentlemen who vote away the people’s money for services _not_

rendered--which you _know_ will not be rendered when you vote to “burn”

the money--will, before those independent periodicals are through with

the recent sand-bagging attempt to censor or control their _published

thought_--you will learn, I mean to say, that people want _service_

not revenues; that they want “duty,” as an engineer would name it, not

a _coached_ prattle about B. T. U. or other legislative and official

thermics.

Now, let us look back at that quotation--at some of the points in it I

have italicized.

First paragraph quoted: Aside from small country dailies--now carried by

mail to addresses inside the county of publication free--and fraternal

papers, Sunday School sheets and similar publications, there are few

periodicals published in this country which weigh two ounces or less.

First paragraph following tabulation: “The rate would average 1⅞ cents

per pound” for periodicals weighing two pounds.

A glance at the table shows that the piece or copy rate on a periodical

weighing 28 ounces is given as 3¼ cents. A periodical weighing two

pounds, or 32 ounces, would be charged a half cent more, or 3¾ cents for

mail carriage and delivery, instead of 2 cents as now.

Second paragraph following the table, also in last paragraph quoted:

“Normal” periodicals.

What is a “normal” periodical? Are the 4 or 8 page weeklies published in

the back counties and the small religious, college, Sunday school and

fraternal sheets that weigh two ounces or less “normal” periodicals? Are

the dailies of our large cities, weighing from four to twelve ounces,

“normal” periodicals? Is the Saturday Evening Post, weighing from ten to

twenty ounces a “normal” periodical?

Are any of the periodicals in the following descriptive list “normal?”

The newspapers and other periodicals named in the following tabulation

are those I could find within convenient, likewise hurried, reach. I

tried to get them as near concurrent dates as I could. The tabulation

will show the reader the proportion of advertising to body matter,

printed in the different periodicals on the dates named.

Readers particularly interested in the data presented in the tabulation

should, however, understand that for the newspapers listed, no account

was taken of the “write-up” or “promotion” advertising printed as reading

matter. Some newspapers, at certain times, carry a considerable amount of

such paid matter while the standard monthly and weekly periodicals carry

little or none of it at any time:

===================+=======+==========+===========+===========+==========

| | No. of | Reading |Advertising| Gross

NAME OF | Date | Pages or | Matter, | Matter, | Weight

PERIODICAL. | of | Columns. | Pages or | Pages or | of the

| Issue.| [2] |Columns.[3]|Columns.[4]Periodical.

-------------------+-------+----------+-----------+-----------+----------

NEWSPAPERS. | | | | |

CHICAGO. | | | | |

_The Examiner._ | | | | |

Sunday Edition |6-11-11| 392 Cols.| 171½ Cols.| 220⅔ Cols.| 15 ozs.

Daily Edition |6-8-11 | 126 ” | 77⅔ ” | 48⅓ ” | 4½ ”

_Record Herald._ | | | | |

Sunday Edition |6-11-11| 448 ” | 286½ ” | 161½ ” | 18 ”

Supplement[5] | | 20 pp. | 14 pp. | 6 pp. |

Daily Edition |6-8-11 | 126 Cols.| 77⅔ Cols.| 48½ Cols.| 5 ”

_The Tribune._ | | | | |

Sunday Edition |6-11-11| 490 ” | 212⅓ ” | 277⅔ ” | 20 ”

Supplement | | 30 pp. | 22¼ pp. | 7¾ pp. |

Daily Edition |6-8-11 | 168 Cols.| 86⅓ Cols.| 81⅔ Cols.| 6½ ”

_Inter Ocean._ | | | | |

Sunday Edition |6-11-11| 316 ” | 242⅚ ” | 73⅙ ” | 12 ”

Daily Edition |6-8-11 | 84 ” | 59½ ” | 24½ ” | 4 ”

_The American._ |6-8-11 | 126 ” | 65 ” | 61 ” | 4½ ”

_Daily News._ |6-8-11 | 210 ” | 87 ” | 123 ” | 7½ ”

_Daily Journal._ |6-8-11 | 112 ” | 63⅓ ” | 48⅔ ” | 4½ ”

_The Evening Post._|6-8-11 | 84 ” | 64⅔ ” | 19⅓ ” | 3¾ ”

BOSTON. | | | | |

_The Globe._ | | | | |

Sunday Edition |6-11-11| 720 ” | 399 ” | 321 ” | 25 ”

Supplement | | 28 pp. | 20½ pp. | 7½ pp. |

Daily Edition |6-12-11| 128 Cols.| 102½ Cols.| 25½ Cols.| 4 ”

NEW YORK CITY. | | | | |

_The American._ | | | | |

Sunday Edition |6-11-11| 392 ” | 221⅘ ” | 170⅕ ” | 12½ ”

_The Herald._ | | | | |

Sunday Edition |6-11-11| 728 ” | 373 ” | 355 ” | 23½ ”

Daily Edition |6-12-11| 114 ” | 73⅘ ” | 40⅕ ” | 4 ”

PHILADELPHIA. | | | | |

_The Enquirer._ | | | | |

Sunday Edition |6-11-11| 576 ” | 339⅓ ” | 236⅔ ” | 18½ ”

Daily Edition |6-12-11| 128 ” | 65⅚ ” | 62⅙ ” | 4 ”

PITTSBURG. | | | | |

_The Gazette Times._ | | | |

Sunday Edition |6-11-11| 504 ” | 358¾ ” | 145¼ ” | 15¾ ”

Supplement | | 20 pp. | 15½ pp. | 4½ pp. |

Daily Edition |6-12-11| 84 Cols.| 56 Cols.| 29 Cols.| 3 ”

CLEVELAND. | | | | |

_The Plain Dealer._| | | | |

Sunday Edition |6-11-11| 512 ” | 292 ” | 230 ” | 16½ ”

Daily Edition |6-13-11| 112 ” | 71 ” | 41 ” | 3¾ ”

CINCINNATI. | | | | |

_The Enquirer._ | | | | |

Daily Edition |6-13-11| 112 ” | 66⅘ ” | 45⅕ ” | 4 ”

LOUISVILLE. | | | | |

_The Courier | | | | |

Journal._ | | | | |

Daily Edition |6-10-11| 112 ” | 91⅔ ” | 20⅓ ” | 4 ”

ST. LOUIS. | | | | |

_Post Dispatch._ | | | | |

Sunday Edition |6-11-11| 400 ” | 261⅓ ” | 138⅔ ” | 12 ”

_Globe Democrat._ | | | | |

Daily Edition |6-13-11| 112 ” | 67⅔ ” | 44⅓ ” | 4 ”

KANSAS CITY. | | | | |

_The Star._ | | | | |

Daily Edition |6-15-11| 112 ” | 61⅓ ” | 50⅔ ” | 4 ”

SAN FRANCISCO. | | | | |

_The Chronicle._ | | | | |

Daily Edition |6-10-11| 126 ” | 86⅘ ” | 39⅕ ” | 4½ ”

LOS ANGELES. | | | | |

_The Times._ | | | | |

Sunday Edition |6-4-11 |1170 Cols.| 586½ Cols.| 583½ Cols.| 35½ Ozs.

Supplement | | 30 pp. | 24½ pp. | 5½ pp. |

MONTHLY AND WEEKLY | | | | |

PERIODICALS. | | | | |

_Everybody’s Mag._ |4-1911 | 316 ” | 146 ” | 170 ” | 22 ”

” ” |7-1911 | 284 ” | 140 ” | 144 ” | 20 ”

_Cosmopolitan_ ” |3-1911 | 266 ” | 144¼ ” | 120¾ ” | 18 ”

” ” |7-1911 | 288 ” | 146½ ” | 141½ ” | 17 ”

_McClure’s_ ” |6-1911 | 244 ” | 113½ ” | 130½ ” | 12 ”

_American_ ” |6-1911 | 224 ” | 132½ ” | 91½ ” | 15 ”

_Pearson’s_ ” |6-1911 | 206 ” | 143 ” | 63 ” | 16½ ”

_Sat. Evening Post_|5-20-11| 68 ” | 32½ ” | 35½ ” | 9 ”

” ” ” |6-3-11 | 80 ” | 33¼ ” | 46¾ ” | 10 ”

_Ladies’ Home | | | | |

Jour’l_ |6-19-11| 84 ” | 52½ ” | 31½ ” | 16 ”

_The Literary | | | | |

Digest_ |5-13-11| 72 ” | 37⅙ ” | 34⅚ ” | 8 ”

_Inland Printer_ |3-1911 | 176 ” | 68½ ” | 87½ ” | 24 ”

_Publishers’ | | | | |

Weekly_ |3-18-11| 136 ” | 62⅓ ” | 73⅔ ” | 7½ ”

_Review of Reviews_|6-1911 | 268 ” | 129 ” | 139 ” | 17 ”

_Scribner’s | | | | |

Magazine_ |6-1911 | 250 ” | 134 ” | 116 ” | 16 ”

_Harpers’_ ” |6-1911 | 284 ” | 164 ” | 120 ” | 21 ”

_Popular_ ” |4-10-11| 286 ” | 226 ” | 42 ” | 14 ”

_The Argosy_ |5-19-11| 246 ” | 194 ” | 52 ” | 12 ”

_The All Story_ |4-19-11| 228 ” | 194 ” | 34 ” | 11 ”

_The New Magazine_ |5-19-11| 200 ” | 192 ” | 8 ” | 10 ”

===================+=======+==========+===========+===========+==========

Next to last paragraph: Note the statement that “the periodical weighing

less than one ounce” must “of necessity” pay the “initial rate of

one-quarter cent” or “two cents per pound.”

The initial rate as given in the table is but one-eighth of a cent.

That would make a per copy mail rate of two cents per pound, whereas an

initial rate of one-quarter cent per copy would make four-page sheets and

leaflets “normal” periodicals weighing less than one ounce pay at a rate

of four cents per pound.

Next, note the _crossed_ argument in the paragraph just referred to. The

commission seems to accept the argument made by the publishers--that it

cost less to handle a pound of mail made up of but one to four pieces

than it costs to handle a pound made up of from ten to fifty pieces. That

is a fact which admits of no controversy, is it not?

Then why did this commission advise the adoption of a flat rate of

increase of two cents a pound (one-half cent for each four ounces), as

the mail rate on periodicals weighing more than four ounces.

If the argument of the paragraph just cited is sound--and it certainly

is sound--a just graduation of the mail charge for the carriage and

piece handling of the heavier periodicals should scale downwards and not

continue a flat rate, especially not continue at a flat rate on increase

in weight that is greatly excessive, as two cents a pound certainly is.

I shall speak further of periodical weights later in connection with

railway mail pay and car rentals. The report of this 1906-7 commission

in various other paragraphs manifests a clear intent to restrict and,

if possible, to curtail the expansion of second-class mail matter, not

only by curbing the enlargement of periodicals in size by increasing

the second-class rate and by penalizing added weight, but by putting

restrictions upon the periodical publisher which must necessarily make it

more difficult for him to increase his circulation. These restrictions,

so far as yet expressed, apply to the publisher’s sample copy privileges

and to the amount of advertising a periodical may carry.

On page 48 of its report the commission, speaking of methods to curb a

periodical’s growth in both circulation and weight, advises that the

following be covered into the law in lieu of certain phrasings now in the

statutes and which, the commission asserts, have proved quite inadequate

in restraining periodicals from expanding their circulation beyond a

point which they are pleased to call “normal.” They advise that the law

“enforce the requirement that the periodical may be issued and circulated

_only in response to a public demand_.”

In the draft of a bill which this 1906-7 commission recommends become a

law, the following are the means by which circulation “only in response

to a public demand” will be attained:

(_a_) By reducing to a _minimum the sample copy, which is one

of the main agencies of inflation_. The legitimate periodical

employing this means only to a slight extent will not be at all

affected.

(_b_) By abolishing all premiums, whether of printed matter or

merchandise.

(_c_) By either prohibiting all combination offers, as, for

example, a set of books with a magazine, or requiring that in all

cases a price shall be set upon both elements of the combination

and that the full advertised price of the periodical be paid.

(_d_) By requiring that the publication shall print

conspicuously, not only its regular subscription price, but any

reduced price at which it is offered in clubbing arrangements and

the like.

(_e_) By providing that all copies which the postmaster, in the

exercise of due diligence shall be unable to deliver, shall be

returned with a postage-due stamp for an amount equal to double

the third-class rate. In other words, charge the publisher the

third-class rate both for the forwarding and the returning of any

copy sent otherwise than in response to an actual demand.

To The Man on the Ladder the commission’s talk, advising the enforcement

of “the requirements that the periodical may be issued and circulated

only in _response to a public demand_” (page 40 of report), reads much

like one of two things--either the inconsidered or ill-considered prattle

of persons who want to say _something_, or the argument of _ulterior

motive_--of a covert _purpose_ to restrict, to cripple, to _kill_ the

greatest instrument for the education of its _adult_ citizens which

any nation of earth has to date discovered--an instrument that is

economically within easy reach of its exchequer.

How much of a “public demand” does the reader think there would have been

for the reaper, for the thrashing machine, for the case-hardened, steel

shared plow, for the sewing machine, for the triple expansion engine, for

the traveling crane, for any brand of breakfast food, of ham, of flour,

books--in short, how much of “public demand” would there have been for

any of the mechanical inventions, for any of the multitude of betterments

in the housing, clothing and subsisting of our people, _had not that

“public demand” been created_? No one wants anything, however excellent

it may be, until his attention is called to it and he believes it will

_aid him or her_, as the case may be, that it will lighten the stress of

labor or increase its product, or in other lines and directions improve

the conditions of their lives, industrially or otherwise. Ninety-nine

per cent of “public opinion,” as to whether or not that public wants or

does not want this, that or the other thing is _influenced_--is promoted

by what it _senses_ in personal contact with the thing or by what it

hears said of it or _reads of it_.

That statement is as true of the members of the 1906-7 commission and

of Postmaster General Hitchcock as it is of Mr. William Mossback of

Mossville, Connecticut. The “demand” of each of us--our _desire_ to

possess this or that--is prompted--_is created_--by what we see, hear,

feel, taste, smell or _read_ of it. We stand at the head of the nations

of earth for progress in the various fields of mechanical improvement,

from kitchen utensils to laundry equipment, from the plow to the

electric crane. What is true of the progress of our people through the

adoption of labor-saving mechanical devices, implements and machinery

is correspondingly true in various other fields of progress--a progress

largely the result of promoted “demand” for the better things, for the

improvements of which our people have _read_ in our newspapers and in our

monthly and weekly publications--yes, read of in the advertisements and

in descriptive write-ups of such periodicals, if you will have it so.

So this prattle about issuing a periodical “only to public demand” is not

only prattle--it is not only unsound and unbusinesslike both in theory

and service practice, but it is also a _stealthy attempt to garrote the

facts_, likewise an attempt to subject the great publishing interests of

the country to the _rankest kind of injustice_.

How is the publisher to secure additional subscribers if he be denied

mailing privilege to sample copies?

True, the bill recommended by this commission would allow the publisher

to mail sample copies to the extent of ten per cent of his subscribed

issue. Mr. Hitchcock, however, as I shall shortly show, proposes to

exclude _all_ sample copies from the mails.

The following is quoted from Mr. Hitchcock’s 1910 report and shows that

the Postoffice Department, as at present directed, is determined to curb

the growth and development of periodical literature in this country in

every way possible--ways that scruple not at _biased rulings and grossly

unjust distinctions_. In the following Mr. Hitchcock is after what he is

pleased to designate as an “abuse of the sample-copy privilege.”

In order to discontinue the privilege of mailing sample copies at the

cent-a-pound rate, legislation in substantially the following form is

suggested:

That so much of the act approved March 3, 1885 (23 Stat., 387),

as relates to publications of the second class be amended to read

as follows:

“That hereafter all publications of the second-class, except as

provided by Section 25 of the act of March 3, 1879 (20 Stat.,

361), _when sent to subscribers_ by the publishers thereof and

from the known offices of publication, or when sent from news

agents to subscribers thereto or to other news agents for the

purpose of sale, _shall be entitled to transmission through the

mails at one cent a pound or fraction thereof_, such postage to

be prepaid as now provided by law.”

In drafting the above recommended legislation Mr. Hitchcock no doubt was

greatly assisted by the luminous suggestions, advice, analyses, etc.,

of his Third Assistant, Mr. Britt, to be found on pages 331 and 332 of

the 1910 report--which suggestions, advice, etc., is based largely on

“estimates”--“estimates” which any student or careful observer of the

Postoffice Department methods of figuring and accounting will readily

discern are, in several particulars, somewhat “influenced,” if not,

indeed, “fixed.”

Up to January 1, 1908, periodical publishers were allowed to mail sample

copies of any issue in number equal to that of their subscribed lists.

Acting on the recommendation of the Penrose-Overstreet Commission, no

doubt approved by Mr. Hitchcock, the mailing privilege on sample copies

was cut down, January 1, 1908, to 10 per cent of the subscribed issue.

Now comes Mr. Hitchcock with a bit of recommended legislation, as quoted

above, which would, if favorably acted upon by Congress, deny the mailing

privilege to _all_ sample copies at the cent-a-pound rate.

Though not pertinent to the subject immediately under consideration,

I desire here to call the reader’s attention again to a point in Mr.

Hitchcock’s recommended legislation as quoted above--a point which is

conspicuously worthy of a second notice and to which I have called

attention on a previous page.

Mr. Hitchcock’s report, from which the foregoing piece of recommended

legislation is quoted, bears date of December 1, 1910. Keep that in mind.

In that recommendation he would grant a _continuance_ of the cent-a-pound

postage rate on periodicals “sent to subscribers,” but to such only.

No sample copies are to be carried and handled, mind you, at the

cent-a-pound rate after Mr. Hitchcock’s recommendation becomes law--that

is, if it ever does become law.

Now, the subscribed mailings of any periodical--newspaper or other--are

piece or single-copy mailings, which are admittedly the most expensive or

costly to the government to transport and handle.

Yet Mr. Hitchcock recommends that _the cent-a-pound rate shall continue

to be extended to such single copies_--a most just and sensible

recommendation.

But Mr. Hitchcock when he wrote that bit of recommended legislation was

thinking--and thinking only, if indeed he gave the subject any _personal_

thought at all--of curbing the circulation growth of periodicals and, as

a means to that end, recommends the exclusion of all sample copies from

the pound-rate privilege.

Read carelessly or superficially that bit of suggested legislation in

itself does not appear to have anything to do with sample copies. On

second and more careful reading, however, its purpose becomes clear. If

the cent-a-pound rate is to be allowed only to regularly _subscribed_

copies of a periodical, then _all_ sample copies must be mailed, if

mailed at all, at the third-class rate--_must pay eight cents a pound_.

When it comes to covering or cloaking ulterior purpose or intent in

legislation, Mr. Hitchcock is an expert, it would appear from the

rider he so strenuously tried to put astride the 1911-12 postoffice

appropriation bill, and from the foregoing as well as some others of

his suggestions to Congress. But the point to which I more especially

desire to call to the reader’s attention when I obtruded that last

preceding quotation at a point where it interrupted a consideration of

the Penrose-Overstreet Commission’s report was this:--

As previously stated, Mr. Hitchcock’s 1910 report bears date, December

1, 1910. On that date, as appears from the last quotation, he desired

a law that would bar all sample copies from the mails at the present

second-class rate. It also appears that Mr. Hitchcock at the date

named--December, 1, 1910--desired that all periodicals issued, except

sample copies, _be carried, as now, at the cent-a-pound rate_.

Somewhere around February 1, 1911--_barely two months after he makes

that cent-a-pound recommendation_--we hear Mr. Hitchcock assertively

declaring, and contentiously arguing, that it costs the government _9.23

cents per pound_ to transport and handle second-class matter.

What happened to his mental gear in so short a time to induce so _loud_ a

change in his mind?

Or was it a change of mind? On page 328 of that 1910 departmental report,

Mr. Britt, Third Assistant Postmaster General, who has charge of the

accounting division of the service, makes the bold statement that it cost

the government $62,438,644.70 more to carry and handle the second-class

mail last year than was received for the service. Being an “expert”

figurer Mr. Britt found no difficulty in arriving at that absurd 9.23

cents a pound as the _actual cost_ to the government of carrying and

handling second-class mail. On pages 7 and 8 of the report, Mr. Hitchcock

himself gives publicity to a conviction that the cent-a-pound rate

should be increased on certain periodicals--_the magazines_--generously

suggesting that the increased rate be confined to their “advertising

pages” only. In the loosely worded “rider” he carelessly--_or

purposely_--uses the word “sheets” in place of the word “pages” as used

in his report.

Still, in face of his Third Assistant’s lofty figuring, the conclusions

of which are announced on page 328 of the report, and of his own

statement of the “reasons for an increase of rate” on periodicals of the

_magazine class_, for carrying and handling their “advertising pages”--in

face of these statements, how did his mental gear so slip, or “jam,”

as to induce him to recommend, on page 35 of this _same_ report, the

enactment of a law continuing the cent-a-pound rate on _all_ periodicals

mailed, except sample copies?

Did he intentionally double cross both himself and his Third Assistant

or, in his anxiety to curb the circulation growth of periodicals, _did he

forget_ what he and Mr. Britt had said?

What’s the answer?

I give it up. However it may appear to the reader, to The Man on the

Ladder it appears that Mr. Hitchcock in his 1910 report has written,

figured and “recommended” himself into a situation that is far more

humoresque than it is consistent or informative.

Returning to the report of the 1906-7 commission, I will mention a few

more of its objectionable recommendations.

As previously stated, the Penrose-Overstreet Commission recommended the

enactment of a law requiring that newspapers and other periodicals devote

not more than one-half their space to advertising matter (Section 3 of

recommended bill, page 50 of report). Thus, in pressing an ill-conceived

purpose to restrain the growth of circulation and increase of weight of

monthly and weekly periodicals, they would, it appears, cut into that

division of their published matter _which produces the greatest revenue

to the government for carriage and handling_.

The truth of the last clause preceding has been so frequently and

conclusively shown as to require no argument to convince the veriest

tyro in knowledge of federal postoffice affairs and the sources of its

revenues that the statement made is true. Elsewhere in this volume,

however, the truth of the statement will be found fully established.

I confine the application of the statement to monthly and weekly

periodicals, to such as are of general circulation. It of course applies,

but in lesser degree, to newspapers. The advertising matter published

in the newspapers is largely of local character, while that published

in our high class monthly magazines and weeklies, in trade journals,

etc., is largely general in character. The advertisements published by

the former are chiefly those of local merchants and manufacturers and of

local, commercial, financial and other interests. On the other hand the

advertisements carried by the class of monthly and weekly periodicals

indicated represent persons, companies and interests widely scattered

throughout the country. Because of this phase in the character of the

advertisements carried, the newspapers advertising space is not nearly so

large a contributor to the government’s revenues from first, third and

fourth class mail carriage and handling as is the advertising space of

our high-class monthly and weekly periodicals.

It is true that this 1906-7 commission makes a somewhat _strained_ effort

to assign two chief reasons for its recommendation to curtail the space

which publishers of periodicals of all kinds may devote to advertising

matter.

1. The commissioners appear to have been carrying around with them

a stern purpose to suppress what they designate as the “mail order”

publications, devoted largely to advertising the wares carried in stock

by one or, at most, a few firms that individually or jointly pay for

publishing the “weekly” or “monthly”, as the case may be.

There can be no question that there is a large number of such alleged

periodicals which have been issued and distributed through the mails

for the _plainly_ manifest purpose of advertising the merchandise of

those who pay for publishing them. I believe, however, that there are

fewer of such fake periodicals enjoying the mail service at second-class

rates today than there were ten or fifteen years ago. The Postoffice

Department, it must be said to its credit, has “disciplined” a large

number of them out of existence or, at any rate, out of the second-class

mail rate privilege.

But even if there are more of such fraud and fake periodicals today than

formerly, any fair-minded man must agree that it is a very rank injustice

to punish--to penalize by harsh restrictions and increased mailing

rates--the thousands of legitimate and highly serviceable periodicals for

the sins of a comparatively few alleged publications which have abused or

are abusing the second-class mail rate privilege.

The department, with its large force of inspectors and investigators,

should be able to weed out and exclude such “fixed” periodicals. If

it cannot do so it appears to The Man on the Ladder that it would not

require a very large amount of industrious, strenuous thinking on the

part of six robust, competent legislators to frame a law that would reach

the _guilty_ without punishing or crippling the innocent.

2. This commission was also, it would appear, a stickler over

_compliance_ with the postal statutes--statutes (those now largely

governing) enacted in 1879 and 1885, therefore so antiquated in their

wording in several particulars as to be a misfit when attempt is made to

apply them to the vast business and varied character of periodicals today.

The statute of March 3, 1879, in its definition of what the law would

recognize as a periodical says, among other things, that a periodical

must be “_originated and published for the dissemination of information

of a public character, or devoted to literature, the arts, sciences, or

to some industry_.”

This portion of the statutory definition the Commission seems to have

entertained a special grudge against. At any rate it expatiated at

considerable length in its report, against the inadequacy, lack of

definiteness, etc., of the definition as given. The commission’s chief

objection seems to center around the fact that space in periodicals

should not be devoted to “commercial ends.”

On page 35 of the report the commission says:

“What was in the mind of the author (of the 1879 statute), is

clear enough. He wished to prohibit the misuse of the privileges

for _commercial ends_ as distinguished from the devotion to

literature, science, and the rest.”

It is possible that they knew what was in the mind of the author of

that ’79 statute better than I know it, or than Jim Smith or Reuben

Peachtree knows it. It is also possible that they did _not_ know the mind

of that lawbuilder any better. While the ’79 statute does not, in many

particulars, meet present conditions as they should be met, in defining

a publication that should be recognized as a periodical, it requires a

supercritical or finicky mind to find much fault with it.

A periodical must be “originated and published for the dissemination of

_information_ of a public character, devoted to _literature_, the _arts_,

sciences or some _special industry_.”

Now, when one considers the broad application of the word “literature,”

the word “arts,” comprehending as it does not only the mechanical and

liberal or polite arts, but also _business_, commercial, mercantile

and others, including the science of business management, and the term

“special industry” and the broad field covered by it--when one considers

the broad application of those words, it is a fairly legitimate inference

that it was “in the mind” of the writer when drafting that ’79 statute

_to give a broad meaning_ and range of service to the publications he

intended should be classed as periodicals.

In this connection it is pertinent to ask why periodical publications

should not serve, either in their advertising pages or in their “body

pages,” devoted to fiction and articles on political conditions,

economics, history, the lives and deeds of men, forests and forestry,

mills, mines, factory, farm and a vast array of other features, phases

and conditions--why, I ask, should our periodicals not give aid by giving

space to the great mercantile, manufacturing, financial, agricultural and

other interests in this country--_interests which, collectively, have

built up a commerce more vast today than that of any other nation of

earth_?

Why should not this vast commerce of ours--a commerce in which every man,

woman and child of our people is directly or indirectly interested--be

aided and served in every legitimate way by our periodicals? Will some

_politically_ living member of that Penrose-Overstreet Commission rise

and answer? Answer, not in hypercritical nothings, but _straightly and

bluntly_?

Another immediately pertinent thing should be stated and another asked

here. Among the instruments which have contributed to build up the great

commerce of the nation, the American periodical must be recognized--_is

recognized_--as one of the most efficient.

Why, then, this recent attempt to cripple, to curb, to lessen, its

influence and effort? And why, again, try to curtail its circulation and

usefulness by prattle about a postal “deficit” as reason for restrictive

departmental rulings and laws when, should such restrictive measures be

made effective, a shrinkage of postal revenues and a consequent increase

of deficit would, necessarily, result?

Will some one whose thought-dome and _pockets_ are not full of ulterior

motives and postal service “deficits” please rise and answer?

Returning to the 1906-7 commission’s agony over the definition in the

act of 1879 of what should be considered a periodical and, therefore,

entitled to mail entry as second-class matter, it appears that the

commissioners, in an apparent _anxious_ anxiety to prove their charge

against the author of the act for careless, ambiguous wording, quote a

lawyer’s opinion, or part of such opinion, in support of the carefully

framed-up “arguments” which it presents in didactic order, both before

and after the quotation.

The quotation, it should be noted, is from the brief of the Postmaster

General’s counsel in Houghton vs. Payne, 194 U. S. 88, or so the

commission’s report designates it.

The point of the commission’s argument appears to be: (1) that owing to

its loose, indefinite wording, the act of ’79 was of easy evasion when

it came to passing upon the kind and character of matter which might

be published in periodical form and mailed at second-class rates, and

(2) that, by reason of such loose and indefinite wording, periodical

publishers _have_ evaded the intent and purpose of the act--have abused

their second-class rate privileges--_have violated the law_.

That, at any rate, I read as the point and purpose of the commission’s

somewhat labored, if not strained, argument. They quote (pages 37-38)

this counsel in support of that argument. I shall here reprint that

quotation as evidence that the publisher of “the universally recognized,

commonly accepted, and perfectly well understood periodical of everyday

speech” (see fifth paragraph of quotation) _have not violated the law nor

sought to do so_.

The quoted opinion presents some italicized words, phrases and clauses

as it appears in the report. I have taken the liberty to further

italicize in reprinting it:

“The next words only strengthen the same idea--originated and

published _for the dissemination of information of a public

character_. Not, it will be observed, that it shall _contain_

information of a public character, but shall be published _for

the dissemination of_ such public information. Each of these

words is significant, and each gathers significance from its

neighbors. _Dissemination_ is here a word of strong color and

tinges all the rest. It indicates a dynamic process, an agency

at work carrying out a purpose for which it was originated and

set in motion. But strong as the word dissemination is, it is

fortified by the use of the word _information_. An agency for the

dissemination of knowledge for example, might better consist with

the idea of a library of books. But the word is not knowledge,

but _information_. The distinction is obvious. One has the sense

of accumulated stores; the other of _imparting the idea of things

for current needs_. One is, as it were, human experience at rest;

the other, human experience in action. One may be as stale as you

please; the other must be new, fresh, vital. A book, a volume, is

the medium of one; a journal the medium of the other.

“Information,” says the Century Dictionary, “is timely or

specific knowledge respecting some _matter of interest or

inquiry_.” It is, as it were, vitalized knowledge; knowledge

imbued with life and activity. Nor when we come to the next phase

do we find any change in the idea--or devoted to literature,

the sciences, arts, or some special industry. _Devoted_ to

literature. Mark you, not that the publication shall be

literature or contain literature, but that it shall be devoted

to literature. What is meant by devoted? The Century Dictionary

puts it thus: To direct or apply chiefly or wholly to some

purpose, work, or use; to give or surrender completely, as to

some person or end, as to _devote_ oneself to art, literature,

or philanthropy. There again we have the idea of a permanent

continuing entity, a thing existing for a given purpose,

appearing regularly at such intervals (not greater than three

months), as may most effectually meet its needs, in the interest

of art, of science, or literature.

Do we say that a book--a novel, a history, a drama--is devoted to

literature? It is not devoted to literature; _it is literature_,

and it would be an absurdity to speak of it as devoted to itself.

Such a locution would be merely a willful perversion of language.

On the other hand, a review or a magazine may be said to be

devoted to literature with perfect naturalness and propriety.

For we rightly conceive of the review or magazine as one

definite recognizable entity--a continuing whole, originated for

a given purpose, and made up of similar parts having a common

object--literature, for example, or art, or science, or whatever

else it is to which the whole is devoted.

Taking these words, originated and published for, dissemination,

information, devoted to, they all point to one conclusion.

They are, we repeat, strong and pregnant words. There is but

one concept consistent with them all. We confidently submit

that an attentive reading of the statute will leave no doubt

that what Congress constantly had in mind in the creating of

this privileged class of publications was the _universally

recognized, commonly accepted, and perfectly well understood

periodical of everyday speech_.

In establishing the rate for newspapers and other periodical

publications Congress was not seeking to discriminate between

good literature and bad literature or to establish a _censorship

of the press with prizes for merit_. The thing it had in mind

was not the goodness or badness of the information disseminated,

but the _instrumentalities by which that dissemination might

be accomplished_. It was not thinking of all the accumulated

stores of sound and pure literature in the vast libraries of the

world, _but it was thinking of how the mind of an inquiring and

progressive people might be kept abreast of the times in all

departments of human thought and activity_. Congress did not

stand hesitating between a good book and a bad newspaper.

Another position taken by the Penrose-Overstreet Commission, and one

which The Man on the Ladder strongly opposes, is that a periodical may

not or “must not consist wholly or substantially of fiction.”

The words just quoted are exactly the words used in the sixth paragraph

of Section 2 of the bill the enactment of which this commission

recommended.

Now, whatever their wit or wisdom, their eloquence or adroitness of

speech, their beauty of shape and apparel, or their loftiness of

position, that “recommendation” should recommend the personnel of that

commission, it seems to me, to some “wronghouse” for a long rest. Their

conclusion, their _lex_ recommendation and their “argument” in support,

taken collectively, are as thrilling, likewise amusing, as the point in

a story “where the woman is turned on and begins to short circuit the

hero,” putting it as near as I can remember in the language of Sewell

Ford, Bowers, or some other “enlivening writer.”

Lest the reader think my adverse criticism of the commissioners too

harsh, or not in keeping with the dignity of the gentlemen composing that

1906-7 commission, I shall here quote a few of the paragraphs it presents

as basis for its recommendation. The reader will oblige by carefully

noting the italics. They are mine, and, following the quotation, I shall

comment on some of those italicized phrasings and statements:

“Not only does the element of fiction constitute the (1)

_propulsive force behind the expansion of second-class matter_,

but it serves at the same time (2) _to undermine the main

statutory check upon the commercial exploitation of the second

class_. Being free to make up a periodical which contains nothing

but fiction, publishers find ready at hand the very thing with

which to interlard and _disguise the advertising matter_, for the

sake of which the publication is really issued. This they could

not do if the advertisement carrying text was required to be news

matter or critical matter of a current nature. (3) _Deprive the

mail-order journals of the right to cloak_ their advertising with

fiction and require them to publish something in the nature of

a newspaper or review with expensive news-gathering apparatus

and an editorial staff and (4) the _mail-order advertising

journal will completely disappear_. It lives only by reason of

two things, the cheapness of its fiction, with which it cloaks

its advertising, and the cheapness of the postal rate which that

fiction cloak enables it to obtain.

“The distinction between the fiction-carrying periodical and the

nonfiction-carrying periodical (5) _is precisely the distinction

between a periodical fulfilling the purposes of the act and the

publication which, although periodical in its form, has no true

periodicity in its essence_.

“Another consequence of the expansive power of fiction is

found in the confusion of the newspaper and magazine types and

the unhealthy exaggeration of the modern newspaper, as shown

especially in its Sunday editions.

“The newspaper is rapidly being extended into the magazine field

at the sacrifice both of the postal revenue and the (6) _true

mission of the newspaper. The miscellaneous matter contained

in the Sunday issue of a newspaper must of necessity lack the

quality to make it socially and educationally valuable._” (Page

37.)

“No fiction necessarily involves the element of periodicity

or time publication which is involved in the very idea of a

newspaper or periodical. It follows, then, (7) _that the real

purpose of the act of March 3, 1879, namely, the diffusion in the

quickest possible way at the smallest possible cost of timely

information among the people, is perverted when the right to

that quick and inexpensive diffusion is extended to the form

of fiction_. But the periodical form devoted to fiction, or in

which fiction constitutes the predominant feature, is the very

form of periodical which serves to swell the second class. The

popular demand for fiction seems to be practically unlimited.

The temptation offered by the low postal rate to supply that

demand through the periodical form is a temptation impossible to

resist.” (Page 39.)

I shall make my comment on the foregoing in the order that its italicized

_assertions_ are numbered.

(1) The “element of fiction” has not and does _not_ constitute “the

propulsive force” stated. Was it “fiction” that propulsed the circulation

of _Everybody’s_? of _Pearson’s_? of _The Cosmopolitan_? of _The

American_? of _McClure’s_? of _The Saturday Evening Post_? of _The Inland

Printer_? of _The Progressive Printer_? or of scores of other monthly

and weekly periodicals whose publishers are independent enough to do

their own thinking and courageous enough to publish what they and their

representatives found to be the truth?

Was “Frenzied Finance” fiction?

Was Anna M. Tarbell’s exposures of Standard Oil fiction?

Was the exposure of the Waters-Pierce Oil Company’s connection with

the great Senatorial “I” of Texas fiction? Was the shake-up of the “Big

Three” life insurance companies fiction? Were the hundreds of other

trenchant write-ups and exposures of wrong practices, of impositions,

of crookedness and _crooks_ in official, corporation and private life,

“fiction?”

The man who reads and will attempt to answer any of those questions

affirmatively needs to have his brain dusted up--that is, of course, on

the presumption that he is not _paid for vocal gyrations_.

And yet it was the telling write-ups and exposures of these independents

which greatly increased their circulation and, consequently, increased

second-class tonnage.

(2) There is no such “main statutory check.” Moreover, the “commercial

exploitation” given in the advertising pages of our standard periodicals

to merchants, manufacturers, etc., is, as previously shown, not only just

and due to the vast commercial interests of the country, but it is safely

within both the letter and the intent of the statute.

(3) As previously intimated, a sextet of experienced legislators who

could not frame up a law that would put the “mail-order journals” and

other abusers and abuses of the second-class mail-rate privilege out

of business without ruinously restricting and obstructing the vast

legitimate periodical interests of the country, that sextet ought to

do one of two things, either send their thought equipment to a vacuum

cleaner to get the dust blown off and then try again, or they should turn

the task over to some other legislators. There most certainly are scores

of legislators in the Senate and the House fully equipped to prepare such

a piece of legislation.

(4) In comment under (3) I noted this “mail order advertising journal.” I

did so to indicate that the Penrose-Overstreet Commission, as it appears

to me, worked the “mail order” print stuff overtime for the purpose of

_reaching certain legitimate publications_.

(5) There is no such distinction between “a fiction-carrying periodical

and the non-fiction carrying periodical” as that named. Fiction in a

periodical is just as permissible under the act as is the series of

war stories, or reminiscences, now (May, 1911), running in one of the

magazines; as in the series of articles on the civil war now running in

one of the Chicago newspapers, or as would be a series of articles on

“the Panama Canal,” on the “Development of the Reaping Machine,” on

“Treason in Our Senate,” on “The Depletion of American Forests,” on “The

Railroads’ Side of the Railway Mail Pay,” or on any other subject of the

historical past or active present.

In fact, most of the current fiction, whether in serial or short-story,

published in the standard monthly, weekly and other periodicals of large

general circulation presents far more of _truth_ than do the stories,

reminiscences and “historical narratives about the civil war,” written

forty-five years after the events, and, if based on personal experience,

written from fading memory of the facts.

(6) While one may agree with the thought expressed by the commission

at (6), its wording expresses a desire or tendency to _censor_ the

periodical press of the people by legislative restrictions and

departmental rulings which not only contravene the Federal Constitution,

but which are inimical to the personal rights and liberties guaranteed by

that constitution.

Force is added to this objection to the commission’s recommendation by

the fact that it specifically delegates to the Postmaster General the

power and authority to decide the kind and character of printed matter

which shall have the right of entry at second-class rates, and which

complies with the requirements the commission would have written into the

law.

Section 2 of the at present governing statute, the commission advised

(see recommended bill, page 49 of report), should, in its opening

paragraph, read as follows:--

“No newspaper or other periodical shall be admitted to the second class

unless it shall be made to appear by evidence, _satisfactory to the

Postmaster General or his lawful deputy in that behalf_, that it complies

with the following conditions.”

Then follow the “conditions,” several of which I have already shown to be

seriously objectionable.

(7) I have already presented, under (5), some objections to the

commission’s argument made in this seventh citation. I will, however,

again say that the publication of fiction, other than immoral, in

periodicals, does not, in my judgment at least, in any way infringe the

“purpose of the act” of 1879. I will here go further, and say that the

act of ’79 does _not_ comprehend in its “real purpose,” as the commission

tries to make it appear at (7), that “the diffusion in the quickest

possible way at the smallest possible cost of _timely_ information among

the people”--that is, the act does not so purpose if the word “timely,”

as here used, is intended to mean “news” or “currence of matter,” etc.,

as the commission elsewhere in its report argues for. In fact, the

commission’s statement at (7) is further alee of the “real purpose” of

the act of 1879 than is the publication of _any fiction_ in a periodical,

and that too, whether the fiction be a reprint of some old production

or the imaginative visualizations of some current writer who moved from

periodical publication in 1908 or 1909 to print as a “best-seller” in

1910, or from a best seller in 1908-9 to periodical form in 1911.

In short, the commission’s position regarding the publication of fiction

in periodical form contravenes the “real purpose” of the law. So, also,

does its position on several points it seeks to bolster in its report

contravene the real purpose of that act, as I have previously shown,

quoting in one instance the opinion of a Postmaster General’s counsel,

which opinion the commission itself quoted to support a _false position_.

I feel constrained to make another point against the stand this

commission took against the admissibility to the second class mail rate

privilege of periodicals largely devoted to fiction.

It appears to me that these commissioners must have confined their

reading in recent years largely to the older and so-called “classic”

fiction, to professional tomes, to juridic opinions, attorney’s briefs,

and to “booster” stuff for parties and candidates published in our

newspapers. Certainly they could not have read much of the periodical

fiction published by our high-class monthlies and weeklies. If they had

done so, they would not, it seems to me, have written so loosely and

_unwarrantedly_ of the “fiction” in their report.

Had they read much of the fiction appearing in the leading periodicals

during current and recent years, they would have learned at least two

facts about it:

1. Much--yes, most--of the fiction printed during recent years in our

standard periodicals (even in those printing only fiction as “body

matter”), has been highly didactic or educational in character.

2. The periodical fiction published in our leading magazines and weeklies

has taught our people lessons in morals, in politics, in political

economy, in social, domestic and industrial life. It has told its

readers of the habits and habitat of animals, of birds and bees; of

flowers, of fruits and forestry. Nor has there been much of “nature

faking” in it. Some of the most informative matter ever printed bearing

upon natural history, the geography, topography and hydrography of this

earth, has reached us through the periodical fiction of the past ten

or twelve years. Not only that, but such fiction has gone to the farm

and into the laboratory, into the mine, the factory, the mill, and the

lumber camp; into the mercantile establishment, into transportation,

both rail and water; into the counting room, into the “sweat-shop” and

into the tenement districts, the purlieus and the “submerged tenths” in

both the lower and higher “walks” of the world’s various and varying

civilizations, and it has _taught us things_ we did not before know.

Then _why_ should new laws be enacted, or old laws be twisted, turned

or misconstrued, to exclude “fiction”--_periodical_ fiction--from the

second-class mail rate privilege?

One other objection I find to this 1906-7 commission’s report. It

recommends the appointment of a “Commission of Postal Appeals.”

The report states that certain publishers favored such a commission.

That be as it may, I do not believe that such a commission will return

service value at all commensurate with the amount of public money

it would cost to keep its wheels “greased” and operating. Next to a

bureaucracy, government by commissions is the worst. Can the reader think

of a “Commission”--a Government, a State, County or City Commission--that

ever discharged, promptly and satisfactorily, the duties assigned to it?

One is put to no trouble to think of scores of Civil Service Commissions,

Forestry Commissions, Subway Commissions, Canal Commissions, Traction

Commissions, Railroad Commissions, Postal Commissions, Inter-State

Commerce Commissions and a host of others.

But do you know of one of them that ever did any real serviceable work

_for the people_--did it until an aroused and hostile public opinion

_kicked_ it into doing the work?

You may know of one. The Man on the Ladder knows of _none_, and he has

been watching the service value of the “commission” for thirty-five

years. As a _governing_ instrument it has largely been a _subversive_

instrument. It always spends its appropriation. It always puts as many

of its uncles, brothers and nephews on the pay roll and takes as many

junkets as is possible under its appropriation and, if the appropriation

is exceeded, it usually asks for more and--_gets it_.

We have an Interstate Commerce Commission. It has been on the

job ever since John Sherman put it on duty. Sherman knew what he

intended--_wanted_--it to do. Did it do what he and the rest of us

depended on it to do? Well, not to any noticeable extent. It spent

hundreds of thousands of dollars of our money while it _permitted_ the

railroads and express companies to rebate, “differential” and “short” and

“long” haul us out _of hundreds of millions of easy or stolen dollars_.

O yes! of course the Interstate Commerce Commission is, of late, getting

down to business--getting down to the work John Sherman _intended it to

do when he drafted the bill which created it_.

Why has that commission finally arrived at its starting point? Why is it

now trying to do--and trying, even yet, to do it in a _loose, dilatory

way_--what Sherman intended it to do?

“Why?” Why, simply because the people have finally learned--thanks

largely to the enlightenment given them by the independent periodicals of

the country--that they have been governmentally treated as fools--that

they have been treated as sheep to furnish fleece and mutton for a few

who feast and wear fine raiment, _yet earn it not_.

O yes, the people have learned some things and they, recently, have been

learning rapidly. It is the people who have _learned_ who have virtually

_kicked_ the Interstate Commerce Commission into dutiful action.

No, I positively do not like government by commission, and especially

do I not like government of our postal service, or any phase, feature

or division of it, by a “Commission of Postal Appeals” or by any other

commission, however dignified its title may be. Any suggestion or

recommendation of such a commission is, to The Man on the Ladder, but a

suggestion and recommendation to further load an already _overloaded_

service.

By that, I mean that the service now rendered by the Federal Postoffice

Department is not nearly commensurate with the number of employes carried

on its payrolls or with its expenditures, and that the creation of a

commission--any postal commission--will only add names to the department

payrolls and thousands of dollars to its already excessive expenditures.

In closing my consideration of this Penrose-Overstreet Commission’s

report--a report which Mr. Hitchcock appears to have taken some

“hunches” from while it also appears he gave very little or no study or

consideration to the vast amount of informative data it collected and

_filed_--I desire to make a statement or two and then ask a pertinently

impertinent question or two.

Among the vast amount of informative data on the subject of transporting

and handling second-class mail matter, its cost to the government, etc.,

there are pages upon pages of testimony by publishers the commission

invited to appear before it in person or by representative. Some of

that testimony, so newspapers reported during the hearings in both

New York and Washington, is supported or re-enforced by the jurats of

the publishers testifying. Some of those publishers stated in their

testimony that the sample copies they had distributed had, by reason

of the correspondence and mail business resulting, amply compensated

the government for carrying and handling such sample copies. Several

_specific and detailed_ statements were made by the publishers.

Again: The publishers furnished voluminous testimony--both in their own

statements and in the correspondence of business men who had patronized

the columns of their publications--in proof of the fact that (1) the

advertising pages of their publications were as generally read, if not

more read, than were the body pages, and (2) that the sales of stamps by

the government for the correspondence and business resulting from the

advertisements printed yielded far more postal revenue than did any other

character of second-class matter the mail service handled.

Now, the questions.

When this Penrose-Overstreet Commission sent out its invitations most of

them went to publishers and associations of publishers. At any rate so it

would appear from statements in the commission’s report.

_Did the commission believe the publishers invited were liars?_

If so, why did it invite them?

After hearing their verbal testimony and looking over their written

statements, _did the commission conclude that those publishers were

liars_?

If so, why did it spend the people’s money to collate, digest and file

the testimony of liars for the information of Mr. Cortelyou, the then

Postmaster General, Mr. Meyer and Mr. Hitchcock, his successor, and other

Postmaster Generals who will follow Mr. Hitchcock?

Again--If those commissioners of 1906-7 concluded, either before or after

hearing them, that the publishers were or are _liars_, why may not, or

should not, those publishers conclude (after reading their report) that

the commissioners are liars?

FOOTNOTES

[2] Covers are included in the total for pages given.

[3] One cover page included in count for periodicals carrying cover with

no advertising matter on title page of same.

[4] Three pages of cover are counted as advertising.

[5] The weight of supplements to Sunday Editions of newspapers (when

mentioned as supplements in list), is included in the gross weight of the

issue as given.