A change in the financial system whereby the surplus receipts of postoffices throughout the country arepromptlycentralized at convenient points for the purposeof meeting other postal expenditures incurred during the period in which the surplus receipts accrued, thus paying the expenses of the service from current receipts and obviating the necessity of applying to the Treasury for a grant to meet an apparent deficiency in postal revenueswhen, as has happened in many instances, no actual deficiency exists.
A change in the financial system whereby the surplus receipts of postoffices throughout the country arepromptlycentralized at convenient points for the purposeof meeting other postal expenditures incurred during the period in which the surplus receipts accrued, thus paying the expenses of the service from current receipts and obviating the necessity of applying to the Treasury for a grant to meet an apparent deficiency in postal revenueswhen, as has happened in many instances, no actual deficiency exists.
Now, that is certainly an “improvement” worthy of all commendation. If, as stated, it provides for “Meeting other postal expenditures incurred during the period in which the surplus receipts accrued”it certainly should prevent “an apparent deficiency … when … no actual deficiency exists.”
But why, then, is it reported that over $7,000,000 of expenditures for the year ended June 30, 1910, are charged to the fiscal year 1911? The report bears date December 1st, 1911—four months after the fiscal year 1911 closed. If the receipts of postoffices throughout the country are “promptly centralized” for the purpose of meeting current expenditures, it would require super, if indeed not supple, expertness in accounting to figure out a surplus of $220,000 for a year’s business which assumes over seven millions in unpaid bills of a previous year without, apparently, knowing what amount of unpaid bills can be shunted onto the next year.
But, it may be argued, there is nothing inconsistent in Mr. Hitchcock’s claim as just quoted, of an improvement in the department’s system or methods of accounting which makes, orshouldmake, unnecessary the carrying over to 1911 so large a sum for expenditures made in or an account of the year 1910. While the improved methods have been introduced, it may be argued that insufficient time has elapsed, even to December 1st, to admit of their application in making up the fiscal report for the year 1911. In short, that the improved methods were introduced so late in the fiscal year 1910 that the resulting betterments in the system of accounting could not be shown in the report for 1910-11.
Yes, that possibly might be of some weight in considering this claimed improvement in the accounting methods of the department. There is, however, one serious objection to its acceptance as evidence in this case—evidence in proof that there was not sufficient time to make the improved methods operative in the showing for the fiscal year 1911:
(5) The adoption of improved methods of accounting by which the surplus or deficiency in the postal revenues is approximately determinedwithin three weeks from the close of each quarter, instead of three months thereafter, on the completion of the audit of postmasters’ accounts.(6) The adoption of an accounting plan that insuresthe prompt deposit in the Treasuryof postal funds not immediately required for disbursement at postoffices,thus making available for use by the departmentseveral millions of dollars that, under the old practice, would be tied up in postoffices.
(5) The adoption of improved methods of accounting by which the surplus or deficiency in the postal revenues is approximately determinedwithin three weeks from the close of each quarter, instead of three months thereafter, on the completion of the audit of postmasters’ accounts.
(6) The adoption of an accounting plan that insuresthe prompt deposit in the Treasuryof postal funds not immediately required for disbursement at postoffices,thus making available for use by the departmentseveral millions of dollars that, under the old practice, would be tied up in postoffices.
In his 1909-10 report, Mr. Hitchcock sets forthfifty“improvements” in methods of handling and conducting the business of thePostoffice Department—improvements madepriorto June 30, 1910, mind you. Well, the foregoing quotation presents numbers 5 and 6 of the enumerated 50 “improvements” that were set up as having already been instituted—instituted prior to June 30, 1910. Beyond saying that the department has certainly had ampletimeto install and make operative the improvements in methods of handling its business and of accounting, which its published reports claim to have been made, comment is unnecessary. If the improvements, astwiceclaimed in the two annual reports from which I have quoted have been made, then, it is pertinent to ask: Why wasover seven millionsof 1909-10 expenditures carried to 1910-11 account?
Such a showing excuses another question—excuses it because itinvitesthe question:
What amount—howmany millions of dollars—of 1910-11 unpaid bills and claims was carried over to become a charge against the fiscal year 1911-12?
Oh, yes, I am fully aware that this may be all readily explained by saying that the claimed improvements as set forth have nothing whatever to do with the practice of carrying forward unpaid bills of one fiscal year and making them a charge against the receipts of the next or some subsequent fiscal year.
Such an explanation is easily understood,because it does not explain. That is, it is an explanation which, to bebelievablyunderstood, requires more explaining than do the faults and crooks in the method of accounting it attempts to explain.
That the “fumbling” of this carrying-over practiceneedscorrection—needsabolishment—will be seen from a glance at the two following tabulations. That the practice also makes the departments’ annual showing of theresultsof the business of the year—any year—almost valueless is also made evident—that is, valueless so far as real, dependable information is concerned as to whether the postal service is conducted at a loss or at a profit.
The first tabulation following shows the published figures for the fiscal year’s expenses as given in the departmental reports. It also shows what the expenses of the fiscal years indicated really were, when their unpaid bills (as shown by the next annual report of the department) are charged against them.
The whole charge, “On Account of Previous Years” in each reportis treated as a charge against theimmediately preceding year. It has been shown that payments on “account of previous years,” as given in the published reports, include for years other than the first or immediately preceding, amounts so small that they may be, for purposes of comparison, ignored.[8]
At any rate, the figures in the following tabulations of expenditures and deficits—accepting the department’s published statements of receipts as correct—are far more enlightening to the general public as to the results of each year’s business, for the five years here covered, than are the statements made in the annual reports of the department for the years named.
The second table shows the “deficits,” or balances for each of the five years as compared with the deficits shown in the annual reports of the department, the corrected figures being subject, of course, to any trifling reduction which may have resulted from the payment of bills carried into the account from some other than the immediately preceding year:
ANNUAL EXPENDITURES OF THE POSTOFFICE DEPARTMENT.
From the foregoing it will be seen that the corrected figures show a range of variance from the published figures, of over $6,400,000. That is, the corrected figures are some $230,000 below for the year 1908 and more than $6,200,000 above for the year 1910, the showing in the departments published reports.
A similar correction for the year 1911 cannot be made until the department chooses to enlighten the public as to the amount of 1910-11 unpaid bills ithas carried forward to become a charge against the receipts of the year 1911-12.
As the account for the year stands above, the surplus for the year1910-11 is $7,363,009.15—not the comparatively trifling amount of $219,118.12, as published. Of course, if the report shows that 1912 pays $7,363,009.15 of 1911 expenditures, then the paltry surplus for the last-named year may stand as given in the report. But if the 1912 report should show that so much asone dollarmore of 1911’s unpaid bills were shunted onto 1912 than 1911 paid on account of 1910’s shunted bills ($7,132,112.23), then Mr. Hitchcock’s joy-producing “surplus” will vanish as anactualityin correct accounting.
Following is the showing of the deficits or balances as published, as compared with theactualdeficits or balances, as corrected according to previous explanation:
There, again, is shown a range of more than $6,400,000 between the published and thevery nearactual deficits of the several years, not including 1911, for the showing on which, for reasons stated, I and the rest of the “dear people,” who are just now being “worked” for votes, will have to wait until the 1912 report is published.
Why, nothing but a government treasury—the treasury of our easily “bubbled” people—could survive that sort of bookkeeping for the time covered in the above tabulated statement of published andactualyearly shortages and ofonealleged surplus.
We will now detach ourselves from these wearisome figures and more wearisome figuring, using figures only as a sort of garnishment to chief courses served to us by the President and our Postmaster General.
The receipts of the Postoffice Department, as published in its annual reports, were $34,317,440.53 greater for the fiscal year 1910-11 than for the year 1908-9.
Both the President and Mr. Hitchcock are eloquently ebullient because of the appearance of a tender shoot or bud of a surplus in a place where nothing but deficits grew before. But neither of themappears to have boiled over in either message or report to show the people what splendid things have been accomplished in two years with that thirty-four millions of increased revenues. I wonder why? Possibly the failure of ebullition at the point indicated is the result of oversight. Of course, it may have resulted from lack of thermic encouragement or inducement. Or, it may be, that some “induced draft” drew the major part of the thirty-four millions up the smoke-stack without leaving a B. T. U. equivalent under the kettle.
“The Postmaster General recommends,as I have done in previous messages, the adoption of a parcels post, and the beginning of this in the organization of such service on rural routes andin the city delivery service first,” says President Taft.
If the President really has recommended in “previous messages” the “beginning” of a parcels post “experiment” in “the City Delivery Service” such recommendation entirely escaped my notice. A “test” of a parcels post service on rural routes—yes. That was much talked of a year or more since. But of an “experimental test” of an improved parcels post in urban carrier service, little or nothing was said or, if said, it did not make sufficient noise for The Man on the Ladder to hear. However, I presume it is as permissible for the conceptions and concepts of a President to broaden, enlarge and improve as it is for those of a Postmaster General to broaden, enlarge and improve. For that matter, a proportional, if not entirely corresponding thought-expansion may be occasionally noticed in the Department of the Interior as conducted and operated by common, ordinary mortals.
As the parcels post is the subject of a later chapter which is already in type, further consideration here is unnecessary. It may be said, however, that extending the proposed test—any “test”—of a parcels post service to city free delivery routes, instead of confining it to a few “selected” rural routes as Mr. Hitchcock proposed it should be confined in his 1910 report, is a step in the right direction—a step in advance. Still, such a step is but dilatory; is but procrastinating. A cheap, efficient,generalparcels post service must come and, now that the people are aroused—aroused as to thecriminalwrongs inflicted upon them by a Postoffice Department and a Congress that have acted for thirty or more years as if indifferent to or not cognizant of those wrongs—it mustcome quickly, unless, of course, it shoulddevelop that the people are, really and truly, as big fools as railroad, express companies and certain public officials have treated them as being.
“The commission reports that the evidence submitted for its consideration is sufficient to warrant a finding of theapproximatecost of handling and transporting the several classes of second-class mail known as paid-at-the-pound-rate, free-in-county, and transient matter, in so far as relates to the services of transportation, postoffice cars, railway distribution, rural delivery, and certain other items of cost,but that it is without adequate data to determine the cost of the general postoffice service and also what portion of the cost of certain other aggregate services is properly assignable to second-class mail matter.… It finds that in the fiscal year 1908 … the cost of handling and transporting second-class mail matter … was about 6 cents a pound for paid-at-the-pound-rate matter, and for free-in-county, and transient matter, each approximately 5 cents a pound, and that upon this basis, as modified bysubsequent deductions in the cost of railroad transportation, the cost of paid-at-the-pound rate matter, for the services mentioned” (I have not mentioned all the “services” enumerated by the President, all being covered in the words “handling and transportation”), “is approximately 5½ cents a pound.” …
That is from the President’s Washington Day message. Can you beat it? Well, it will take a smooth road and some going to do it.
First, it is cheerfully admitted that the Commission (the Hughes Commission) had no “adequate data to determine the cost of the general postoffice service and also what portion of the cost ofcertain other aggregate servicesis properly assignable to second-class mail matter,” and then our President proceeds—with equal cheerfulness and smiling confidence (or is it indifference?) to assure us that the Commission proceeded to figure 6 cents a pound as the cost of handling and carriage ofpaidpound-rate second-class matter and 5 cents a pound as the cost of corresponding service forfree-in countyand so-called “transient” matter!
Again I ask, can you beat it? If you can, please send me your picture—full size and two views, front and profile. I would derive much pleasure from a look at your front and side elevations. Of course, the President has an official right to a “style” of his own.A “style” of expression, however, cannot be protected by copyright, otherwise, as stated at the opening of this interpolated chapter, President Taft would be guilty of infringement. Other presidents have run into verbose verbosity in expressing themselves. It is an officialconvenienceat times to do so, however ludicrouslyopen of intentor “phunny” it may appear to laymen.
The President, in the paragraph of his message above quoted, recalls two of his “arguments” before the Swedish American Republican League, of Chicago, which arguments I had the honor to hear. In one instance he was flourishing about our ideal of popular government and said: “What we are all struggling for, what we all recognize as the highest ideal in society, isequality of opportunity.… Of course perfect equality of opportunity isimpossible,” thenwhyit is impossible followed for a paragraph.
It was so nicely and redundantly redundant, so resilient in phrasing, so honestlyearnest, that one justhadto go along with our President, whether or not one could see how “the highest ideal in society” could possibly be found in a chase after the “impossible.”
At another point in his kindly persuasive Come-unto-me discourse, he pointed out to us how liable a “majority of the people” is to “make mistakes by hasty action and lack of deliberation.” Then, after a paragraph of beautiful foliage, the President cited the anti-trust law of 1890 as an evidence of the advantages and beneficent results of ample “deliberation” before taking action in matters of “grave import”. He explained that the decision of the Supreme Court was at first “misunderstood, or if not misunderstood, was improperly expressed, so as todiscouragethose who were interested in the federal power to restrain and break up these industrial monopolies.After twenty years’ litigationthe meaning of the act has been made clear by a decision of the Supreme Court, prosecutions have been brought and many of the mostdangeroustrusts have beensubjected to dissolution.”
It was all so fine, so lulling if not luring! It made one feel as if he were lost or had gone to sleep looking for himself. But when in a comfortable seat, in the owl car, where the jostle of the wicked world was so toned down and gentled as to permit a little analytic thought, that beautiful illustration of the value of making haste slowly and of long, careful “deliberation” when acting on matters of vast import recurred to us—that Anti-trust Act.
“After twenty years” careful deliberation, the Supreme Court was able to decide what the act meant! Was able, also, to decide what itsown prior decisions meantand prosecutions were then brought and “many of the most dangerous trusts have been subjected to dissolution!”
All of it listened very well, but it don’t stand the wash very well. It is matter of common knowledge that during the twenty years the Supreme Court was industriously trying to find out what the Anti-Trust Act and its own decisions meant, the trust organizers and promoters got away withmore than eight billions of unearned values—some set the figure above fifteen billions. The Supreme Court made haste slowly in its “deliberation,” while the respectable get-rich-quick Wallingfords were going after the people’s money and going in high-powered cars with the speed levers pulled clear down. No making haste slowly or dulyprolongeddeliberation with Wallingfords’.
Then, if one will take the trouble to glance at market quotations of the stocks ofanyof “those dangerous trusts” which “have been subjected to dissolution,” he will find that they have passed through the trying ordeal of “dissolution” without the turn of a feather. All are smiling. Why should they not? Stock quotations show that Standard Oil is over $250,000,000 better off than before itsdeliberatedjudicial dissolution. The Tobacco Wallingfords are also many millions ahead of the game since “dissolution” set in. And “Sugar”—well since the Sugar Trust was “busted” and subjected to the “dissolution” process nearly all its controlled saccharine matter appears to be trickling into its bank account. Similar “most dangerous trusts” show similar evidences of “dissolution” since the Supreme Court processed them.
What has this to do with our immediate subject? Nothing whatever. It is a mere interpolation—with a purpose. Its purpose is to evidence what appears to be a practiced habit with our President—a florescence or foliation similar to that displayed in the quotation I have made from his Washington Day Message. In the quoted paragraph, the reader will observe that he first says the Hughes Commission was “without data to determine the cost” of certain very important factors in the aggregate expense of handling and transporting the mails, and then he immediately proceeds to inform us that the Commission finds that the “cost of handling and carriage of paid-at-the-poundrate matter was about 6 cents a pound,” etc.—a virtual impeachment of the Commission’s finding before the finding is stated.
What little space permits me to say of the report of the Hughes Commission may as well be said here.
In their report the commissioners very frankly admit the meagerness, or, on numerous important points, total lack of informative data. But, as the President states, they proceed to put on record a finding of 6 cents a pound as the cost of handling and transporting paid second-class matter and 5 cents a pound as the cost of similar service on free-in-county matter, for the year 1908. They finally recommend, however, that the present “transient” rate (for copies of periodicals mailed by other than publishers) be continued—1 cent for each 4 ounces; also that the present free-in-county privilege be retained,but not extended.
What does that “not extended” mean?
I do not know. Do you? Does it mean that the country newspapers now issued—nowentered in Postoffice Department for free haulage and handling—shall continue free and that no new newspapers established, founded and distributed in counties, shall be transported and handledfree?
If it does not mean that, what does it mean? If it means that, then why does this Commission recommend a thing that is primarily—elementary—wrong under the organic law of this government?
The Constitution of these United Statesspecificallyprohibits “special” legislation. Then why, I ask, should the recommendation of this Commission be complied with? I have been publishingThe Hustler, acontrolledRepublican or Democrat 4 to 8 pager, as the case may be, for four years. Paul Jones comes along and flings in his money to publish and print theDemocratic Boosterin the same county. Does this Commission mean to recommend thatThe Hustlerbe carried and distributed free in the county and thatThe Boosterbe required to pay the regular pound rate for the same service?
A flat rate of 2 cents per pound is recommended for all other periodical matter, newspapers and magazines alike.
Well, that recommended rate is of course, better than Mr. Hitchcock’s“rider” recommendation, discussed in a previous page. The Commission’s “finding” that the cost of carriage, handling and delivery of second-class mail “was approximately 6 cents a pound” is also an appreciable step-down (toward the facts), as compared with Mr. Hitchcock’sassured—milled, screened and sifted—finding that said cost was 9.23 cents a pound—a finding as late as March 1, 1911. So if this commendable “merger” of views, opinions andguesseskeeps growing, as industrial, rail and other mergers are wont to grow, the postalrate payersof the country may hope yet to find that even their great men may agree.
I have discussed this second-class mail rate—the cent-a-pound rate for periodicals—elsewhere. With private companies (the express companies) carrying and delivering second-class mail matter for the average mail haul, atone-half cent a pound(and standing for a “split” with the railroads for one-half of that), the question as to whether or not the governmentcancarry mail matter without loss atone cent a pound, is not worth debating among men whose brains are not worn in their sub-cellars.
I mean the last statement to apply to third and fourth class matter as well as to second. What it has cost the government, or what it now costs the government, to transport, handle and distribute the mails is another and quite different matter from what such service can be andshouldbe rendered for. Was it not that the people’s money is lavishly wasted by such foolishness and foolery, a dignified commission of three or six men sagely deliberating upon, critically “investigating” and laboredly discussing what it costs the government—what the government in 1908 or any other year paid—to carry and distribute the mails, might be staged as the working model of a joke. If a Commission’s time and the people’s money were spent in making a careful, thorough investigation as to what itshouldcost to collect, transport, handle and distribute the mails, and as to just where and how the millions of dollars, now annually wasted in an over-unmanned, incompetently managed, raided and raiding service, could be saved, results fully warranting the expenditures made on account of these postal-investigating commissions would readily be obtained.
A summary of the proceedings of the Hughes Commission is presented elsewhere. Here I shall take space for only two or three observations. First, as is evidenced by the Commission’s report, thePostoffice Department was before it in conspicuous volubility and the frequency of a stock ticker during a raid, with call money at 84. Postmaster General Hitchcock and his Second and Third Assistants appear to have been the chief “floor representatives” of the department during the flurry. Of 201 “Exhibits” listed by the Commission, about 100 of them—reports, documents, memoranda and letters—found origin if not paternity in the Postoffice Department, and a considerable portion of them was already on file in government archives. Of the sixteen papers submitted after close of “Hearings,” fourteen or fifteen are letters and memoranda of the department, besides which seven memoranda are mentioned as having been received from “the Postoffice Department and not marked as exhibits.”
That should make up a pretty fair collection of departmental argument, views, opinions and “estimates,” should it not? It is very doubtful, though—debatable, if not doubtful—if the collection is worth $50,000. Especially does such a valuation appear questionably excessive, when it is observed that much of the collection is made up of public documents, the findings of former postal commissions and committees, and of reports and showings made up by the Postoffice Department at departmental expenditure of time and money, and not at an expense chargeable to the Commission’s appropriation. Of course the Hughes Commission may not have followed the precedent set by most prior postal Commissions, and by commissions in general. The Hughes Commissioners may not have spent all of their $50,000 appropriation. Let us hope they did not. However, a statement of expenditures actually made would be, by some of us at least, an appreciated “exhibit.”
Another feature of the Commission’s 108-page report that deserves special attention is the close adherence of its findings tothe findings of present postal officials. Even in cases where the opinions of past officials are quoted commendingly, the opinions usually support and bolster the opinions of Mr. Hitchcock and his assistants. The report presents a number of tabulations, among which are several that are most excellent and informative. However, the tabulations, and the more important conclusions of the text as well, are based upon “estimates,” rather than upon ascertained facts. Then, too, these estimates, as is somewhat annoyingly evident, are all, or nearly all,the departmental estimates of the present Administration. Of course, that should in no way impair their value or dependability and it probably would not, but for two facts: The present Postmaster General has, for two years or more, displayed great activity—at times, a fevered if not frenzied activity—to secure the enactment of laws and issuance of executive orders to accomplish results which, while they may appear most desirable to him, were considered by manythousandsof our people as being very objectionable, indeed, inimical to the fundamental right of free speech in this country and a menace to a free press and to popular education. The “estimates” which the Hughes Commission has published as basis for its findings quite uniformly, if not entirely, support the contentions which the Postmaster General has been making—at times, making with little or no warrant of fact to support.
Again, it will be observed by careful readers of the Commission’s report that the “estimates” upon which several of its more important findings are based, are conspicuously lacking in elements essentially necessary in the structure of reliable estimates from which fact or facts may be deduced. To warrant the drawing of conclusions of fact from it, the structural material of an estimate must consist largely, if not wholly, of fact, not of conclusions drawn from other conclusions which, in turn were deduced from estimates based on other estimates that may or may not have been accurate and dependable.
As just stated, the estimates which the Commission appears largely to have accepted, are nearly all productions of the Postoffice Department. Few of them are built directly upon ascertained facts. Most of them are estimates of estimates based on other estimates. It appears that the Postmaster General’s estimates are Assistant Postmaster Generals’ estimates of the estimates made by weighing clerks of the several classes of mail-weights carried by certain railroads during six months in the year 1908. The nearest approach such a method or procedure makes to a fact is an estimate of the fact, you see.
One more quotation from the President’s message and this chapter may end. This quotation is anent the proposition of havingthe telegraph service of the country operated by the government—in connection with the postal service. Mr. Hitchcock’s recommendation in the matter of a postal telegraph “is the only one,” says the President, “in which I cannot concur.” I shall first quote President Taft and then quote Mr. Hitchcock as he expressed himself in his 1911 report:
This presents a question of government ownership of public utilities which are now being conducted by private enterprise under franchises from the government I believe that the true principle is that private enterprise should be permitted to carry on such public utilities underdue regulation as to rates by proper authorityrather than that the government should itself conduct them. This principle I favor because I do not think it in accordance with the best public policy thus greatly to increase the body of public servants.Of course, if it could be shown that telegraph service could be furnished to the public at a less price than it is now furnished to the public by telegraph companies, and with equal efficiency, the argument might be a strong one in favor of the adoption of the proposition. But I am not satisfied from any evidence that if these properties were taken over by the government they could be managed any more economically or any more efficiently or that this would enable the government to furnish service at any smaller rate than the public are now required to pay by private companies.More than this, it seems to me that the consideration of the question ought to bepostponed until after the postal savings banks have come into complete and smooth operation and after a parcels post has been established not only upon the rural routes and the city deliveries, but also throughout the department. It will take some time to perfect these additions to the activities of the Postoffice Departmentand we may well await their complete and successful adoption before we take on a new burden in this very extended department.
This presents a question of government ownership of public utilities which are now being conducted by private enterprise under franchises from the government I believe that the true principle is that private enterprise should be permitted to carry on such public utilities underdue regulation as to rates by proper authorityrather than that the government should itself conduct them. This principle I favor because I do not think it in accordance with the best public policy thus greatly to increase the body of public servants.Of course, if it could be shown that telegraph service could be furnished to the public at a less price than it is now furnished to the public by telegraph companies, and with equal efficiency, the argument might be a strong one in favor of the adoption of the proposition. But I am not satisfied from any evidence that if these properties were taken over by the government they could be managed any more economically or any more efficiently or that this would enable the government to furnish service at any smaller rate than the public are now required to pay by private companies.
More than this, it seems to me that the consideration of the question ought to bepostponed until after the postal savings banks have come into complete and smooth operation and after a parcels post has been established not only upon the rural routes and the city deliveries, but also throughout the department. It will take some time to perfect these additions to the activities of the Postoffice Departmentand we may well await their complete and successful adoption before we take on a new burden in this very extended department.
As an exhibition of rhetorical aviation, that is both going and soaring some. How beautifully it “banks” on the curves! How smooth its motor runs! And its transmission! Words fail me.
Some paragraphing wit has said, “Foolishness is as plentiful as wisdom isn’t.” Our President appears to know that we fools can take in a lot of foolishness without our tanks sloshing over as we stumble along the old, well-worn way—the way that leadeth the earned dollar into somebody’s unearned bank account. But I do not intend to comment. The italics I have taken the liberty to mix into the President’s verbal flight is all the comment needed. Mr. Taft makes it quite clear that all we fools need to do is wait—make haste slowly, take time for due deliberation. Of course, some of us fools think we know, or presume to think we know, that the telegraph companies are charging us two or three prices for the service they render—frequently,do not render for twenty-four or more hours after it ceases to be a service. But think of the good other folks derive from the pocket change they extract from us! The Western Union is, or was, a “Gould property.” It paid interest or dividends on eighty or more millions ofquasiandaqua purain stocks and bonds. But think of the fun sons George and Howard had! Think of the former maintaining the beautiful Lakewood place, leasing English hunting preserves, playing polo and “busting” into, through and around Knickerbocker society circles! How could Howard have built a replica of Kilkenny Castle on Long Island Sound, where he and “Wild West Katie,” it is said, spent millions and had a realistic Kilkenny-Cat time of it? Or how could Frank, the fourth and last son of Jay Gould, have given to the world such a lurid, if not illuminating, picture of the “Married Rue” as was exhibited at his divorce hearings? And there is “Sister Anna”—Well, it is sufficient to say that Anna Gould could not have blown away ten millions in settling “Powder-Puff” Boni’s debts and turning him loose in the straight and broad way which leadeth unto the life that is somewhat too “fast” for even unearned money.
Well, none of the before-mentioned “life lessons” could have been set for the world’s enlightenment—likewise, disgust—had the people of this country not waited, not made haste slowly, in “due deliberation,” while the Western Union and other “Gould properties,” were used to separate them from many millions of dollars which no Gould or Gould property ever earned.
But this is digressing. The President advises us to wait, to delay action a little longer—until the “postal savings banks have come into complete and smooth operation,” until “after a parcels post has been established … throughout the department.” Just wait and keep on paying twenty-five cents for a ten-word wire to your mother or friend ten miles out, even though the veriest fool knows that a postal telegraph service would carry a twenty-five word message to any postoffice in the United States for ten cents. Just keep on waiting—until the big telegraph interests have sheared a few millions more fleece.
But, says President Taft, “If it could be shown that telegraph service could be furnished to the public at a less price,” etc., etc.
Well, maybe there is a sort of visual aphasia which makes aquarter look like ten cents to some men. If not, I am at a loss to understand how it yet remains for anyone to be “shown” that telegraph service could be furnished to “the public at a less price than it is now furnished by the telegraph companies.” Postmaster General Hitchcock furnished sufficient information, it seems to me, to show the President, or anyone else for that matter, that telegraph service “could be furnished the public” at rates much below those the telegraph companies collect. Mr. Hitchcock speaks in part, as follows—page 14, 1911 report:
The telegraph lines in the United States should be made a part of the postal system and operated in conjunction with the mail service. Such a consolidation would unquestionably result in important economies and permit the adoption of lower telegraph rates. Postoffices are maintained in numerous places not reached by the telegraph systems and the proposed consolidation would therefore afford a favorable opportunity for the wide extension of telegraph facilities. In many small towns where the telegraph companies have offices, the telegraph and mail business could be readily handled by the same employees. The separate maintenance of the two services under present conditions results in a needless expense. In practically all the European countries, including Great Britain, Germany, France, Russia, Austria, and Italy, the telegraph is being operated under government control as a part of the postal system. As a matter of fact, the first telegraph in the United States was also operated for several years, from 1844 to 1847, by the government under authority from Congress, and there seems to be good ground why the government control should be resumed.
The telegraph lines in the United States should be made a part of the postal system and operated in conjunction with the mail service. Such a consolidation would unquestionably result in important economies and permit the adoption of lower telegraph rates. Postoffices are maintained in numerous places not reached by the telegraph systems and the proposed consolidation would therefore afford a favorable opportunity for the wide extension of telegraph facilities. In many small towns where the telegraph companies have offices, the telegraph and mail business could be readily handled by the same employees. The separate maintenance of the two services under present conditions results in a needless expense. In practically all the European countries, including Great Britain, Germany, France, Russia, Austria, and Italy, the telegraph is being operated under government control as a part of the postal system. As a matter of fact, the first telegraph in the United States was also operated for several years, from 1844 to 1847, by the government under authority from Congress, and there seems to be good ground why the government control should be resumed.
While much more could be said in support of Mr. Hitchcock’s position, he has said sufficient in the above, I think, to “show” even a President.
As evidence that the “estimates,” upon which the Hughes Commission so largely base their findings are not entirely dependable, I desire to make two brief quotations from other pages of Mr. Hitchcock’s 1911 report. On page 17, as the first of thirty “Improvements in Organization and Methods,” the Postmasters General sets forth as having been accomplished in the service during the fiscal year 1911, will be found this:
The successful completion of an inquiry into the cost to railway companies of carrying the mails and the submission of a report to Congress making recommendations for revising the manner of fixing rates of pay for railway mail transportation.
The successful completion of an inquiry into the cost to railway companies of carrying the mails and the submission of a report to Congress making recommendations for revising the manner of fixing rates of pay for railway mail transportation.
On pages 9 and 10 of the report, in discussing a readjustment of railway mail pay, Mr. Hitchcock uses the following language:
The statistics obtained during the course of the investigation, disclosed for the first timethe cost of carrying the mailsin comparison with the revenues derived by the railways from this service.… The new plan (paying railways on the basis of car space occupied by the mails), if authorized by Congress, will require the railway companies each year to report what it costs them to carry the mails and such other information aswill enable the department to determine the cost of mail transportation.
The statistics obtained during the course of the investigation, disclosed for the first timethe cost of carrying the mailsin comparison with the revenues derived by the railways from this service.… The new plan (paying railways on the basis of car space occupied by the mails), if authorized by Congress, will require the railway companies each year to report what it costs them to carry the mails and such other information aswill enable the department to determine the cost of mail transportation.
From the above it would seem that Congress was to be asked to adopt at its present session a “new plan” which “will enable the department to determine the cost of mail transportation;” to determine an important service fact which, according to the preceding quotation and also to the first sentence of the one just made, was determined sometimeprior to June 30, 1911.
Has the Postoffice Department already determined the facts as the report twice claims, or has it merely collected some data upon which to base an “estimate?” Which enables it to make a more or less reasonableguessat the cost of mail transportation?
FOOTNOTES[8]I find from reports of the department auditor that the fiscal year of 1909 was made to meet a charge of $128,307.32 which rightly stood against the year 1907; also that the fiscal year 1911 is charged with an expenditure of $148,490.01 belonging to 1909 and another expenditure of $85,195.34, belonging to “1908 and prior years.”
[8]I find from reports of the department auditor that the fiscal year of 1909 was made to meet a charge of $128,307.32 which rightly stood against the year 1907; also that the fiscal year 1911 is charged with an expenditure of $148,490.01 belonging to 1909 and another expenditure of $85,195.34, belonging to “1908 and prior years.”
[8]I find from reports of the department auditor that the fiscal year of 1909 was made to meet a charge of $128,307.32 which rightly stood against the year 1907; also that the fiscal year 1911 is charged with an expenditure of $148,490.01 belonging to 1909 and another expenditure of $85,195.34, belonging to “1908 and prior years.”
I intended to take up here the railway mail-pay and postal car rental steal and then the infringement by express companies on the postal service and its revenues. However, since I have quoted Section 181 of the federal statutes governing, I think it as well, or better, here to take notice of the express companies’ raiding into the postal revenues—raidings into the field of service which thelaw specifically reserved for the operation of the nation’s Postoffice Department.
Let me ask the reader to turn back a few pages and read again that Section 181 of the federal statutes. Let me ask him also to think a moment about the character of small parcels and packages the express companies carry. To help our memories a little, let us note a few items.
The express companies carry and deliver for the general public money remittance for any sum. For carrying sealed remittance of a hundred dollars or less—for the carriage and delivery of which the government has provided in its postal money order regulations—the express companies arecriminalsunder that Section 181.
Had the express company “influence” not reached federal legislators, it is not only highly probable, but almost a certainty, that our postal service would today be both prepared and permitted to transmit and deliver sums of money to any amount and at rateslowerthan now charged by the express companies.
If a publisher has ten or a hundred thousand copies of a book to deliver to mail-order purchasers, some express company steps in and makes him an offer for delivery, atrifle lowerthan the 8-cent-a-pound rate charged by the Postoffice Department for the same service.
In such instance, the express company making such tender of delivery on any “post route” is acriminal, under thespecificwording of that Section 181.
In previous pages of this volume the reader will find testimony of people and of firms that pay large carriage bills for second-class matter. Among this testimony are found statements (some of them under jurat), that the express companies carry periodicals in bulk offive to ten pounds and upward from New York to Chicago, and to other points equally distant from office of publication, at a rate materially below the cent-a-pound rate charged by the government for postal carriage.
In one instance, it is known that one express company has offered to contract to carry periodicals from New York to Chicago over a certain connecting railroad at a rate ofone-half cent a pound.
What does that mean?
It means simply this:—The railroad handling such express business hauls express carsen trainwith the United States mail, and the railroad handling such express consignments of periodical mail matter makes the New York-Chicago haul at somewhere aroundone-fourth of a cent a pound. That is, it is somewhere around one-fourth cent a pound unless the carrying road takesmorethan half the express company’s contract charge.
“What more?”
The express company contracting such business and the railroad handling it arecriminalsunder that Section 181 of the federal statutes.
In this connection I wish to say that under a strict—yes, under a just—construction of that Section 181, I am not sure but that the publishers party to such contracts are not also parties to the crime.
From theletterof that section, I confess an inability to see any other construction of it than that previously stated. The United States government, or at least its legislative department, in 1845,intendedthat all such matter—letters (sealed matter), “packets,” or packages and parcels, should be turned over to the Postoffice Department for transportation, handling and delivery.
Why has not the intent of that law been carried out?
Why are the express companies permitted, and for years been permitted, so brazenly to perpetrate criminal violations of that postal statute? Why and how does it chance that they (the express companies), can violate the law for years and go unscathed—go unchastized for plain, open, brazen violation of that Section 181 of the federal statutes? Yes,why?
There is but one answer; therecanbe but one answer.
Federal executives, federal legislators and federal judicial officialshave connived with private individuals and interests to nullify or make abortive that Section 181.
Have you ever read any of Allan A. Benson’s writings? “No?” Then you have missed something you should never miss again, should opportunity perambulate around your way. Allan A. Benson says something when he writes—says it blunt, plain andhard—says it in language that guarantees its own truth—says it in an open, broad way in which no man, “even though a fool” or a joy-rider, can go astray. In both the February and the March, 1911, numbers of Pearson’s Magazine, Mr. Benson writes on the parcels post as a subject. I shall probably quote from him extendedly when I reach that division of our general subject in this volume. Mr. Bensonknowshis subject. And what is didactically of more importance,he makes the reader know he knows it.
Well, even with a fear that I may here reprint from him some paragraphs for which I may have a greater need later, I cannot refrain from quoting him in answer to those several “whys” I have just written, anent the violations of that Section 181 of the postal statutes.
Following his quotation of that section of the federal statutes, Mr. Benson says: