POSTAL DEFICITS.
Now, let us look into and over that postoffice “deficit,” to the
origin of which the memory of man scarcely runneth back, and which Mr.
Hitchcock, by some strenuous effort on _right_ lines readily converted
into a surplus--a $6,000,000 deficit into some hundreds of thousands
of dollars surplus. The returns are not all in yet. At any rate the
Postmaster General has not announced them loud enough for The Man on the
Ladder to hear, or he was in his physician’s hands when the announcement
was made.
However that may be, Mr. Hitchcock has proved quite conclusively that
there is no deficit--or, at least, no valid reason for one under present
conditions.
And here, again, I desire to say that our present Postmaster General is
deserving the praise or commendation of every American citizen for having
demonstrated, by a few economies here and a few betterments there in the
operation of his department, that the service _can_ be rendered, and
rendered efficiently, with an expenditure safely within the bounds of the
department’s receipts or revenues.
Especially is Mr. Hitchcock deserving of commendation for this
demonstration, because in making it he has done what so many of his
predecessors _talked of as desirable_, but failed to do.
But with full acknowledgment of the splendid effort Mr. Hitchcock has
made in converting a postal deficit of $6,000,000 in 1909-10 into a
surplus for the year 1910-11, I desire to discuss, briefly, postal
department deficits of the past--or the future--and the origin and cause
of them.
In the future pages of this volume little if any reference will be made
to our vigorous Postmaster General’s attempt to put onto the Senate
course a rider that would run down certain periodicals which were to him
and certain of his friends, as it would appear, of obstructive if not
offensive character. It is possible, if, indeed, not probable, that I
may, in this somewhat hurried discussion of our Postoffice Department
deficits and their sources, cause and origin, repeat something, in whole
or in part, that I have said elsewhere in this volume.
The discussion of the postal deficits leads us into the _Raider_
factor or feature of our general title--into a consideration of the
political, partisan and business influences and interests which have for
thirty-five or more years been conspicuously--yes, _brazenly_--looting
the revenues of the department. I shall not be able to advert to all
such influences, interests and persons. Especially can I not mention
some of the _persons_. Many of them have gone to “their reward”--or
to their punishment--as the Almighty has seen fit to assign them. As
a matter of venerable custom and of current conventional courtesy we
must leave them to His justice--to our silence. One by one many of the
_dishonestly enriched_ from our postal revenues have dropped into “the
dead past,” which Christ instructed should be left to “bury its dead.” In
our treatment of this subject we shall obey the Master’s instruction--we
shall discuss methods, practices, and _acts_, not men.
In turning to our subject directly, I desire to make a few positive
statements or declarations.
1. The Postoffice Department is a public service department--a department
intended to serve _all the people all the time_.
2. The people are paying, have paid, and are _willing to pay_, for their
postal service.
3. The people do not care--never have cared--whether the expenditures
exceed the receipts by $6,000,000 or $100,000,000, _if they get the
service for the money expended_.
In comment on the last, I wish here to ask if anyone has heard
much loud noise from the people about the army and the navy
expenditures--_expenditures larger than that of any other nation on
earth_ for similar purposes?
Yet, for twenty or more years, the people have paid the appropriations
for--also met the “deficit” bills of--each of those departments without
any noticeable “holler.”
But, again, it must be pertinently asked, what have the people received
in return for their _billions_ of expenditures for those two departments?
Yes, what? They have had the doubtful “glory” of having their army
_debauch_ some island possessions, maneuver for local entertainments
and do some society stunts while on “post leave”--which “leave”, for
epauletted military officers, appears to have occupied most of their time.
And the people have put up, ungrumblingly, $100,000,000 to $150,000,000
or more (I forget the figures), for a navy--a navy carrying on its
payrolls more “shore leave” men and clerks than it has service men.
(At any rate that was the showing in a recent year). For this vast
expenditure of their money the people got--_got what_?
Well, for their hundreds of millions expenditure on that navy of ours,
the people, to date, have received in return _newspaper reports_ of
numerous magazine and gun explosions with, of course, a list of the
killed and wounded, and reports of “blow-hole” or otherwise faulted armor
plate, turrets, etc., of raising “The Maine,” of shoaling this, that or
the other battleship, or of “sparring” or “lightering” off, to the music
that is made by a “blow-in” of fifty thousand to two or three hundred
thousand more of their money.
Reader, if you read--if you have read--the “news”--the periodical
literature--of those past twenty years, you will know that the people
have received little or no returns for the vast expenditure of money--of
_their_ money--that their representatives (?) have made for the Navy
Department.
Oh, yes, I remember that our army and navy fought to a “victorious”
conclusion the “Spanish American” war.
No patriotic American citizen alive at the time that war occurred will
ever forget it. He will ever remember Siboney, Camp Thomas, Camp Wycoff,
and the cattle-ship transports for diseased and dying soldiers. He will
also remember the “embalmed beef” and the “decayed tack” and other
contracts and contractors.
If the patriotic citizen has been an “old soldier,” or is familiar with
the history of wars, he will also know that, if the whole land fighting
of that Spanish American war was corralled into _one_ action that action
would be infinitely less sanguine than was the action at a number of
“skirmishes” in our civil war--that, if the several naval actions of that
war were merged into one, it would not equal, in either gore or naval
glory, Farragut’s capture of Mobile, the action in Hampton Roads, nor
even Perry’s scrimmage on Lake Erie in 1813.
What has all this to do with the postal department deficit, some one may
ask? It has just this to do with it:
If a people stand unmurmuringly for the expenditure of _billions_ for
a service that yields them no return, save a protection _they have not
needed_ and of doubtful security if needed, that people is not going to
raise any noisy hubbub over a dinky deficit of a few millions a year for
a service which should serve them _every day of every year_.
I have expanded a little, not disgressed, in writing to my statement
numbered 3. I will now proceed with my premeditated statements. Some of
them may be a little frigid, but none of them are cold-storage. Some one
may have told it all to you before, but that is his fault, not mine. He
merely beat me to the _facts_.
4. As stated in a forward page of this volume, the people of this nation
want and demand _service_ of its Postoffice Department. They care not to
the extent of a halloween pea-shooter whether the service is rendered at
a deficit of six million or at a surplus of ten million, _if service is
rendered for the money expended_.
5. The people of this country will object more strenuously against a
_surplus_ in their postal revenues--their service tax--than they ever
have or will object to a deficit in the revenues of that service, _if
they get the service_.
6. The Postoffice Department is not understood--is not even thought of
by intelligent citizens--as a _revenue-producing_ department. It _is_
understood to be a _service_ department, and the citizen--His Majesty,
the American Citizen--is always willing to pay for services rendered.
7. The Postoffice Department has not in the period named--no, not for
thirty or thirty-five years--_rendered the citizen the service for which
he paid_.
I mean by that, of course, that the citizen has been compelled to pay far
more for a postal service than he _should have paid for that service_.
8. Had that service been _honestly, faithfully and efficiently rendered_,
the price the citizen has paid for it _would have left no deficit for any
year within the past thirty_.
9. _The only deficits in those thirty or thirty-five years have been
the result of manipulated bookkeeping, of political trenching into the
revenues of the department, of loose methods in its management, of
disinterest in the enforcement of even loose methods, and of downright
lootage and stealings._
“Rather harsh that, is it not?” asks one.
“Mere assertion,” says another
To the first I need only say that this is an age not congenial to
milk-poultice talk. I have previously expressed my opinion on that point.
If you have a thing to say, say it _hard_. The majority of people will
then understand you. Those who do not understand you can continue their
milk poultices--or believe and talk as they are told _or are paid to
believe and talk_.
The latter--the reader who yodles that my preceding nine statements
appear to be assertions only--can make a courteous and, possibly, a
profitable use of an hour’s leisure in reading a few following pages,
before he _rusts_ into the belief that those nine “assertions” are
groundless assertions.
In showing that there is no “deficit”--a shortage of receipts in the
Postoffice Department over its legitimate expenditures--I shall not take
my nine statements up seriatim, but present my reasons in a general way
for having made such blunt declarations. I may go about that, too, in an
awkward way, but the reader who follows me will get my reasons for making
those nine declarations.
NO CREDIT ALLOWED FOR SERVICES RENDERED OTHER DEPARTMENTS.
If the department of public works in Chicago does a piece of bricklaying,
concrete or other construction work for the police, fire, health or other
department of the city government, or if it carts or hauls away some
excavated material or razed debris for any of those other departments,
the service rendered is made a _charge_ by the department of public works
_against_ the department for which the service is rendered.
What is true in this instance in Chicago’s municipal government is true
of every other city or incorporated town in this country that has its
service departmentized.
If the County Commissioners of McCrackin county build a bridge or culvert
for Ridgepole township in the county the cost of constructing that bridge
or culvert (or a proportional share of it, if on a general highway), is
made a charge against Ridgepole township.
If the transportation department of the United States Steel Corporation
delivers the services of three steam tugs (services rated at $30.00 per
day) to the corporation’s smelting or rail departments there is a credit
of $90.00 given to the transportation department, and a corresponding
_charge made against the department for which the service is rendered,
for each day’s service rendered_.
_That states a recognized business rule and practice_ among both private
and public corporations. Its valid and _just_ purpose is to prevent the
loading upon one department (any one department) the expenses created or
incurred by another.
Is it not a valid, fair and just method of business?
If it is not, then the largest merchants, the most productive and
profitable manufacturing establishments, transportation companies,
banking and other mercantile, industrial and financial institutions have
not discovered the fact.
If the owner of an Egyptian hen ranch had a shrinkage in his castor bean
crop, he would not think of charging the cost or loss on those castor
beans up to his hens, would he? Hens do not eat castor beans. That is
useless--well--yes, of course. Well, hens do not eat castor beans,
anyway. So my ill-chosen illustration, though may stand--stand anyway
until someone finds a breed of hens which likes castor beans.
But, if the hens of that hen-rancher invaded his vegetable garden,
scratched up his set onions and seeded radishes, pecked holes in three
hundred heads of his “early” cabbage and otherwise damaged the fruits
of his labor, care and hopes--likewise disarranged his figures on
prospective profits--if the hens did that, that hen-rancher would most
certainly charge his loss to the hens, would he not?
That is, he would do so, if the hens had attended to their legitimate
business as industriously as they looked after his vegetable garden and,
by reason of that legitimate effort, showed a “profit balance.” The
preceding is based, of course, on the assumption that the rancher has
acumen enough to distinguish a hen from a rooster and a sunflower from a
cauliflower. If he is so wised up, whether by experience and observation
or by academic training, he will most certainly charge his loss on
vegetables against those hens.
“What is the application of all this to the Postoffice Department
deficits?” some one is justified in asking.
Well, my intended application of it is, first, to show a generally
recognized and practical business method--a business method practiced by
both public and private corporations and by individuals and firms, from
the hen-rancher to the department store. My second purpose is to show
that this almost universally recognized business method has been and is
_totally ignored in conducting the vast service affairs_ of the Federal
Postoffice Department.
FREE-IN-COUNTY MATTER.
The 1910 report of the Postoffice Department states that 55,639,177
pounds of second-class mail was carried and distributed _free_ in the
counties of these United States.
Of course, this 1910 _gift_ to country publishers is the result of a
moss-grown custom--a custom born of an ingrown desire common to crooked
politicians--a desire to trade the general public service for _private_
service. All the second, third and fourth class cities in the country, as
well as a majority of our towns and larger incorporated villages, have
their _party_ newspaper or newspapers.
Comparatively speaking, few of them have any extensive telegraphic
service, if any at all, in the gathering of news. Those which have not,
capture the early morning editions--or the late evening editions of the
day before--of two or more metropolitan papers, “crib” their “news” and
deliberately run it, in many instances, as special wires to their own
sheets. In some cases, which I have personally noticed, that practice was
indulged when their own “newspaper” consisted of but two to four locally
printed pages reinforced by a “patent inside.” Why should such newspapers
(?) be given “free distribution” in the county of publication?
They contain little if any real news and less matter of any real
informative or educational value. True, the most of them do publish
a “local” column or half column of “news” for each or for several of
the outlying villages in the county of publication. These “local news”
columns inform the reader that “Mr. Benjamin Peewee circulated in
Boneville on Wednesday last;” that “Mrs. Cornstalk and her daughter
Lizzie are spending the week at the old homestead, just south of town,”
that “Mr. Frank Suds shipped a fine load of hogs from Bensonville on
Friday of this week,” etc., etc.
Most edifying “news” that, is it not? So didactic and brain-building, is
it not?
Now, why should the Postoffice Department carry those millions of pounds
of Reubenville sheets _free_?
The department report says it carried about 56,000,000 pounds of such
“periodicals” free last year. The figures for this year (1910-11) will
probably be around 60,000,000 pounds.
Why should the department give away $600,000 in revenues?
Besides that, _the department does not know how much of this_ “free
in county” matter it does carry and distribute. Of course, it may be
able to make a more dependable _guess_ at the total tonnage of such
second-class matter than can I. However, any one who has been around the
“county seat” or the “metropolis” of any of the “hill” or “back” counties
during a county, state or national canvass for votes will know that the
postmaster’s scales are often sadly out of balance when he weighs into
circulation the local newspaper. In fact, it frequently happens that he
does not weigh it at all--especially not, if it be an extra or extra
large edition issued “for the good of the party”--and more especially
not, if the edition is issued to serve _his_ party.
“It goes free anyway, so what is the difference?” the postmaster may
argue, and with fairly valid grounds for such argument. The department,
acting, pursuant of law, says “carry and distribute your local papers
_free_ inside your county.” So what difference does a few hundred or a
few thousand pounds, more or less, make to the department?
Why, certainly, what difference can it make? It is all done for “the good
of the party,” is it not?
This condition, governing, as I personally know it does govern, furnishes
my chief reason for saying that the Postoffice Department does _not_
know--does not know even approximately--the tonnage of the “free in
county” matter it handles. It never has known and does not _now_ know,
within _millions_ of pounds, the weight of such matter it carries and
distributes.
Again, I ask, why is this vast burden thrown onto the department and the
department getting not a cent of either pay or credit for carrying it?
Is it because of a paternal feeling our federal government has for the
poor, benighted farmers of the country? I can scarcely believe it is.
The farmers of this country are neither poor nor are they benighted.
If they were, free carriage and distribution to them of these local
sheets has not enriched them to any appreciable extent, however much
such free carriage and delivery may have added to the bank accounts of
the publishers of such periodical literature. Besides, ninety-five in
every hundred farmers whose names are on the publishers’ subscription
books _pay their subscriptions_. They usually pay, too, a pretty stiff
rate--$1.50 or $2.00 for a “weekly,” which gives them mostly borrowed
news and much of it decidedly stale at that. If a beneficent government
grants its “free in county” postal regulation with a view to dissipating
the gloom which clogs the garrets of our “benighted farmers,” that
government misses its purpose on two essential points. Our farmers, as
previously intimated, are no more benighted than are the residents of our
villages, towns and cities, and even if their ignorance was as dense as
a “practical” politician’s conscience, the medium which the Government
delivers to them, carriage free, seldom contributes much enlightenment.
No, it was not for either the enrichment or the enlightenment of the
dear farmer that the present “free in county” postal regulation was made
operative. It was to give some local party henchman a fairly profitable
job as publisher of a county newspaper--a party newspaper--and to have,
in him, a county “heeler” who would divide his time between building the
party fences and telling the dear farmer how to vote.
It is due to the publishers of country newspapers to say, that hundreds
of them have grown away from rigid party ties--have grown independent. It
is also but just to say that as these publishers have grown independent
of party domination, their newspapers have improved. We have now many
most excellent country papers published in our “down state” cities and
larger towns.
The points I desire to make, however, are, first, the “free in county”
mail delivery regulation was originally adopted for partisan political
purposes, not to serve the farmer residents of the counties, and, second,
that such regulation is unjustly discriminating and is raiding the
service earnings of the Postoffice Department to the extent of at least
six hundred thousand dollars annually. In my opinion such raiding will
reach seven or eight hundred thousands a year.
FRANKED AND PENALTY MATTER.
Going back now to that generally recognized and practical business method
referred to and which the government persistently refuses or neglects
to adopt in handling and directing the fiscal affairs of its Postoffice
Department, we find another raid on that department’s revenues.
Third Assistant Postmaster General, James J. Britt, makes a sort of
estimate of the amount of free second-class matter of Government origin
the Postoffice Department transported and distributed during the fiscal
year ended, June 30, 1910. Mr. Britt places the figure at 50,120,884
pounds.
Mr. Britt’s estimate is based on a six months’ weighing period in 1907
(the last half of that year.) It is reported as a “special weighing” and
showed 26,578,047 pounds of “free in county” second-class matter and
23,941,782 pounds of free franked and penalty matter of the second-class.
Mr. Britt then proceeds (page 335 of the department report for 1910),
to arrive at his estimated tonnage of franked and penalty matter by
assuming that the weight ratio of such second-class matter to “free in
county” matter would be about the same for 1910. He says: “If, as it
seems reasonable to believe, the relative proportions of this character
of matter have remained the same,” there would result for the fiscal year
1909-10 the figures he gives for the franked and penalty tonnage, or
50,120,884 pounds.
Well, to The Man on the Ladder it does _not_ seem “reasonable to believe”
that such method of estimating is sound nor the tonnage result attained
by it dependable. The year 1907 was a decidedly off-year in franked
matter of the second-class. The then President kept most of the Senators
and Congressmen guessing as to just what he intended to do in the matter
of the presidential nomination of his party. In fact, he kept a goodly
number of federal legislators guessing on that point until well along
in 1908. The result of this condition of doubt was greatly to lessen
the franked mailings and also reduced in material degree the mailing of
departmental, or “penalty” matter of the second-class.
For this and several other reasons, the tonnage of franked and penalty
matter reported as carried in the last half of 1907--even if the “special
weighing” Mr. Britt mentions was accurate and dependable, which it _was_
not and could not be, either then or now, under the lax methods by which
such weighings were and are made--the reported weight of such franked and
penalty matter carried in the last half of 1907 furnishes no fair or
safe basis upon which to predicate 1910 totals or to base a dependable
estimate of them.
Another defective factor is used in Mr. Britt’s estimate--the reported
total weight of “free in county” second-class matter as ascertained
by special weighing in the last half of 1907. As previously stated in
discussing the raid of six to eight hundred thousand dollars a year
made upon the postal service revenues by this “free in county” matter,
the department’s reported figures for it are little more than a robust
_guess_ at its tonnage, even now, and the figures given for 1907 are
much less trustworthy than are the department’s estimates and guesses
for the fiscal year ended in 1910. Whatever may be said of its faults
and faulty purposes, it is but simple justice to say the present
departmental administration has shown more judgment and activity and has
put forth more strenuous effort to get to the bottom of things and at
dependable facts in mail weights than has been shown by any of its recent
predecessors.
Still, I repeat that its reported figures for the total tonnage of “free
in county” for carriage and delivery of second-class mail matter are
not sufficiently reliable to warrant their use as a basis for making a
dependable estimate of the tonnage of another free division of second
class mail. Especially unreliable are the figures reported as total
tonnage of free-in-county-matter as a basis for estimating the tonnage of
a division of the service so far removed from “free in county” as is that
of free franked and penalty matter.
All that aside, however, the fact is the Postoffice Department should
receive credit for every pound of franked or penalty matter it handles
for the legislative and other departments of the government service.
Mr. Britt himself appears to recognize the force of that fact. On page
335 of the department report for 1910, he speaks as follows:
The public mind seems unusually acute on the subject of free
mailing facilities, and there is much criticism in the public
press of the continuance of the franking privilege and the use of
the penalty envelope, the suggestion being often made that the
same should be abolished and that this department should receive
proper credit in accounting for matter now being carried free.
It is therefore suggested that consideration be given to the
desirability of eliminating the transportation of mail matter
under frank or penalty clause, in order that the Postoffice
Department may receive due and proper credit for the tremendous,
and in some part possibly unnecessary, services which it is
performing free, to its apparent financial embarrassment.
It is probably true that the use of the penalty envelope and the
franking privilege is availed of with undue liberality, even if
not actually abused, as is often alleged; that is to say, the
same care is not taken to confine the mailings of governmental
and congressional matter to only that which is necessary as would
undoubtedly be the case if there were a strict accountability for
their use.
It will be noted that Mr. Britt in the foregoing covers other than
second-class mail matter. Taking the figures of his estimate of the
volume of free franked and penalty matter of the second-class (51,000,000
pounds in round numbers, which I believe is so conservative as to be far
below the actual tonnage), then the various other departments of the
government are raiding the revenues of the Postoffice Department to the
extent of $510,000 for the carrying and handling of their second-class
mail alone. That is, they are requiring the Postoffice Department to
render to them without pay or credit over a half-million dollars’ worth
of service a year. That is figured at the 2nd class rate of 1 cent a
pound. If Mr. Britt’s own estimate, on another page of the same report,
that it cost the Postoffice Department 9 cents a pound to transport and
handle second-class mail, is correct, which as previously shown it is
not, then other departments of the government would be raiding the postal
service revenues--revenues which private individuals, firms, corporations
and governments subordinate, now alone pay--to the extent of more than
$4,500,000 a year.
It must be borne in mind by the reader, however, that Mr. Britt’s
estimate of 51,000,000 pounds (a round figure) of second-class matter
carried and handled free by his department for other departments of the
federal government does not represent the total of service rendered those
other departments for which the Postoffice Department received neither
pay nor credit. Far from it.
Hundreds of tons--how many hundreds of tons, I do not know, nor have I
been able to find an authority or record to inform myself--of letters
and other sealed matter were carried and distributed by the Postoffice
Department for other departments. For that service not a cent in pay or
credit was received.
It must be remembered that the service rate for carrying and handling
the class of matter (first-class) we are here speaking of is 2 cents per
ounce or fraction thereof. That is, the rate is not less than 32 cents
a pound, not 1 cent a pound as is the rate on second class on which Mr.
Britt gives his estimate of tonnage carried.
Why should not the Senate and the House, the Judicial, War, Navy,
Interior and other departments of the government be required to provide
in their annual appropriation bills for paying for the first-class
service furnished them by the Postoffice Department?
The postal service of the government is also rendered free to the several
departments to handle all their third and fourth class mail matter. What
the annual tonnage of these two classes aggregates I have been unable
to learn. Whether or not the Postoffice Department keeps any records
showing the aggregate mailings by the other departments, I do not know.
I do know, however, that it gets neither pay nor credit for transporting
and handling the third and fourth class matter put to mail by the other
departments of the Federal Government. That the total weight mailed must
run into many hundreds of tons yearly for each of the classes named there
can be little grounds for doubt or question, records or no records.
The mailing rate on third-class is eight cents a pound. On fourth-class
it is sixteen cents a pound. Those are the rates the people have to pay.
That both rates are outrageously excessive is well known to every one who
has made even a cursory study of the cost of transporting and handling
government mails, and the irony of it all is the stock arguments put up
by postoffice and other federal officials to justify such outrageous
rates.
“The rates are necessary to make the Postoffice Department
self-supporting--to avoid a deficit,” or statements of similar washed
out force and import. And that in face of the fact that the government
permits its departments, bureaus, divisions, “commissions,” etc., to
raid the postal revenues by loading upon the postal service the cost of
transporting and distributing thousands of tons of mail matter for which
it gets not a cent of pay or credit.
Nice business methods or practice that, is it not?
Beautiful “argument,” this prattle about deficits in the postal revenues,
is it not?
Why, it is humorous enough to make empty headed fools laugh and sensible
men use language which postal regulations bar from the mails.
Think of the tons upon tons of official reports, of the bound volumes
of the Congressional Record, of copies of the Supreme Courts rulings and
other printed books and pamphlets distributed by the Departments of War,
Navy, Agriculture, Interior and others.
All these fall into the third-class, or 8-cent-a-pound rate.
Think of the tons upon tons of seeds--farm, garden and flower--sent by
Congressmen to their constituents--to thousands of constituents who do
not need the seeds, in fact, who can make no possible use of them; of
the tons upon tons of clothing, suitings, household bric-a-brac, etc.,
franked by Senators and Congressmen to their homes, to their wives,
children, sweethearts or friends.
Investigations in the past have shown that hundreds of typewriters,
office desks, even articles of household furniture, were sent home under
frank.
It was also shown in several instances, if I remember rightly, that
some of the typewriters, etc., were never franked back to government
possession. However that may be, all such mailings are of the fourth
class and fall into the 16-cent a pound rate for carriage and handling.
Let us here foot up the amount of the raidings on the postal funds, so
far as we have gone.
First,--There is the free-in-county second-class--$600,000 to $800,000.
Second,--There is the free second-class franked and penalty matter. Third
Assistant Postmaster General Britt “estimates” it at $510,000, figured
at the present one-cent rate. I have shown the weakness of Mr. Britt’s
_basis_ of estimate. In my judgment the tonnage of franked and penalty
second-class mail is nearer 75,000,000 pounds than his estimate of
51,000,000 pounds. But to take Mr. Britt’s figures, there is another raid
of $510,000 on the service revenues of the Postoffice Department.
Next, we have the free _first_, _third_ and _fourth_ class matter which
the postal service handles under franking or penalty regulations.
How much does this raid total? How much has and _does_ this raid
contribute toward the creation of that “deficit” which has so long,
so continuously and so _brazenly_ been used to bubble the people in
politico-postal oratory and writing?
The reader must keep in mind that we are here asking about the
thirty-two, the eight and the sixteen cents a pound classes of mail. To
what extent have the various departments of the government raided the
postal funds by taxing the postal service with their over-load of the
character indicated? That they have taxed the Postoffice Department’s
revenues by demanding of that department its highest class and highest
rated service in _unlimited_ degree, and that, too, without _one cent
of compensation, pay or credit_, is a fact which no informed man will
attempt to controvert.
But what did such service (and abuse of service) cost the Postoffice
Department? To what extent did and _does_ this “frank and penalty”
_privilege_ in first, third and fourth class use of the mails loot or
raid the postal revenues?
Is it to the extent of three, two or one million dollars? Is it lower
than the lowest or higher than the highest figures just named?
I do not know--do you? Have you, the reader, been able to ascertain
from the records of the Postoffice Department, or elsewhere, any
figures or data that enables you to make even a “frazzled” guess at
the _approximate_ cost to the postal department of this unjust--_this
politically and governmentally crooked_ burden put upon it?
I have hunted and have found nothing but talk, and a few figures
scattered here and there and gathered from--well, the Lord may know
where. But the Lord has failed to inform me. So I am in ignorance--am
benighted, just like our “poor farmers,” both as to the source of the
figures I have seen and as to their force and value in reaching a fair
conclusion as to the aggregate amount of postal revenues the departmental
raiders have been and _are_ carrying off. If any reader knows or can dig
up the facts, he will confer a great favor by handing the information
to The Man on the Ladder. Not only that, but I am confident that the
people of this country will give such reader a niche, if needed not a
conspicuous position, in _their_ Hall of Fame, if he will give them even
a dependable approximation of the extent to which the postal service
revenues are raided--looted--by federal department abuses--_their
service and their money_, for the departments pay not _one dollar_ for
the thousands of tons of mail matter of the various classes which the
Postoffice Department transports and handles for them.
So far or so long has this departmental--_bureaucratic_, that is what
it is--practice of raiding the postal revenues by _loading its service_
continued, that the Postoffice Department has been and is _looting itself
by the same practice_.
This volume is written during what is known as the “weighing period” in
the postal service, the weighing being done to establish a basis for
_four years_ on which the railroads transporting the federal mails shall
be paid. In other words, as basis for a “railway-mail-pay” rate, which
rate will govern railway contracts for carrying the mails for a period of
four years.
During the current weighing period I have, at various times, both during
the day and at night, watched the weighing for varying intervals of from
an hour to two hours. Among the revenue raids observed during those hours
of leisure (?), I shall here mention a few. As the present Postmaster
General treats all departmental, or “penalty,” matter as “franked” matter
(See page 11 of the Postoffice Department report of 1910), I shall,
in the brief mention of personally observed facts at several railway
stations in Chicago do likewise.
(1) Three carloads of Senate speeches, franked to Chicago in bulk, the
bulk then broken and the speeches remailed, under frank, to individual
addresses.
I do not know the tonnage of those three cars. Local newspaper reports
stated that there were 3,000,000 copies of one of the speeches. I take it
that sixty tons is a low figure for the three carloads. The actual weight
was probably nearer ninety tons. But leave it at sixty, the remailing in
piece at bulk destination makes the weight 120 tons on which the Post
office Department had to pay transportation, on sixty tons of which it
also had to stand the expense of piece handling.
(2) Another carload of Senatorial vocal effort passed through Chicago to
a destination far west. I do not know, but presume it was in bulk, and
on arrival, bulk was broken and the matter returned to mail for piece
distribution.
The reader must not overlook the fact that the character of matter
carried in those four carloads was third-class--was _eight-cent-a-pound
matter_. There were eighty tons or more of it in bulk and its remailing
in piece would make it 160 tons.
If a manufacturer, merchant or other business man put to mail 160 tons of
third-class matter he would contribute to the postal service revenue just
$25,600.
(3) Three crates of fruit went into a mail car at one time, two cases
of canned goods at another and a crate of tomatoes at another, without
passing over the weighing scale. A drum of coffee, fifty to eighty pounds
in weight, went to mail at another time, and a large sack of sawdust at
another.
Both of the last mentioned _went over the weighing scale before they went
to the mail car_.
I am speaking only of what casual or chance notice brought to my
attention in three railway stations in Chicago. If similar or
corresponding abuses were indulged at other stations here, as it is
a legitimate inference they were, it is also a legitimate inference
that similar abuses were, and are, practiced throughout the country,
especially in cities of the first, second and third classes--in cities
and towns on which has been conferred the distinguished honor of having
their mail handled under the watchful eye and supervising care of a
“Presidential Postmaster,” that is, by a postmaster appointed by the
President _for partisan reasons and prospective uses_.
Again going back to our mutton, I repeat the question, “What is the
extent of this ‘franking’ and ‘penalty’ raid upon the revenues of the
Postoffice Department?” I have cited three local instances merely to
give a “hunch”--to blaze a line along which thoughtful people may safely
think, and think to some fairly satisfying conclusion. I do not know the
extent of the _lootage_ of postal revenues by the uses and abuses of
those “frank” and “penalty” regulations. You do not know, and the present
Postmaster General _admits_ he does not know, nor has he any means or
method of ascertaining.
On page 11 of the report of the Postoffice Department for the fiscal
year 1909-1910, Mr. Hitchcock very frankly states the fact and gives his
personal opinion of the extent of the franking raid upon the service of
his department. He also suggests a partial remedy which also I shall
quote because it is a good suggestion, on right lines, and for making it
Mr. Hitchcock deserves the thanks of a people over-burdened by the abuses
his suggestion would, I believe, correct in material degree. At any rate,
the suggestion is on right lines. Following is what he says:
The unrestricted manner in which the franking privilege is now
being used by the several federal services and by Congress has
laid it open to _serious abuses_--a fact clearly established
through investigations recently instituted by the department.
While it has been impossible without a better control of franking
to determine the _exact expense to the government_ of this
practice, _there can be no doubt that it annually reaches into
the millions_. It is believed that many abuses of the franking
system could be prevented, and consequently a marked economy
effected, by supplying through the agencies of the postal
service special official envelopes and stamps for the free mail
of the government, all such envelopes and stamps to be issued
on requisition to the various branches of the federal service
requiring them, and such records to be kept of official stamp
supplies as will enable the Post office Department _to maintain
a proper postage account_ covering the entire volume of free
government mail.
“_There can be no doubt that it annually reaches into the millions_,”
says Mr. Hitchcock of the cost to his department of transporting and
handling the government free mail matter--frank and penalty matter. It
should also be noted that he says that “the unrestricted manner in which
the franking privilege is now being used by the several federal services
and by Congress, has laid it open to _serious abuses_.”
Not only are the foregoing statements of our Postmaster General true, but
with equal truth he could have said that the abuses of the postal service
practiced by other federal departments have encouraged--have coached, so
to speak,--the Postoffice Department into _abusing itself_.
Those crates of fruit and cases of canned goods which I saw loaded into
mail cars were probably for some postmaster who conducted a grocery or
fruit stand, as a “side” to his official duties. Or they may have gone to
some “friend” or “good fellow” along the line, or to some one who stood
for a “split” of the express charges on such a shipment.
The drum of coffee and sack of sawdust may have had consignees of similar
character. But their shipment as mail matter showed another abuse of
the postal service by the Postoffice Department itself, or by employes
of that department. _They were weighed into rail transportation at a
time when the average weight of mail carried during a period of three or
six months would govern the rate of pay the transporting railroad would
receive for carrying the mails during a period of four years._
The same might be said of the four carloads of Senatorial eloquence
referred to on a previous page. Those cars were franked through _during
the weighing period_ in the postal service. There is this difference,
however, between those four cars of franked eloquence and the drum of
coffee and sack of sawdust. The former was an abuse of the postal service
and a raid upon its revenues _by permission, if not by authority, of the
postal statutes_. The latter was an abuse of the postal service and raid
upon its revenues _by employes of the Postoffice Department itself_.
But the point we are after is the extent of federal departmental raid
upon the postal revenues. How much is it? I have confessed my ignorance
of the sum such raid will total. Our Postmaster General has (see last
preceding quotation), confessed his ignorance of the total. He says there
can be “no doubt that it annually reaches into many millions.”
I have no other evidence or authority at hand save the testimony of
William A. Glasgow, Jr., before the Penrose-Overstreet Commission in
1906. Mr. Glasgow represented the Periodical Publishers’ Association.
In presenting the case for that association--strong, reputable body,
representing vast business and public service (educational, social,
fraternal and trade interests)--Mr. Glasgow used the following language:
You may take the revenues of the Postoffice Department and give
_away $19,000,000 per annum in the franking privilege to other
departments of government_ and then give away $28,000,000 per
annum in the beneficent advantages of rural free delivery, and
then lose millions in unequal and exorbitant transportation
charges, certainly $5,000,000, and thus create an apparent
and artificial deficit and use that as a basis for further
taxation upon those who read magazines, but no one will be
deceived by such an excuse and no wise Congress will be moved by
considerations so transparent or necessities so unreal.--_Page
544 Penrose-Overstreet Report (Hearings), 1906-7._
If Mr. Glasgow were speaking in 1911, I have no doubt he would have
raised his figure of $19,000,000 to _twenty or more millions_ as a nearer
approximate of the total of federal departmental raids upon the earnings
or revenues of the Postoffice Department.
Do not misunderstand me.
All legitimate departmental service _should_ be rendered by the
Postoffice Department, but that department _should receive credit for
such service rendered_.
The departmental “abuses” of the postal service are _steals_. They
should not be tolerated. If extra-departmental service is rendered (as
is well known it is), _it should be paid for just the same--and at the
same service rates--that Jim Jones, Susie Bowers and Widow Finerty are
compelled to pay for similar service_.
Now, we have raidings on the postoffice revenues by the government
departments themselves, including free in county, and by the Postoffice
Department’s looseness of methods in handling its own business, of
somewheres around $22,000,000 a year, not counting the _stuffing_ of
weights during the “weighing period”, which goes to swell the railway
mail pay rates for mail carrying railroads for a period of four years.
As to the last, I wish to say that Mr. Hitchcock, the present Postmaster
General, has done _more_ to correct such weighing frauds than has any
of his predecessors within the range of my study of the question. Yet
it lingers--hangs on to an extent which should put some subordinate
postoffice officials and railway officials in restraint--put them out of
range of opportunity for such looting.
In the face of an annual raid of $22,000,000, what is the use of all
this prattle--prattle extending over years--about _deficits_ in the
postal service? Will some one kindly rise in the front pews of the postal
department or in the sanctum of its _beneficiaries_ and tell us?
_There is no deficit in the postoffice service revenues. The people pay
and have paid for more service than is rendered--for more service than
they have received or do receive._
“But what difference to the people does it make whether they pay for
carrying the departmental mail out of the postal revenues or have each
department pay for its own mail carriage and handling?” is a common
answering interrogative argument (?) to my immediately preceding charge
that the various government departments _raid_ the postal revenues to the
extent of “many millions,” as Mr. Hitchcock has put it. “The people have
to pay for it anyway, do they not?”
Just so, and what difference does it make? Well, here are a few points
of difference which might be seen and comprehended without jarring any
fairly normal intellect off its pedestal:
1. To have the departments pay or give credit to the Postoffice
Department for the service it renders to them is an honest and approved
method in any other business. The present method not only violates sound
business principles but is _dishonest_ as well--dishonest because it
throws the burden of those “many millions” for mail haulage and handling
of franked and penalty matter _upon the postal rate papers_, and not upon
all the people of the country as it should.
2. If the free congressional and departmental matter now costs, say
$20,000,000 a year for mail haulage and handling, then the government
is practicing a policy which both _originates and distributes revenue
without appropriation_. In other words, the general government in such
practice usurps the function of originating revenue which function, under
the Constitution, is vested in the Lower House of Congress.
Next, the general government distributes that $20,000,000 (or its
equivalent in service, which amounts to the same thing), to the several
departments, or lets each department raid that service as it pleases. It
does this in flat violation of another section or clause of the Federal
Constitution which provides that the cost of maintenance and operation,
including any contemplated construction and permanent betterments, shall
be provided for in an _annual appropriation bill_.
3. The recommended method would greatly lessen the “abuses” of the
postal service by government departments and officials of which Mr.
Hitchcock speaks. On the other hand, the method of the present and the
past _invites_ such abuses. Abuses grow but do not improve with age. Each
year the abuses of which Mr. Hitchcock speaks in his 1910 report have
grown until _abuses_ is scarcely a fitting designation for them. These
abuses of the postal service have grown, and grown in such a stealthy,
porch-climbing way, that they amount to a _colossal steal_ every year.
4. When they hear so much yodling about “deficits” in the Postoffice
Department, millions of our people are led to believe that such deficits
are created by an excess of cost over receipts in carrying the letters,
postal and postcards, the newspapers, magazines and other periodicals,
the books and merchandise, which the people themselves entrust to
the mails for delivery. They hear that the postal service “should
be self-supporting,” that “each division of the service should be
self-sustaining” and then they are called on for higher service rates to
meet “deficits.”
Why should this great government of ours permit its officials longer to
gold-brick the people with such ping-pong talk? Why not tell the people
the truth, or at least give them an open, honest opportunity to learn the
truth?
The annual federal appropriation bills informs them at least of the
“estimated” expenditures for the year for other departments. Why not
give them an _honest_ estimate of what it costs the Postoffice Department
to render a service _which should serve them_?
Other easily comprehended differences between the present method of
loading all governmental mail service upon the Postoffice Department
without pay or credit for the vast service rendered and a method which
would give that department such credit could readily be mentioned.
However, the four points of difference between the two methods above
cited, and the advantages which would accrue both to the service and the
people by adopting an approved, honest business method instead of the
present unfair, foolish and _dishonest_ one, are sufficient, I think, to
convince the reader that there _are_ differences between these right and
wrong ways of handling the nation’s postal service--its governmental mail
matter--that are of vital importance--differences which on the one hand
invite raidings, waste and _lootage_ of the postoffice revenues and on
the other would make for economies in the service and for business care
and _honesty_ in the use and expenditures of those revenues.
EXPRESS COMPANIES CONDUCTING A CRIMINAL TRAFFIC.
But, says another apologist for the loose, wasteful methods of the
Postoffice Department in handling both its service and its revenues, “The
postal service was originally instituted for handling the government mail
only.”
That be as it may, though I doubt the sweeping assertion of the statement
made, just as I doubt the integrity and truthfulness of purpose of the
person making it. It came to my notice as part of an argument (?) in
defense of the outrageous railway mail pay and mail-car rental charges
which mail carrying railroads have _been permitted_ to collect from the
postal revenues _paid by the people_. But whether or not the postal
service was originally intended to be merely a dispatch service for
transmission of government orders, documents, etc., can stand as no
valid reason now for the Federal Government’s permitting its several
departments to use and abuse the vast system for intercommunication
among the people which it has permitted to be built up, and for the
building of which it has taxed (by way of postal charges) those who made
use of the system--taxed them _excessively_, if indeed not somewhat
unscrupulously--whether or not, not, I say, the government originally
intended the mail service to be an exclusive service for use of the
government only has no present bearing. If such was the original
intention, the foolishness of it must soon have become apparent, for we
find that federal laws were enacted to establish a general postal service
_for all the people_. Not only were laws enacted for the establishment
and regulation of a mail service, but by the law of 1845 it was clearly
intended to make such service a _government_ monopoly. Section 181 of the
federal statutes reads as follows:
Whoever shall establish any private express for the conveyance
of letters or packets, or in any manner cause or provide for the
conveyance of the same by regular trips or at stated periods over
any post route which is or may be established by law, or from any
city, town or place between which the mail is regularly carried,
or whoever shall aid or assist therein, shall be fined not more
than $500, or imprisoned not more than six months, or both.
The foregoing makes it quite evident that, as early as 1845 at least,
this government of ours did not intend or design the service on mail
routes then existing, nor on routes to be established, was to confine
itself to the carriage and handling of government matter only. The
establishment of rail post routes and the greater facility and speed with
which such routes would handle the people’s mails--“the letters, packages
and parcels of people residing along such mail routes”--was one of the
stock arguments of the Illinois Central Railroad promoters in 1849-50--an
argument designed to justify before the people a grant of land to the
chartered company so large as to make the grant a _colossal steal_. The
same or similar argument was turned loose and persuasively paraded in
the oratorical procession which preceded the vast federal land grants,
or land steals, in connection with the building of transcontinental or
Pacific rail lines.
Enough has been said to show quite conclusively that whatever may
or may not have been the “intention” of the government at the first
establishment of a mail service--a service then wholly by water
transportation, by runners and by a “Pony Post” and mail coach--a
decision was very soon reached to make the postal service a public one--a
service for all our people--and to give the government _a monopoly of
that service_.
No one reading the section of the Revised Statutes of the United States
above quoted will attempt to controvert the statement last made.
Then, it may be asked again, and justly, too, why does the government
continue to permit its various departments to over-load and to _loot_
the postal service, the revenues for maintaining which the people--the
mail-using portion of the people--alone contribute?
It also may be justly asked, why does the government permit
its postoffice and other officials to _scream_ at the people
about “deficits,” when they have already paid far more than the
service--_their_ service--costs the government?
Other equally pertinent questions might be asked, but I shall forbear.
I have shown, I believe, that the raids upon the postoffice revenues by
free-in-county matter and by government itself would _more than meet_ any
“deficit” yodled about in recent years.
That is what I started to demonstrate in this chapter. But there are
other raids and raiders upon the revenues of the Postoffice Department to
which I must advert. I purposed in writing to this phase of our general
subject, to make official prattle about postal service “deficits” look
and sound foolish.
I believe I have already done that, but in justice to the subject and
to the postal ratepayers, at least three other raiders must have their
cloaks slit.