Anyone who attempts to give our parcels post service anything like careful, studious consideration will, at the very outset of such consideration, find himself confronted by a number of bald facts which, when fully rounded out and understood, should make unnecessary any discussion of our claim that we need, should have and are entitled to better and cheaper service than that we now have. Without attempting any immediate discussion of these facts, I desire to present them, or some of them, to the reader’s consideration just here at the opening of our discussion of the subject. The desire to do this is prompted by a hope that their presentation here will induce the reader to think of their significance and their bearing upon the parcels post question in any fair discussion of it.
Now for these facts:
1. There are about 250,000 miles of railroad in this country—more than the aggregate mileage of all the other nations of earth.
2. The capitalization of the railroads of these United States is now, according to Poor’s Manual of Railroads, the universally recognized authority, about $18,800,000,000—Eighteen billion eight hundred million dollars!
3. That capitalization is admittedlytwicethe value of all the tangible values—trackage, rolling stock, terminals, shops and other—owned by the roads. In many instances the capitalization of a road is easily three times the value of its tangible property.
4. Most of these railroads were built with borrowed money, covered by bond issues, and the payment of the bonds met from theearnings of the roads, or by new issues of bonds, payment of which has been, or it is intended will be, met from earnings. In view of this method of financing construction and equipment, it is well known in informed circles that the present capitalization of these railroads isten or twelvetimes the actual cash ever invested in them—that is, cash other than that collected from the people for freight, passenger, and other service rendered—rendered at ratesunscrupulouslyexcessive. Some of the best informed people have gone so faras to say thatallof the stock and a considerable part of the bond capitalization of the nation’s railroadsis water.
5. There are a number of express companies in this country. The express business of the country, however, is controlled by six companies—the “Big Six.”
6. The express transportation (land) is wholly by railroads. The railroad companies, and men owning large or controlling interest in railroads, own a large majority of the “Big Six” stock capitalization.
7. For most of the express company stock owned by railroads, no cash consideration whatsoever was given. For the stock, a railroad company gave to some express company a monopoly of the express business on its line or system of lines of road.
8. The express companies, in addition to any stock bonus they may have given for the monopoly of the express business on a rail line or system of lines, pay to the railroads on which they operateforty to fifty-eight per cent of the gross receiptsfrom the express business handled.
9. The railroads furnish cars free to the express companies. They also furnish depot accommodations and facilities for storing and handling express shipments. In some instances, as much as 90 per cent of the handling of express shipping is done by railroad employes.
10. There are thirty-seven directors in the controlling express companies. Of these, thirty-two are also directors in some one or more railroad companies or are large owners of railroad stocks and bonds.
11. Practically no cash investment whatsoever was ever made in establishing or organizing an express company, nor in equipment to conduct its business. Every dollar of value there is in equipment and other tangible assets of the express companies today—andhundreds of millions besides—has come from the people—has beentakenfrom the people for handling their express business at rates ranging fromtwo to five times the actual cost of handling.
12. The controlling express companies—“associations” some of them are called—pay 8 to 12 per cent dividends yearly on their stock capitalization, which stock has but a fraction of substantial values back of it, andallthose real values have come from earnings.13. In addition to the regular annual dividends paid, these express companies, every few years, “cut a melon”—pay stockholders a substantial “extra” dividend. One company (Wells, Fargo & Co.), with a stock capital of $5,000,000 in 1872—and no one knowing what tangible assets that five millions represented—increased it to $8,000,000 in 1893. That added $3,000,000 was issued to the Union Pacific Railroad for a contract which gave the express company a monopoly of the express business on the Union Pacific rail system. On that eight millions the express company paid annual dividends ranging from 6 to 9 per cent from 1893 to 1901. From 1902 to 1907 it paid 9 per cent annually, since which date its annual dividend rate has been 10 per cent.
In addition to these substantial yearly dividends on $8,000,000 of stock,which cost its holders little or nothing, this company cut a huge “melon” in 1910. This melon was an extra dividend to its stockholders of 100 per cent in cash ($8,000,000) and a stock dividend of 200 per cent—a total of 300 per cent as an extra dividend—thus raising its stock capitalization from $8,000,000 to $24,000,000.
On this twenty-four millions of stock the company has continued to pay 10 per cent annually.
The net earnings of the company for 1910 and 1911 were about 20 per cent on its $24,000,000 of stock.
14. There are no express companies in European countries. The heavier express shipments here are there handled—and satisfactorily handled—by the railroads direct. All the lighter express shipments are there handled by the parcels post.
15. The parcels post service of European countries is entirely satisfactory to the people, is cheaper than the pretense of a parcels post service which has victimized the people of this country for a half-century andfarcheaper than the rates we have been forced to pay for express service.
16. As it was originally designed, andso provided by law, that our government should have a monopoly in the carriage and delivery of packages and parcels, the express companies in this country—all of them—have been and are engaged in anoutlawed traffic. They are criminals.
17. Our government, in all its branches—legislative, executive and judicial—has been party to this outlawry. It not only hasprotected these express and railway raiders while they robbed us, butit has permitted itself to be robbed by them.
The seventeen statements of fact should be sufficient for a starter—a starter for arriving at a safe, sound conclusion as to how and why a comparatively few folks get fabulously rich so quickly and so easily while so manymillionsof other folks, though lavish in industry and self-denying in expenditure, rise only to modest means or remain poor.
We shall now take up a discussion of the parcels post—as it has served us, and as it has served other peoples and should be made to serve us.
The first thing that is noticed in taking a ladder-top view of this Parcels post question is theimmenseamount of public bubbling talk and writing andmoneythat is being expended upon, about and around it.
Is it the people? No. That is easily to be seen. The people are being written and talked to. The people are saying little, write less and are notputting up the money to bubble themselvesin theanti-parcels post campaign.
Is the general government putting up the oil and fuel to run this anti-parcels post bunk-shooting game?
Well, the government for years has made little noticeable effort to give the people better and cheaper parcels accommodation in its mail service. That is, theexecutivearm of the national government has done so. The legislative arm of the national government hasuniformly, though never unanimously,opposedany and every measure intended to increase theservicevalue of parcel mail-carriage to the people.
“Why have U. S. congressmen and senators opposed?”
They have opposed, because the party caucuses of the House and the Senate have been and are dominated and controlled by men who were and are opposed to such legislation.
Still, the government, executive or legislative, has probably spent no money and has certainly made little noise to defeat the establishment of a better and cheaper parcels post service.
Now, if it is not the people themselves nor the people’s government who are making all the parcels post noise,buyingnewspaper space and putting up money tosteer country merchants and othersinto organizing and petitioning against increased parcel facilities in the mails—if it is not the people trying to bubble themselves nor the government trying to bubble the people, I wonder who it is? Who is putting up for thefuel and oilto run this anti-parcels postopinion-moldingsulky-rake, which has been so vigorously, so industriously and sodesignedlydragged over the mental hay-fields of the Americanhoi polloiduring recent years? What’s the answer?
Unless, of course, one has taken on an over-load of this anti-parcels post tonnage, thereby giving hisfeelingsa chance to hip-lock or strangle-hold his intelligence, he’ll not need to browse around long for an answer.
You have a boy working at Blue Island or Elgin, Illinois. Mother in Chicago wants to send him a Christmas present. If it weighs no more than four pounds she can send it by mail, payingone cent an ounce. If she wants to feel sure that her boy gets it, she can “register” the parcel,paying ten cents more.
If the parcel weighsthe fraction of an ounce morethan four pounds, mothercannot send it to her boy through the mail service at all. If the parcel weighs exactly four pounds, then our Uncle Samuel will deliver it at Blue Island or at Elgin when mother puts upsixty-four cents—seventy-four, if mother wants to feel sure that her boy gets it and for that reason has the parcel “registered.”
That is one case—onestatement of fact.
Andrew Carnegie at Skibo Castle, Scotland, desires to send a four-pound Christmas present to some son of Norval or “blow-hole” friend in Los Angeles, California, or Mrs. John Bull, at Manchester, England, has a yearning—and the price—to send a present of corresponding weight to her daughter Margaret, who is happily, likewiserichly, married and who lives in a beautiful suburb of San Francisco. Well, “Andy” and Mrs. John Bull can send their four-pound presents—to be more exact,theycan send even if the parcels weight up toelevenpounds each—can have those four-pound parcels carried by rail to some steamship port, carried across the Atlantic ocean, put intoourmail cars, carried withour ownmail across the entire country anddelivered by American carriersto theremotestsuburb of Los Angeles or San Francisco forforty-eight cents—three-fourthsthe price mother has to pay to gether four-poundpresent to her boy at Blue Island or Elgin!
That is another case—another statement of fact.
Formany yearsthe United States government hascarriedparcels of newspapers, magazines and other periodicals, weighing up to 220pounds, to any point in the country reached by its mail service, broke the package and delivered each separate piece to individual addresses in postoffice boxes or by carrier forone cent a pound.
Yet it persists in charging mothersixteen centsa pound to send her present to her boy at Elgin or Blue Island andcompelsher to keep its weight down tofour pounds.
That is another case—another statement of fact.
For many years, the government has carried by mail, not hundreds, butthousandsof tons of parcelsfree. Every United States Senator, every Congressman, every department head, every division head, every first, second, third or fourth “assistant” department or division head, every political “fence” builder, whatever his position in the government’s official service,uses his franking privilege.
Not only that.Most of them abuse it.
Not only that. Most of those who abuse it do not confine the abuse to franking public documents to “friends at home” and speeches—most of which were never made or were made or written by somebody else—to “my constituents.” Oh, no! That government “frank,” so it has been credibly asserted, has been used to carry easy chairs, side boards, couches and other household goods which have been “bought cheap”—some of it too cheap to carry a price tag—and which “can be used at home.” Typewriters, filing cases, office desks, frequently acquired by a process ofbenevolent appropriation, have reached homewithout carriage charge.
That is another case—another statement of fact.
But why continue? I could go on for a page or two withstatements of fact, all evidencing this otherFACT.
Mother—your mother, my mother—the great tax-paying body of our people—is wronged, is victimized, by our postal service and regulations.
That is my opinion. That opinion is based upon a “broad, general andcomprehensiveview”—a ladder-top view—“of the whole question in its various and varying details,” as oneanti-parcels post spouter has spouted.
I have presented butfourstatements of fact. A score of otherswill readily appear to any reader who does his own thinking. But take any one of the four above given and study its significance for justone minute.
Have you done so? “Yes?” Well, then you see the joke—or the “joker”—in theanti-parcels post talk and literature, do you not? You will also be able to make a close guess as towho are financially backingthe public-bubblingoppositionto any legislation for the improvement of our parcels post service. If you cannot, I advise you to go to some jokesmith and have the gaskets and packings on your think-tank tightened up.
John Wanamaker was a great merchant. He was a brainy business man and, to a large extent, did hisown thinking. He was, for a term of years, Postmaster General of the United States. Mr. Wanamaker was likewise a man of broad, comprehensive andcomprehendinghumor. He could crack or take a joke. In either event, the kernel was separated from the shell quickly. Here is one of Mr. Wanamaker’s jokes:
Years ago, when Mr. Wanamaker was Postmaster General, John Brisbane Walker asked him why the American people stood for the existing parcels post outrage. Mr. Walker believed the American people were quick,judgmentalthinkers andswiftin remedial action when thought reached the conclusion that thethinker was being victimized.
Mr. Walker was right—isright. American people do think. The trouble is that too many of us arecoupled into train with the wrong kind of thinkers. We are switched or shunted onto any side-track or yarding the engineer, the conductor or thetraffic managerdesires. We simplythinkwe think, while really we are merely following asteer. But I digress.
To Mr. Walker’s question, Mr. Wanamaker made this reply:
“It is true that parcels could be carried at aboutone-twelfththeir present cost by the Postoffice Department, but you do not seem to be aware that there are fourinsuperable obstaclesto carrying parcels by the United States Postoffice Department. The first of these is theAdams Express Company; the second is theAmerican Express Company; the third is theWells-Fargo Express Company; and the fourth, theSouthern Express Company.”
“It is true that parcels could be carried at aboutone-twelfththeir present cost by the Postoffice Department, but you do not seem to be aware that there are fourinsuperable obstaclesto carrying parcels by the United States Postoffice Department. The first of these is theAdams Express Company; the second is theAmerican Express Company; the third is theWells-Fargo Express Company; and the fourth, theSouthern Express Company.”
Of course there are several more “insuperable obstacles” to an improvement in our parcels post service. There is the previouslymentioned “big six” obstacles with the railroads, now as when Mr. Wanamaker spoke,owning or controlling them all.
The reader mayknow—no need ofguessing—that those insuperable obstacles arestokingthe engines which are “yarding” public opinion—and much honest, but superficial or careless,private opinion—where it will yieldunearnedrevenues to the stokers. Any man who arguesagainstcheapening our parcels post rates is merely ahiredangler for suckers or a sharer in the spoils which railroad and express raiders are looting from the people.
I recently heard one of those patriotic hired “cappers” talk to his job. Among his forceful points were the following:
“The big express companies employ nearly 100,000 men.
“Their payroll (officials included), is nearly $50,000,000 a year.
“Roosevelt added 99,000 names to the federal pay roll during his seven years in office.
“There are about 70,000 postoffices in the United States and an improved parcels post service would require an additional clerk in each. Therefore 70,000 more tax-eaters would be added to the federal payrolls.
“There was adeficitof $6,000,000 piled up in the Postoffice Department last year. To whatappallingfigures would that deficit mount if a parcels post were established?”
Now, I want to ask a few questions.
First, those 100,000 men employed by the big express companies and who are paid the colossal sum of $50,000,000 in salaries. The express companies neither employ so many men nor pay so much money. But if they did, that is anaverageof but $500 a year to each employe. Do you think those 100,000 express men would lose anykillingamount in annual salary if the government took the whole bunch of them bodily over and put them into a parcels post service?
So much for those alleged 100,000 express companyemployes, concerning whose interests and welfare theanti-parcel post bunk-shooterappearsto have had a pain in his lap or bunions on his mind.
Now, how about the 90,000,000 or more people who make up the rest of us folks in these United States? How would we come out in the ledger account if a good, efficient andcheapparcels post service was put into operation and the “big express companies” put out of business?
It is quite impossible to figure it out to the cent. Thepublicreports of those big express companies, likewise their system of double cross bookkeeping, prevent us getting nearer than about eight blocks of their “inside information.” But some of thegoverning factswe know and others mustnecessarilyfollow inanyprocess or method of reasoning recognized outside the harmless ward of a crazy house.
The stock of express companies isownedlargely by a comparatively few people—a thousand, possibly five hundred, persons own 90 per cent of this stock. No one at all familiar with express company tangibles, unless he is exercising a loose-screwed veracity, will estimate theiraggregatetangible valuesabovetwenty or twenty-five millions. More than that. The present tangible values in these companiesare, as previously stated, almost whollyinvestments from earnings. So largely, in fact, is that true thatsix million dollarsis aliberalestimate for theactual cash capitalat any time invested in actual operation.
These companies paid their owners two to three and a half, or more, millions a yearin dividends.
Since 1907, the Adams company has paid $480,000 a year on $12,000,000 of bonds. Those twelve million of 4 per cent bonds weregiven to the stockholders. Not one cent of actual cash was given in consideration.
What has that to do with the parcels post question? Simply this:
When the government installs a parcels post service that accepts, carries anddeliverspackages weighing from twelve to twenty or more pounds theselooting express and railroad raiders will go out of business.
Everybody who has studied the question at all knows that all alleged deficits in the postal service are the malformed progeny of an illegal union between crooked public officials and criminal violators of the law enacted to establish and govern the carriage and delivery of mail matter in these United States. So noticeable has been the closed eyes and “rear view” of government officials while the railroad and express raiders raided and walked off with their loot that petty thieves began to shin up the posts of the Postoffice Department directly or sneak in by way of Congressional legislation.
“What were they after?” Why, they wanted a “subsidy” for carrying foreign or ocean mails, or they wanted a “pork” contract—one of those contracts which renders little service for much money.
Did you ever hear of Tahiti? No. It isnota breakfast food nor a sure cure for cancers. It is an island. “Where?” Ask the Almighty. I don’t know, and I am doubtful whether the Almighty knows orcares. I know it is an island somewhere, because a few years ago the postal department entered into a contract with some “tramp” steamer flying arag, whichcloseinspection might discover hadoncebeen the American flag.
The Postoffice Department paid that tramp $45,000 for carrying our mails to Tahiti—a service that another vessel in the Tahiti trade offered to render for $3,500.
Can there be anylegitimatesurprise or wonder at a “deficit” resulting from such business methods?
But that, of course, was “a few years ago.” Yet, stay! On page 264 of the 1910 report of the Postoffice Department, I find that the Oceanic Line—a line of United States register—carried to and from Tahiti and the Marquesas Islands 7,622 pounds of letters and 159,483 pounds of prints. This was carried under a “contract” and the Oceanic people were paid $46,398 for the service—for carrying about 88 tons of mail matter.
Looks like a good “deficit” producer, does it not?
But there is another queer thing about this Tahiti mail contract. Note (1) on page 263, to which the report refers readers, says steamers of United States registernot under contractare paid 80 cents a pound for carrying letters and 8 cents a pound for carrying prints. Figuring up the Oceanic’s service at those rates gives as result only $18,856.24.
So it can readily be seen there is something in a “contract”—some contracts, anyway.
On the same page (264), I find that another ship, one of the Union Line and under foreign register, touches at Tahiti in making New Zealand. It carried 2,713,850 grams (about 5,970 pounds) of letters and 58,926,887 grams (about 129,639 pounds) of prints—within 16 tons the weight the Oceanic people carried—and received only $7,781.54 for the service. These vessels of foreign register are paid about 35 cents a pound for letter weights and 4½ cents for print weight.
Figuring up the weights hurriedly at the named rates, I find that the Union folks were entitled to $7,923.40, or some $142morethan was paid them. The Oceanic folks, you will remember, were paid $46,398 when atopencarriage rates of pay to vessels of United States register they earned only $18,856.24.
Looks a little off color, does it not? But we must remember that Tahiti is an island. Must be an island of vast importance. It requires the shipment of 88 tons of mail matter in a year—a whole year—and our government pays $46,398 haulage on it. Something over 79 of those 88 tons of mail was printed weight, too.
What great printers and publishers those Tahitians and Marquesans must be! Or was that print stuff of United States origin? Catalogues and franked and penalty matter, I wonder?
At any rate there is the “contract” in 1910 as an evidence that some one here is doing, or has done, a little turn toward “burning” postal revenues and helping, in a small way, to keep a postal “deficit” in evidence. A deficit, you know, shows that the revenues of the department are too low, too small, to permit the establishment of an efficient, cheap parcels post, or so the railroad and express raiders would have us think.
The important point, however, is: Are we fools enough to think it? If so, how long shall we continue to be fools enough to think it? If not, is it not about time that we created a disturbance—that we raise some dust—in efforts to let these raiders and their cappers know we are not fools? Why should we continue to act foolish if we are not fools? Please rise, Mr. Sensible Citizen, and answer.
As before said, no one expects nor desires the government tomake moneyout oftheirmail service. People have, however,a rightto expect—and to demand—that their regularly chosen representatives and other government officialspreventa lot of raiders, or any one else for that matter, from making more than afair, legitimate profiton what they do for or contribute to that service.
There has been much talk the last three or four years about the economies effected by the Postoffice Department in the execution of the work it was established to do. How much of this talk is grounded on fact and how much of it is mere political gargle and party and administration “fan”-talk I shall not here attempt to say. Time hasnot permitted me to look into these averred economies carefully and thoroughly enough to warrant positive statements from me anent them here. I am inclined to believe, however, that the present Postmaster General, Mr. Hitchcock, and his immediate predecessors, Mr. Meyer and Mr. Cortelyou, have really accomplished a little in the right direction—a little, where the Lord knows weshouldknow there was much to accomplish. But, as stated, my favorable opinion is not based on what I have dug up myself about these economies alleged to have been effected in the recently passed years. If they have been effected, their accomplishment only goes to prove that advocates of a cheap parcels post in this country have beenrightin their facts and arguments, and also that their exposures and severe condemnation of the waste, extravagance, grafting andstealingin the postal service were timely and well deserved.
Something, however, has, I think, been done. The exposure of criminal crookedness, grafting, waste and thievery which existed in the department—with administrative employes, officers, Congressmen and Senators, either directly or collusively connected with it—was bound to wipe some leaking joints in the service. The exposures uncovered so much porch-climbing and so much nastiness that most decent citizens were holding their noses and thinking of buying a gun. Somethinghadto be done. The noise and injured-innocence “holler,” which railroad and express company raiders are vocalizing and printing, is pretty good evidence not only that some little has been done to them, but also that they fear more is going to be done to jam the gear or otherwise interfere with the smooth running of some one or more of their high-speed, noiseless-action cream separators. And more will be done if the people keep on the mat and keep swinging for the jaw and plexus. But it is not all done yet. The raiders may be squealing and squirming a little. They always do when a little hurt. But they are still busy—still actively after the cream. They may spar a little for time, but they will use the time actively in figuring out a new entrance into the people’s milk house.
And these raiders will find a way to get in, too, if the people pull up the blankets and let themselves be talked and foozled to sleep.
There appears to be much talk about “fast mail” service. Ofcourse if the railways are already running at a destructive loss on mail weight and space-rental pay—which they are not—why they will want more pay if they furnish a fast mail service. The postal authorities (official) seem to think that a “fast mail” is a thing altogether lovely and much to be desired. The railroad carriers are of like mind, but—well, such service costs more money. They want more money. A fast mail is just the thing the people want and need! It will push the corn crop ahead and keep the frost off the peaches!
For these and other equallyeasyreasons it is sought to steer the people into making a scream for a “fast mail” service. They want and need their mail in a hurry. The quicker the better. In fact, from the way some people are already talking, it would appear they want their mail delivered about twenty-four hours before it starts in their direction.
If the cream-skimming raiders and their “public servant” assistants can only get the people to talking for a “fast mail” service, why a fast mail we will have, and we willpay the raiders for furnishing it.
How will we pay them?
Oh, that is easy. Bonuses and subsidies are popular fashions in federal legislative society. Likewise they appear to be popular in postoffice circles. They are seasonable the year around and are cut to fit any figure. They don’t stand the wash very well, but—well, don’t wash them. The raiders and their official valets always keep them brushed up and vacuum cleaned. Just pay for them is all the people have to do.
I recall a serviceable subsidized fast mail gown which was handed to a railroad between Kansas City, Mo., and Newton, Kan., some years since. It was neatly boxed and delivered by the handlers of postoffice appropriations. It was worth $25,000 a year to the road that got it.
“Of what use was it to the people?”
None whatever. The fast train it was made to drape was put on the line named for the sole service and benefit of two Kansas City newspapers. It swished those papers (their midnight editions), into Western Kansas, Oklahoma and Northern Texas ahead of the appearance of local morning issues.
I recall another “fast mail” bonus. It was $190,000 and wentto the Southern Railway for a fast train out of New York for New Orleans. It left New York about 4 a. m. andcarried little or no mail for delivery north of Charlotte, N. C.
It arrived in New Orleans, if I remember rightly, along about 2 a. m. the next day—too late for delivery of any mail before the opening of the day’s business—9 or 10 o’clock in the morning.
But the regular mail train, as was shown in the debate in the Senate, left New York at about 2. a. m. and arrived in New Orleans about 4:30 a. m.—two hours after the so-called “fast mail”—in ample time for deliveries when the business of the city opened.
Fine business that, is it not? Well, yes, for theSouthern Railway.
The reader, however, should be able to recognize it as a regular 60 H. P., six-cylinder, rubber-tired “deficit” producer. Especially will he so recognize it if he thinks of it in connection with this other fact:
That same year, the Southern Railway was paid, in addition to the $190,000 “fast mail” subsidy mentioned,over one million dollars at the regular weight rates for hauling the mails!
There are numerous others of equal beauty and effectiveness in design. As previously stated, however, subsidies and bonuses are all carefully designed and cut to fit any figure. All we wise, “easy” people need do is to make a little noise for a “fast mail” service and Congress will hand it out.
The railroad raiders can easily justify their demands for subsidies for a fast mail service with people who have given little or no study to this mail-carrying question. Our Postoffice Department furnishes the raiders about all the argument that is needed. One of the raiders has been quoted as saying: “We could carry the mails at one-half cent per ton mile, if the Postoffice Department would allow us to handle it in our own way.”
There you are. The department will not let these raiders help the peoplesave their own money. Very generous. Much like a burglar calling on you the day before in order to tell you how to prevent him from cracking your safe.
But the beauty of that railroader’s statement lies in the fact that it states a fact; not one of these glittering, rhetorical facts, but a realde facto fact.
The rules and regulations of the Postoffice Department for thecarriage of mails in postoffice cars are such as furnish ample grounds and warrant for the railway official’s statement.
Postoffice cars are from 40 to 50 or more feet in length and weigh, empty, from 50,000 to 110,000 pounds. The department then has fixtures and handling equipment put in. This equipment occupies about two-thirds of the floor space of the car, and, with the four to twelve railway mail clerks also put into it, weighs from 10 to 15 or more tons. The railroad is paid for carrying all this bulky, space-occupying equipment at the regular mail-weight pay rates.
And how much real mail does the department get into these postoffice cars?
Well, some years since Professor Adams, after a most careful and extended investigation, placed the average weight of mail actually carried at two tons. He pointed out, however, that the mail load could easily go to three and a half tons and referred to the Pennsylvania road which, in its special mail trains, loaded as high as six tons. He also stated that if the load were increased to five tons, the cost of carriage would bereduced more than one-half, and he made it very clear that his figures were easily inside the service possibilities.
In view of such evidence and testimony from Professor Adams, and of other men to much the same effect, the department may possibly have increased the mail load since 1907 to three or maybe to three and a half tons.
Even so, it is still evident that the railroad must haul from 70,000 to 140,000 pounds of car and equipment to carry 6,000 to 7,000 pounds of mail; thirty-five to seventy tons of dead load to carry three to three and a half tons of live—of service—load. Do not forget that, so far as the railroads pay is concerned, the equipment is live weight—paid weight. So, the railroads get paid for a load of fifteen to eighteen and a half tons, while they carry only three to three and a half tons of mail—for carrying, according to Professor Adams’s figures in 1907, only two tons of mail.
As a deficit-producer that should rank high. As an evidence that our Postoffice Department is run on economic lines, that mail car tonnage load is nearly conclusive enough to convince the residents of almost any harmless ward.
Speaking seriously, the department’s methods of mail-loading the postoffice car—methods which put from two to three and a halftons into cars that should carry six to ten tons—furnishes the carriage-raiders an excellent basis for their talks to the people to the effect that the roads are not getting sufficient pay for carrying the mails now, and if they (the people) want better or faster service the roads must be paid more money, either as bonuses or subsidies. In fact, the railroad people have been holding up this nonsensical—or collusive—practice of the department for years as basis for their demands for more pay for hauling the government mails. As proof of this statement, take the testimony of Mr. Julius Kruttschnitt before the Wolcott Commission, I think it was. Mr. Kruttschnitt was then (1901) Fourth Vice-President of the Southern Pacific. In reply to the Commission’s inquiry as to whether or not the mails could be profitably carried over the New Orleans-San Francisco routes at a half cent a pound ($10.00 per ton or for $100 to $200 per car if reasonably loaded), Mr. Kruttschnitt is reported to have answered in part that “at half a cent a pound the mileage rate for 442 miles is 2.3 cents. Statement G,” he continued, “shows that to carry one ton of mail we carry nineteen tons ofdead weight, so that for hauling twenty tons we get 2 cents or a little over one-tenth of a cent a gross ton mile.”
All very forceful and conclusive, if it were true, which it is not. It is true, however, that Mr. Kruttschnitt was making good argumentative use of the ridiculously low loading of cars under the regulations of the department. That is all. If the postoffice car used on Mr. Kruttschnitt’s road was a 50-foot car and weighed, say, 100,000 pounds, that and the railway mail clerks constituted the only “dead” weight hauled.
His road got paid for hauling the tons of ridiculously heavy mail-handling equipment and fixtures in that car—got paid for hauling themboth ways, at the regular mail-weight rates. His road also received over $8,000 a year rental, or “space pay,” whichever the rail-raiders desire to call it, for the use of that car for mail haulage.
So, it is really not so bad as Mr. Kruttschnitt apparently would have it appear. In fact, one does not have to look into the matter very closely to see that the Southern Pacific had what might be called a “good thing” in its mail carrying contract.
But what are the railroads really paid for hauling mail tonnage as compared with the rates they receive for hauling other tonnage?
In writing to this phase of the question at the time of the pendency of the Fitzgerald and another bill,—the former requiring that periodical publishers pay $160 and the latter that they pay $80 per ton for mail carriage of their publication—Mr. Atkinson said:
Let it not be forgotten, that publishers pay the government $20 per ton for their papers; doesn’t it seem enough, when the government is so generous toward the railroads that it pays for transporting 1,000 pounds of leather, locks, etc., for every 100 pounds of letters?…It is no unusual thing for the railroads to haul live hogs from Chicago to Philadelphia, a very inconvenient as well as unpleasant kind of freight. The hogs have to be fed and watered on the way, they cannot be stacked one upon another, so require much space. What do the railroads charge for this service? Is it $160 per ton? No. Is it $80 per ton? No. Is it $20 per ton? No. They do it for $6 per ton, and are glad of the job.
Let it not be forgotten, that publishers pay the government $20 per ton for their papers; doesn’t it seem enough, when the government is so generous toward the railroads that it pays for transporting 1,000 pounds of leather, locks, etc., for every 100 pounds of letters?
…
It is no unusual thing for the railroads to haul live hogs from Chicago to Philadelphia, a very inconvenient as well as unpleasant kind of freight. The hogs have to be fed and watered on the way, they cannot be stacked one upon another, so require much space. What do the railroads charge for this service? Is it $160 per ton? No. Is it $80 per ton? No. Is it $20 per ton? No. They do it for $6 per ton, and are glad of the job.
Professor Parsons wrote a volume a few years ago entitled “The Railways, The Trusts and The People.” Professor Parsons looked into this ton-mile rate of pay for rail haulage most carefully and gave the results of his investigations in his book, from which I take the tabulated rates following.
In passing, I may say that the professor is recognized by everybody as a most dependable authority—that is, everybody save the railroad and express raiders and their hired men. They have written and talked at great length to “refute” him, which thoughtful and disinterested people take as mighty strong evidence that Professor Parsons presented the truth and the facts, or so nearly the truth and facts that his statements made the “authorized,” rake-off patriots turn loose on him their high-powered, chain-tired public bubblers.
Following are the figures which the Professor published as showing the averageton milerates the railroads then received for carrying different kinds of shipments:
The Postmaster General in his reports for 1908-9 and 1909-10 recommends a trial or “test” of a parcels post service on several rural routes “to be selected by the Postmaster General.”
The Congress now in session is giving, or will give, this recommendation serious consideration, it is presumed. Especially will it be given such serious consideration when the 1911-12 bill, making appropriations for the postal service, is under fire and is being “savagely attached by its friends.”
It may be depended upon that the express and railroad gentlemen now shearing a rich fleece from your Uncle’s postal fold will not have anyfairtests made of a parcels post service so long as they can prevent it, and they appear to have numerous representatives in both houses of Congress who can be influenced to prevent it, if their past talk andvotesmay be taken as indicatingwhat they are there for.
Of course, the chief clack of the enemy’s hired men is “lack of funds.” Yet they go on appropriatingmillions to people who do not earn it—to pay for servicesnot rendered.
The same kippered tongue lashed the “rural delivery” service thesameway. In the end, the people won. But they won, in the bill as originally passed, a rural delivery of the “test” variety. “Why?” Well, a properly equipped and serviceable rural delivery would be a step towards a serviceable parcels post and the raiders do not want the people to have such a parcels post.
As samples of thesortof “friendly feeling” manifest in Congress toward a parcels post and of theprofoundwisdom carried by some of its alleged friends, I desire to make a quotation or two.
When the measure was first up (1908), Representative Lever of South Carolina introduced the four counties “experimental test” amendment in the House. Following is his opening: