FOOTNOTES

“What was in the mind of the author (of the 1879 statute), is clear enough. He wished to prohibit the misuse of the privileges forcommercial endsas distinguished from the devotion to literature, science, and the rest.”

It is possible that they knew what was in the mind of the author of that ’79 statute better than I know it, or than Jim Smith or Reuben Peachtree knows it. It is also possible that they didnotknow the mind of that lawbuilder any better. While the ’79 statute does not, in many particulars, meet present conditions as they should be met, in defining a publication that should be recognized as a periodical, it requires a supercritical or finicky mind to find much fault with it.

A periodical must be “originated and published for the dissemination ofinformationof a public character, devoted toliterature, thearts, sciences or somespecial industry.”

Now, when one considers the broad application of the word “literature,” the word “arts,” comprehending as it does not only the mechanical and liberal or polite arts, but alsobusiness, commercial, mercantile and others, including the science of business management, and the term “special industry” and the broad field covered by it—when one considers the broad application of those words, it is a fairly legitimate inference that it was “in the mind” of the writer when drafting that ’79 statuteto give a broad meaningand range of service to the publications he intended should be classed as periodicals.

In this connection it is pertinent to ask why periodical publications should not serve, either in their advertising pages or in their “body pages,” devoted to fiction and articles on political conditions, economics, history, the lives and deeds of men, forests and forestry, mills, mines, factory, farm and a vast array of other features, phases and conditions—why, I ask, should our periodicals not give aid by giving space to the great mercantile, manufacturing, financial, agricultural and other interests in this country—interests which, collectively, have built up a commerce more vast today than that of any other nation of earth?

Why should not this vast commerce of ours—a commerce in which every man, woman and child of our people is directly or indirectly interested—be aided and served in every legitimate way by our periodicals? Will somepoliticallyliving member of that Penrose-Overstreet Commission rise and answer? Answer, not in hypercritical nothings, butstraightly and bluntly?

Another immediately pertinent thing should be stated and another asked here. Among the instruments which have contributed to build up the great commerce of the nation, the American periodical must be recognized—is recognized—as one of the most efficient.

Why, then, this recent attempt to cripple, to curb, to lessen, its influence and effort? And why, again, try to curtail its circulation and usefulness by prattle about a postal “deficit” as reason for restrictive departmental rulings and laws when, should such restrictive measures be made effective, a shrinkage of postal revenues and a consequent increase of deficit would, necessarily, result?

Will some one whose thought-dome andpocketsare not full of ulterior motives and postal service “deficits” please rise and answer?

Returning to the 1906-7 commission’s agony over the definition in the act of 1879 of what should be considered a periodical and, therefore, entitled to mail entry as second-class matter, it appears that the commissioners, in an apparentanxiousanxiety to prove their charge against the author of the act for careless, ambiguous wording, quote a lawyer’s opinion, or part of such opinion, in support of the carefully framed-up “arguments” which it presents in didactic order, both before and after the quotation.

The quotation, it should be noted, is from the brief of the Postmaster General’s counsel in Houghton vs. Payne, 194 U. S. 88, or so the commission’s report designates it.

The point of the commission’s argument appears to be: (1) that owing to its loose, indefinite wording, the act of ’79 was of easy evasion when it came to passing upon the kind and character of matter which might be published in periodical form and mailed at second-class rates, and (2) that, by reason of such loose and indefinite wording, periodical publishershaveevaded the intent and purpose of the act—have abused their second-class rate privileges—have violated the law.

That, at any rate, I read as the point and purpose of the commission’s somewhat labored, if not strained, argument. They quote (pages 37-38) this counsel in support of that argument. I shall here reprint that quotation as evidence that the publisher of “the universally recognized, commonly accepted, and perfectly well understood periodical of everyday speech” (see fifth paragraph of quotation)have not violated the law nor sought to do so.

The quoted opinion presents some italicized words, phrases andclauses as it appears in the report. I have taken the liberty to further italicize in reprinting it:

“The next words only strengthen the same idea—originated and publishedfor the dissemination of information of a public character. Not, it will be observed, that it shallcontaininformation of a public character, but shall be publishedfor the dissemination ofsuch public information. Each of these words is significant, and each gathers significance from its neighbors.Disseminationis here a word of strong color and tinges all the rest. It indicates a dynamic process, an agency at work carrying out a purpose for which it was originated and set in motion. But strong as the word dissemination is, it is fortified by the use of the wordinformation. An agency for the dissemination of knowledge for example, might better consist with the idea of a library of books. But the word is not knowledge, butinformation. The distinction is obvious. One has the sense of accumulated stores; the other ofimparting the idea of things for current needs. One is, as it were, human experience at rest; the other, human experience in action. One may be as stale as you please; the other must be new, fresh, vital. A book, a volume, is the medium of one; a journal the medium of the other.“Information,” says the Century Dictionary, “is timely or specific knowledge respecting somematter of interest or inquiry.” It is, as it were, vitalized knowledge; knowledge imbued with life and activity. Nor when we come to the next phase do we find any change in the idea—or devoted to literature, the sciences, arts, or some special industry.Devotedto literature. Mark you, not that the publication shall be literature or contain literature, but that it shall be devoted to literature. What is meant by devoted? The Century Dictionary puts it thus: To direct or apply chiefly or wholly to some purpose, work, or use; to give or surrender completely, as to some person or end, as todevoteoneself to art, literature, or philanthropy. There again we have the idea of a permanent continuing entity, a thing existing for a given purpose, appearing regularly at such intervals (not greater than three months), as may most effectually meet its needs, in the interest of art, of science, or literature.Do we say that a book—a novel, a history, a drama—is devoted to literature? It is not devoted to literature;it is literature, and it would be an absurdity to speak of it as devoted to itself. Such a locution would be merely a willful perversion of language.On the other hand, a review or a magazine may be said to be devoted to literature with perfect naturalness and propriety. For we rightly conceive of the review or magazine as one definite recognizable entity—a continuing whole, originated for a given purpose, and made up of similar parts having a common object—literature, for example, or art, or science, or whatever else it is to which the whole is devoted.Taking these words, originated and published for, dissemination, information, devoted to, they all point to one conclusion. They are, we repeat, strong and pregnant words. There is but one concept consistent with them all. We confidently submit that an attentive reading of the statute will leave no doubt that what Congress constantly had in mind in the creating of this privileged classof publications was theuniversally recognized, commonly accepted, and perfectly well understood periodical of everyday speech.In establishing the rate for newspapers and other periodical publications Congress was not seeking to discriminate between good literature and bad literature or to establish acensorship of the press with prizes for merit. The thing it had in mind was not the goodness or badness of the information disseminated, but theinstrumentalities by which that dissemination might be accomplished. It was not thinking of all the accumulated stores of sound and pure literature in the vast libraries of the world,but it was thinking of how the mind of an inquiring and progressive people might be kept abreast of the times in all departments of human thought and activity. Congress did not stand hesitating between a good book and a bad newspaper.

“Information,” says the Century Dictionary, “is timely or specific knowledge respecting somematter of interest or inquiry.” It is, as it were, vitalized knowledge; knowledge imbued with life and activity. Nor when we come to the next phase do we find any change in the idea—or devoted to literature, the sciences, arts, or some special industry.Devotedto literature. Mark you, not that the publication shall be literature or contain literature, but that it shall be devoted to literature. What is meant by devoted? The Century Dictionary puts it thus: To direct or apply chiefly or wholly to some purpose, work, or use; to give or surrender completely, as to some person or end, as todevoteoneself to art, literature, or philanthropy. There again we have the idea of a permanent continuing entity, a thing existing for a given purpose, appearing regularly at such intervals (not greater than three months), as may most effectually meet its needs, in the interest of art, of science, or literature.

Do we say that a book—a novel, a history, a drama—is devoted to literature? It is not devoted to literature;it is literature, and it would be an absurdity to speak of it as devoted to itself. Such a locution would be merely a willful perversion of language.

On the other hand, a review or a magazine may be said to be devoted to literature with perfect naturalness and propriety. For we rightly conceive of the review or magazine as one definite recognizable entity—a continuing whole, originated for a given purpose, and made up of similar parts having a common object—literature, for example, or art, or science, or whatever else it is to which the whole is devoted.

Taking these words, originated and published for, dissemination, information, devoted to, they all point to one conclusion. They are, we repeat, strong and pregnant words. There is but one concept consistent with them all. We confidently submit that an attentive reading of the statute will leave no doubt that what Congress constantly had in mind in the creating of this privileged classof publications was theuniversally recognized, commonly accepted, and perfectly well understood periodical of everyday speech.

In establishing the rate for newspapers and other periodical publications Congress was not seeking to discriminate between good literature and bad literature or to establish acensorship of the press with prizes for merit. The thing it had in mind was not the goodness or badness of the information disseminated, but theinstrumentalities by which that dissemination might be accomplished. It was not thinking of all the accumulated stores of sound and pure literature in the vast libraries of the world,but it was thinking of how the mind of an inquiring and progressive people might be kept abreast of the times in all departments of human thought and activity. Congress did not stand hesitating between a good book and a bad newspaper.

Another position taken by the Penrose-Overstreet Commission, and one which The Man on the Ladder strongly opposes, is that a periodical may not or “must not consist wholly or substantially of fiction.”

The words just quoted are exactly the words used in the sixth paragraph of Section 2 of the bill the enactment of which this commission recommended.

Now, whatever their wit or wisdom, their eloquence or adroitness of speech, their beauty of shape and apparel, or their loftiness of position, that “recommendation” should recommend the personnel of that commission, it seems to me, to some “wronghouse” for a long rest. Their conclusion, theirlexrecommendation and their “argument” in support, taken collectively, are as thrilling, likewise amusing, as the point in a story “where the woman is turned on and begins to short circuit the hero,” putting it as near as I can remember in the language of Sewell Ford, Bowers, or some other “enlivening writer.”

Lest the reader think my adverse criticism of the commissioners too harsh, or not in keeping with the dignity of the gentlemen composing that 1906-7 commission, I shall here quote a few of the paragraphs it presents as basis for its recommendation. The reader will oblige by carefully noting the italics. They are mine, and, following the quotation, I shall comment on some of those italicized phrasings and statements:

“Not only does the element of fiction constitute the (1)propulsive force behind the expansion of second-class matter, but it serves at the same time (2)to undermine the main statutory check upon the commercial exploitation of the second class. Being free to make up a periodical which contains nothing but fiction, publishers find ready at hand the very thing with which to interlard anddisguise the advertising matter, for the sake of which the publication is really issued. This theycould not do if the advertisement carrying text was required to be news matter or critical matter of a current nature. (3)Deprive the mail-order journals of the right to cloaktheir advertising with fiction and require them to publish something in the nature of a newspaper or review with expensive news-gathering apparatus and an editorial staff and (4) themail-order advertising journal will completely disappear. It lives only by reason of two things, the cheapness of its fiction, with which it cloaks its advertising, and the cheapness of the postal rate which that fiction cloak enables it to obtain.“The distinction between the fiction-carrying periodical and the nonfiction-carrying periodical (5)is precisely the distinction between a periodical fulfilling the purposes of the act and the publication which, although periodical in its form, has no true periodicity in its essence.“Another consequence of the expansive power of fiction is found in the confusion of the newspaper and magazine types and the unhealthy exaggeration of the modern newspaper, as shown especially in its Sunday editions.“The newspaper is rapidly being extended into the magazine field at the sacrifice both of the postal revenue and the (6)true mission of the newspaper. The miscellaneous matter contained in the Sunday issue of a newspaper must of necessity lack the quality to make it socially and educationally valuable.” (Page 37.)“No fiction necessarily involves the element of periodicity or time publication which is involved in the very idea of a newspaper or periodical. It follows, then, (7)that the real purpose of the act of March 3, 1879, namely, the diffusion in the quickest possible way at the smallest possible cost of timely information among the people, is perverted when the right to that quick and inexpensive diffusion is extended to the form of fiction. But the periodical form devoted to fiction, or in which fiction constitutes the predominant feature, is the very form of periodical which serves to swell the second class. The popular demand for fiction seems to be practically unlimited. The temptation offered by the low postal rate to supply that demand through the periodical form is a temptation impossible to resist.” (Page 39.)

“The distinction between the fiction-carrying periodical and the nonfiction-carrying periodical (5)is precisely the distinction between a periodical fulfilling the purposes of the act and the publication which, although periodical in its form, has no true periodicity in its essence.

“Another consequence of the expansive power of fiction is found in the confusion of the newspaper and magazine types and the unhealthy exaggeration of the modern newspaper, as shown especially in its Sunday editions.

“The newspaper is rapidly being extended into the magazine field at the sacrifice both of the postal revenue and the (6)true mission of the newspaper. The miscellaneous matter contained in the Sunday issue of a newspaper must of necessity lack the quality to make it socially and educationally valuable.” (Page 37.)

“No fiction necessarily involves the element of periodicity or time publication which is involved in the very idea of a newspaper or periodical. It follows, then, (7)that the real purpose of the act of March 3, 1879, namely, the diffusion in the quickest possible way at the smallest possible cost of timely information among the people, is perverted when the right to that quick and inexpensive diffusion is extended to the form of fiction. But the periodical form devoted to fiction, or in which fiction constitutes the predominant feature, is the very form of periodical which serves to swell the second class. The popular demand for fiction seems to be practically unlimited. The temptation offered by the low postal rate to supply that demand through the periodical form is a temptation impossible to resist.” (Page 39.)

I shall make my comment on the foregoing in the order that its italicizedassertionsare numbered.

(1) The “element of fiction” has not and doesnotconstitute “the propulsive force” stated. Was it “fiction” that propulsed the circulation ofEverybody’s? ofPearson’s? ofThe Cosmopolitan? ofThe American? ofMcClure’s? ofThe Saturday Evening Post? ofThe Inland Printer? ofThe Progressive Printer? or of scores of other monthly and weekly periodicals whose publishers are independent enough to do their own thinking and courageous enough to publish what they and their representatives found to be the truth?

Was “Frenzied Finance” fiction?

Was Anna M. Tarbell’s exposures of Standard Oil fiction?

Was the exposure of the Waters-Pierce Oil Company’s connectionwith the great Senatorial “I” of Texas fiction? Was the shake-up of the “Big Three” life insurance companies fiction? Were the hundreds of other trenchant write-ups and exposures of wrong practices, of impositions, of crookedness andcrooksin official, corporation and private life, “fiction?”

The man who reads and will attempt to answer any of those questions affirmatively needs to have his brain dusted up—that is, of course, on the presumption that he is notpaid for vocal gyrations.

And yet it was the telling write-ups and exposures of these independents which greatly increased their circulation and, consequently, increased second-class tonnage.

(2) There is no such “main statutory check.” Moreover, the “commercial exploitation” given in the advertising pages of our standard periodicals to merchants, manufacturers, etc., is, as previously shown, not only just and due to the vast commercial interests of the country, but it is safely within both the letter and the intent of the statute.

(3) As previously intimated, a sextet of experienced legislators who could not frame up a law that would put the “mail-order journals” and other abusers and abuses of the second-class mail-rate privilege out of business without ruinously restricting and obstructing the vast legitimate periodical interests of the country, that sextet ought to do one of two things, either send their thought equipment to a vacuum cleaner to get the dust blown off and then try again, or they should turn the task over to some other legislators. There most certainly are scores of legislators in the Senate and the House fully equipped to prepare such a piece of legislation.

(4) In comment under (3) I noted this “mail order advertising journal.” I did so to indicate that the Penrose-Overstreet Commission, as it appears to me, worked the “mail order” print stuff overtime for the purpose ofreaching certain legitimate publications.

(5) There is no such distinction between “a fiction-carrying periodical and the non-fiction carrying periodical” as that named. Fiction in a periodical is just as permissible under the act as is the series of war stories, or reminiscences, now (May, 1911), running in one of the magazines; as in the series of articles on the civil war now running in one of the Chicago newspapers, or as would be a series of articles on “the Panama Canal,” on the “Development of the Reaping Machine,”on “Treason in Our Senate,” on “The Depletion of American Forests,” on “The Railroads’ Side of the Railway Mail Pay,” or on any other subject of the historical past or active present.

In fact, most of the current fiction, whether in serial or short-story, published in the standard monthly, weekly and other periodicals of large general circulation presents far more oftruththan do the stories, reminiscences and “historical narratives about the civil war,” written forty-five years after the events, and, if based on personal experience, written from fading memory of the facts.

(6) While one may agree with the thought expressed by the commission at (6), its wording expresses a desire or tendency tocensorthe periodical press of the people by legislative restrictions and departmental rulings which not only contravene the Federal Constitution, but which are inimical to the personal rights and liberties guaranteed by that constitution.

Force is added to this objection to the commission’s recommendation by the fact that it specifically delegates to the Postmaster General the power and authority to decide the kind and character of printed matter which shall have the right of entry at second-class rates, and which complies with the requirements the commission would have written into the law.

Section 2 of the at present governing statute, the commission advised (see recommended bill, page 49 of report), should, in its opening paragraph, read as follows:—

“No newspaper or other periodical shall be admitted to the second class unless it shall be made to appear by evidence,satisfactory to the Postmaster General or his lawful deputy in that behalf, that it complies with the following conditions.”

Then follow the “conditions,” several of which I have already shown to be seriously objectionable.

(7) I have already presented, under (5), some objections to the commission’s argument made in this seventh citation. I will, however, again say that the publication of fiction, other than immoral, in periodicals, does not, in my judgment at least, in any way infringe the “purpose of the act” of 1879. I will here go further, and say that the act of ’79 doesnotcomprehend in its “real purpose,” as the commission tries to make it appear at (7), that “the diffusion in the quickest possible way at the smallest possible cost oftimelyinformationamong the people”—that is, the act does not so purpose if the word “timely,” as here used, is intended to mean “news” or “currence of matter,” etc., as the commission elsewhere in its report argues for. In fact, the commission’s statement at (7) is further alee of the “real purpose” of the act of 1879 than is the publication ofany fictionin a periodical, and that too, whether the fiction be a reprint of some old production or the imaginative visualizations of some current writer who moved from periodical publication in 1908 or 1909 to print as a “best-seller” in 1910, or from a best seller in 1908-9 to periodical form in 1911.

In short, the commission’s position regarding the publication of fiction in periodical form contravenes the “real purpose” of the law. So, also, does its position on several points it seeks to bolster in its report contravene the real purpose of that act, as I have previously shown, quoting in one instance the opinion of a Postmaster General’s counsel, which opinion the commission itself quoted to support afalse position.

I feel constrained to make another point against the stand this commission took against the admissibility to the second class mail rate privilege of periodicals largely devoted to fiction.

It appears to me that these commissioners must have confined their reading in recent years largely to the older and so-called “classic” fiction, to professional tomes, to juridic opinions, attorney’s briefs, and to “booster” stuff for parties and candidates published in our newspapers. Certainly they could not have read much of the periodical fiction published by our high-class monthlies and weeklies. If they had done so, they would not, it seems to me, have written so loosely andunwarrantedlyof the “fiction” in their report.

Had they read much of the fiction appearing in the leading periodicals during current and recent years, they would have learned at least two facts about it:

1. Much—yes, most—of the fiction printed during recent years in our standard periodicals (even in those printing only fiction as “body matter”), has been highly didactic or educational in character.

2. The periodical fiction published in our leading magazines and weeklies has taught our people lessons in morals, in politics, in political economy, in social, domestic and industrial life. It has told its readers of the habits and habitat of animals, of birds and bees; of flowers,of fruits and forestry. Nor has there been much of “nature faking” in it. Some of the most informative matter ever printed bearing upon natural history, the geography, topography and hydrography of this earth, has reached us through the periodical fiction of the past ten or twelve years. Not only that, but such fiction has gone to the farm and into the laboratory, into the mine, the factory, the mill, and the lumber camp; into the mercantile establishment, into transportation, both rail and water; into the counting room, into the “sweat-shop” and into the tenement districts, the purlieus and the “submerged tenths” in both the lower and higher “walks” of the world’s various and varying civilizations, and it hastaught us thingswe did not before know.

Thenwhyshould new laws be enacted, or old laws be twisted, turned or misconstrued, to exclude “fiction”—periodicalfiction—from the second-class mail rate privilege?

One other objection I find to this 1906-7 commission’s report. It recommends the appointment of a “Commission of Postal Appeals.”

The report states that certain publishers favored such a commission. That be as it may, I do not believe that such a commission will return service value at all commensurate with the amount of public money it would cost to keep its wheels “greased” and operating. Next to a bureaucracy, government by commissions is the worst. Can the reader think of a “Commission”—a Government, a State, County or City Commission—that ever discharged, promptly and satisfactorily, the duties assigned to it? One is put to no trouble to think of scores of Civil Service Commissions, Forestry Commissions, Subway Commissions, Canal Commissions, Traction Commissions, Railroad Commissions, Postal Commissions, Inter-State Commerce Commissions and a host of others.

But do you know of one of them that ever did any real serviceable workfor the people—did it until an aroused and hostile public opinionkickedit into doing the work?

You may know of one. The Man on the Ladder knows ofnone, and he has been watching the service value of the “commission” for thirty-five years. As agoverninginstrument it has largely been asubversiveinstrument. It always spends its appropriation. It always puts as many of its uncles, brothers and nephews on the pay roll and takes as many junkets as is possible under its appropriationand, if the appropriation is exceeded, it usually asks for more and—gets it.

We have an Interstate Commerce Commission. It has been on the job ever since John Sherman put it on duty. Sherman knew what he intended—wanted—it to do. Did it do what he and the rest of us depended on it to do? Well, not to any noticeable extent. It spent hundreds of thousands of dollars of our money while itpermittedthe railroads and express companies to rebate, “differential” and “short” and “long” haul us outof hundreds of millions of easy or stolen dollars.

O yes! of course the Interstate Commerce Commission is, of late, getting down to business—getting down to the work John Shermanintended it to do when he drafted the bill which created it.

Why has that commission finally arrived at its starting point? Why is it now trying to do—and trying, even yet, to do it in aloose, dilatory way—what Sherman intended it to do?

“Why?” Why, simply because the people have finally learned—thanks largely to the enlightenment given them by the independent periodicals of the country—that they have been governmentally treated as fools—that they have been treated as sheep to furnish fleece and mutton for a few who feast and wear fine raiment,yet earn it not.

O yes, the people have learned some things and they, recently, have been learning rapidly. It is the people who havelearnedwho have virtuallykickedthe Interstate Commerce Commission into dutiful action.

No, I positively do not like government by commission, and especially do I not like government of our postal service, or any phase, feature or division of it, by a “Commission of Postal Appeals” or by any other commission, however dignified its title may be. Any suggestion or recommendation of such a commission is, to The Man on the Ladder, but a suggestion and recommendation to further load an alreadyoverloadedservice.

By that, I mean that the service now rendered by the Federal Postoffice Department is not nearly commensurate with the number of employes carried on its payrolls or with its expenditures, and that the creation of a commission—any postal commission—will only addnames to the department payrolls and thousands of dollars to its already excessive expenditures.

In closing my consideration of this Penrose-Overstreet Commission’s report—a report which Mr. Hitchcock appears to have taken some “hunches” from while it also appears he gave very little or no study or consideration to the vast amount of informative data it collected andfiled—I desire to make a statement or two and then ask a pertinently impertinent question or two.

Among the vast amount of informative data on the subject of transporting and handling second-class mail matter, its cost to the government, etc., there are pages upon pages of testimony by publishers the commission invited to appear before it in person or by representative. Some of that testimony, so newspapers reported during the hearings in both New York and Washington, is supported or re-enforced by the jurats of the publishers testifying. Some of those publishers stated in their testimony that the sample copies they had distributed had, by reason of the correspondence and mail business resulting, amply compensated the government for carrying and handling such sample copies. Severalspecific and detailedstatements were made by the publishers.

Again: The publishers furnished voluminous testimony—both in their own statements and in the correspondence of business men who had patronized the columns of their publications—in proof of the fact that (1) the advertising pages of their publications were as generally read, if not more read, than were the body pages, and (2) that the sales of stamps by the government for the correspondence and business resulting from the advertisements printed yielded far more postal revenue than did any other character of second-class matter the mail service handled.

Now, the questions.

When this Penrose-Overstreet Commission sent out its invitations most of them went to publishers and associations of publishers. At any rate so it would appear from statements in the commission’s report.

Did the commission believe the publishers invited were liars?

If so, why did it invite them?

After hearing their verbal testimony and looking over theirwritten statements,did the commission conclude that those publishers were liars?

If so, why did it spend the people’s money to collate, digest and file the testimony of liars for the information of Mr. Cortelyou, the then Postmaster General, Mr. Meyer and Mr. Hitchcock, his successor, and other Postmaster Generals who will follow Mr. Hitchcock?

Again—If those commissioners of 1906-7 concluded, either before or after hearing them, that the publishers were or areliars, why may not, or should not, those publishers conclude (after reading their report) that the commissioners are liars?

FOOTNOTES[2]Covers are included in the total for pages given.[3]One cover page included in count for periodicals carrying cover with no advertising matter on title page of same.[4]Three pages of cover are counted as advertising.[5]The weight of supplements to Sunday Editions of newspapers (when mentioned as supplements in list), is included in the gross weight of the issue as given.

[2]Covers are included in the total for pages given.

[3]One cover page included in count for periodicals carrying cover with no advertising matter on title page of same.

[4]Three pages of cover are counted as advertising.

[5]The weight of supplements to Sunday Editions of newspapers (when mentioned as supplements in list), is included in the gross weight of the issue as given.

I quoted from Senator Owen on a previous page when discussing the unconstitutionality of Senate revenue-originating amendments. Under his leave to print Senator Owen embodied in his remarks on February 25, 1911, the arguments presented by some of the publishers in reply to Mr. Hitchcock’s statements. They point out in particular his peculiar method of figuring by which he reaches results so at variance with the facts as, at times, to be far more amusing than informative. I shall here quote some of them.

I have previously adverted to the promptitude of Senators Owen, Bristow, Bourne, Cummings and others in getting onto the firing line. Their combined resistance soon forced Mr. Hitchcock to unmask his guns. He was ready, it would seem, to do or concede almost anythingprovided, always and of course, he could give a few of those pestiferous, independent magazines a jar that would so agitate their several bank accounts as to influence them to print what they weretoldto print.

But when the General found that he was flanked, and his position being shot up, he began to display parley and peace signals. “The country newspapers would not be affected”—they would still be carried and distributed free—55,000,000 pounds of them or more each and every calendar year.

The “poor farmer” needs special government aid, you know. Or, if the farmer should not be personally in need of government assistance, as now it frequently and numerously chances, why, well—oh, well, we desire to show our friendly “leanin’s toward him.” He may remember it at the next Presidential election—just when we may be needing a few farmer votes. So, as one evidence of our kindly consideration for the farmer, we will not trench upon hisspecial privilege. He shall still have delivered him—free—fifty-five to seventy million pounds of “patent insides” and other partisan dope sheets, printed in his own county and published and edited by regularly indentured, branded and tagged political fence-builders—guaranteed “safe” under the pure food laws, etc.

Then Postmaster General Hitchcock also let it be generally known that it was remote from his intentions to add a mail-rate penalty to any religious, educational, fraternal or scientific periodical. Some of these—not including the Sunday School leaflets, of course—circulate in vast editions ranging from 500 to 5,000 copies a month. They, too, were such “powerful educational instruments,” he or some of his assistants assured doubting Thomases in both the upper and the lower branches of federal legislation.

Next, he back-stepped a little to assure trade journals that it was not his purpose to hand them any advance over the cent-a-pound mail rate, or so at least, Washington correspondents reported. Finally it is said, a statement generously borne out by the wording of his jockeyed “rider,” that newspapers—all newspapers—would be fanned through the mail service at the old cent-a-pound rate.

It would appear that the anxious interest of our Postmaster General was willing to let almost any old thing in the shape of a “periodical” switch through and along at the old rate, if he could only ham-string a few—a score or less—of monthly and weekly periodicals which persisted in printing the unlaundered truth about looters, both in and out of office.

Now, we will present a few figures and statements of the publishers, presented in answer to Mr. Hitchcock’s voluminous, likewise varied and variegated, utterances, both verbal and in print, to support hislurid guessthat it costs the government 9.23 cents a pound to transport and handle second-class mail matter.

Before quoting the publishers, however, I desire to say two things:

1. The periodical publishers must necessarily know, I take it, more about the business of printing and distributing periodicals than Mr. Hitchcock has been able to learn about that business in the twopolitically swiftyears he has been on his present job.

2. The publishers in replying—in presenting the facts—are entirely too dignified. Of course, dignity is a fine thing—an elegant decoration for our advanced and super-polished civilization. But when some human animal deliberately and industriously tries to shunt on to your siding a carload or more of “deficits” and other partisan and “vested interest” junk, and tells you its price is so much andthat you have to pay the price—well, at about that point in theprogress of our splendid civilization, I think it both the part of justice and of thrift to laydignityon the parlor couch and walk out on your own trackage, making as you loiter along a few plain and easily understood remarks. That is just what I believe these publishers should have done when Mr. Hitchcock covertly tried to deliver to them, charges collect, his several large consignments of talk about “deficits,” “cost of carriage and handling second-class matter,” “publisher’s profits” and other subjects about which he was either equally ill-informed or ill-advised.

Yes, there are occasions when it is quite proper to hang one’s dignity on that nail behind the kitchen door and sally forth in shirt sleeves with top-piece full of rapid-fire conversation.

With these suggestions, from which it is hoped the publishers may take a few hints for future guidance when Presidents and Postmaster Generals undertake to deliver to them a cargo of cold-storage stuff that was “off color” before it left the farm, I will proceed to do what I have several times started to do—quote the publisher on Mr. Hitchcock’s ring-around-a-rosy method of figuring.

In quoting from the publishers’ “exhibits” it is due to Senator Owen that we reprint a few paragraphs from his foreword. In speaking to “the merits of the case,” the Senator said:

Separate and apart from the fact that this proposed amendment violates the Constitution of the United States and the rules of the Senate, I regard such method of legislation as unwise, if not reprehensible, for the reason that, in effect, it is a denial of the right to be heard by those who are deeply interested in it. Over a year ago the periodical publishers affected desired to be heard in this matter, and were not given a proper hearing on this vital question. Indeed, they appear to have been left under the impression that nothing would be done in regard to the matter; or, at all events, they seem to have been under this impression. When the matter came before the House of Representatives and the committee having the matter in charge, no discussion of this matter took place. No report on it was made. No opportunity to be heard was afforded. Neither was the matter discussed on the floor of the House. When the postoffice appropriation bill came to the Senate,no hearing was afforded, but at the last minute, after the committee had practically concluded every item on the appropriation bill, this item was presented, not only giving the periodical publishers no opportunity to be heard, but giving the members of the committee no opportunity to study this matter and to digest it. I regard it as grossly unfair, and at the time in the committee I reserved the right to oppose this amendment on the floor of the Senate.In the affairs affecting our internal administration I am strongly opposed to any secrecy.In my judgment, the claim made by the Postoffice Departmentis erroneous on its face, for the obvious reason that it is conceded that these magazines are brought by express and distributed in Washington, D. C., over 250 miles from New York, at less than 1 cent a pound for cost of transportation and distribution. The Postoffice Department declares that it costs 9 cents a pound.This is a mere juggling of figures.I have no doubt that if a proper weighing of the mails was observed, and if the railways were to carry the mails at a reasonable rate, this distribution could be made at a cost approximatelythat which I have named, as illustrated by the cost of distribution in Washington City, which is an undisputed fact.

In the affairs affecting our internal administration I am strongly opposed to any secrecy.

In my judgment, the claim made by the Postoffice Departmentis erroneous on its face, for the obvious reason that it is conceded that these magazines are brought by express and distributed in Washington, D. C., over 250 miles from New York, at less than 1 cent a pound for cost of transportation and distribution. The Postoffice Department declares that it costs 9 cents a pound.This is a mere juggling of figures.

I have no doubt that if a proper weighing of the mails was observed, and if the railways were to carry the mails at a reasonable rate, this distribution could be made at a cost approximatelythat which I have named, as illustrated by the cost of distribution in Washington City, which is an undisputed fact.

After presenting the publishers’ “Exhibit A,” in which they refute Mr. Hitchcock’s unfounded assertions of colossal profits in the magazine publishing business—a subject which I treat elsewhere—the Senator presents their “Exhibit B,” which counters the Postmaster General’s claim that the proposed increase in rate would yield a large revenue to the government. “Exhibit B” reads as follows:—

It has been shown from the original books of account of the five most prominent magazines that the proposed measure charging 4 cents a pound postage on all sheets of magazines on which advertising is printed would tax these magazines, the most powerful group, best able to meet such a shock, nearly the whole of their entire net income. This means that the new postal rate could not be paid. There is not money enough in the magazine business to pay it. Magazines would simply be debarred from the United States mails.But assume, for the sake of argument, that this would not be the case, and that the money could be found to pay the new postage bills, what, theoretically, would be the increased revenue of the Postoffice Department, for the sake of which it is proposed to take more than all the profits of the industry that has been built up since 1879?The Postmaster General, in his statement given to the Associated Press, and published in the newspapers Tuesday morning, February 14, claims that the proposed postal increase on periodical advertising would amount to less than 1 cent flat on the weight of the whole periodical. This is not the way the ambiguously worded amendment works out literally; but, accepting the Postmaster General’s figures and applying them to the weights, given in his annual report, of the second-class mail classifications affected by the increase, let us pin the Postoffice Department down to what it hopes to gain from a measure that would confiscate the earnings of an industry.Mr. Hitchcock in his statement gives 800,000,000 pounds as the total weight of second-class matter. In his report for 1909 he gives the percentage of this weight of the classifications that could possibly be affected by this proposed increase as 20.23 per cent for magazines, 6.4 per cent for educational publications, 5.91 per cent for religious periodicals, 4.94 per cent for trade journals, and 5 per cent for agricultural periodicals, making 42.97 per cent altogether of the 800,000,000 pounds that might be affected by the proposed increase, or343,760,000 pounds. Of course, this includes the periodicals publishing less than 4,000 pounds weight per issue, and exempted by the amendment.But, making no deduction whatsoever for these exemptions, and none for the great expense of administering this complex measure, with its effect of conferring despotic power, certain to be disputed, the Postmaster General claims that this figures out only 1 cent increased revenue on 343,760,000 pounds, or a gross theoretical gain to the Postoffice Department of $3,437,600. These are the Postmaster General’s figures, not the publishers’.But from this figure of 343,760,000 pounds the Postmaster General would have to subtract the weight of all the periodicals exempted, and also subtract all the new expense involved for a large force of clerks.There will also be a great increase of work for inspectors, as the proposed measure puts a premium on dishonesty. There will be constant temptation for unscrupulous people, who try to take the place of the present reputable publishers, to publish advertising in the guise of legitimate reading matter. There will be extra legal expenses for the disputes that arise between publishers and the Postoffice Department over matters in which the publishers may believe the department is using the despotic power given by this measure to confiscate the property of publishers. In the hearings before the Weeks committee, it was frankly admitted by members of the House Committee on Postoffices and Postroads that the government postoffice service could never be run with the economy and efficiency of a private concern.With all the expense of this new scheme subtracted from such a small possible gain as is claimed by Mr. Hitchcock, what revenue would remain to justify the wiping out of an industry built up in good faith through thirty-two years of an established fundamental postoffice rate?If the department succeeded in saving $2,000,000, after deducting the exempted publications and all the new expense involved for a great force of clerks, this would amount to less than 1 per cent of its revenues for 1910. It would amount to less than one-eighth of the postoffice deficit in 1909. It would amount to less than one-fourteenth of the loss on rural free delivery alone in that year.But even this gain would be only theoretical; for, as shown before (Exhibit A), many of the comparatively small groups of periodicals left to be published, after the favored ones were exempted, would find that it required more than all their income to pay their share of the new rate.You can not take away from a person more than 100 per cent of all that he has—even from a publisher. It is not there.These figures of increased revenue to the government are based on the department’s own statements. They are mathematically accurate.They must not be interpreted, however, as measuring the extent of publishers’ losses. They take no account of the increases, certain to follow the enactment of this legislation, in the rates of other lines of distribution from which the government derives no revenue. They take no account of the loss in circulation volume, that is certain to follow an attempt to raise the price of magazinesto the public. They take no account of the loss in advertising revenue that is certain to follow a loss in circulation.Neither are these figures a complete record of the effect on the government revenue. They take no account of the certain destruction of publishing properties, and the consequent destruction of postal revenue on the profitable first-class matter their advertising once created.

But assume, for the sake of argument, that this would not be the case, and that the money could be found to pay the new postage bills, what, theoretically, would be the increased revenue of the Postoffice Department, for the sake of which it is proposed to take more than all the profits of the industry that has been built up since 1879?

The Postmaster General, in his statement given to the Associated Press, and published in the newspapers Tuesday morning, February 14, claims that the proposed postal increase on periodical advertising would amount to less than 1 cent flat on the weight of the whole periodical. This is not the way the ambiguously worded amendment works out literally; but, accepting the Postmaster General’s figures and applying them to the weights, given in his annual report, of the second-class mail classifications affected by the increase, let us pin the Postoffice Department down to what it hopes to gain from a measure that would confiscate the earnings of an industry.

Mr. Hitchcock in his statement gives 800,000,000 pounds as the total weight of second-class matter. In his report for 1909 he gives the percentage of this weight of the classifications that could possibly be affected by this proposed increase as 20.23 per cent for magazines, 6.4 per cent for educational publications, 5.91 per cent for religious periodicals, 4.94 per cent for trade journals, and 5 per cent for agricultural periodicals, making 42.97 per cent altogether of the 800,000,000 pounds that might be affected by the proposed increase, or343,760,000 pounds. Of course, this includes the periodicals publishing less than 4,000 pounds weight per issue, and exempted by the amendment.

But, making no deduction whatsoever for these exemptions, and none for the great expense of administering this complex measure, with its effect of conferring despotic power, certain to be disputed, the Postmaster General claims that this figures out only 1 cent increased revenue on 343,760,000 pounds, or a gross theoretical gain to the Postoffice Department of $3,437,600. These are the Postmaster General’s figures, not the publishers’.

But from this figure of 343,760,000 pounds the Postmaster General would have to subtract the weight of all the periodicals exempted, and also subtract all the new expense involved for a large force of clerks.

There will also be a great increase of work for inspectors, as the proposed measure puts a premium on dishonesty. There will be constant temptation for unscrupulous people, who try to take the place of the present reputable publishers, to publish advertising in the guise of legitimate reading matter. There will be extra legal expenses for the disputes that arise between publishers and the Postoffice Department over matters in which the publishers may believe the department is using the despotic power given by this measure to confiscate the property of publishers. In the hearings before the Weeks committee, it was frankly admitted by members of the House Committee on Postoffices and Postroads that the government postoffice service could never be run with the economy and efficiency of a private concern.

With all the expense of this new scheme subtracted from such a small possible gain as is claimed by Mr. Hitchcock, what revenue would remain to justify the wiping out of an industry built up in good faith through thirty-two years of an established fundamental postoffice rate?

If the department succeeded in saving $2,000,000, after deducting the exempted publications and all the new expense involved for a great force of clerks, this would amount to less than 1 per cent of its revenues for 1910. It would amount to less than one-eighth of the postoffice deficit in 1909. It would amount to less than one-fourteenth of the loss on rural free delivery alone in that year.

But even this gain would be only theoretical; for, as shown before (Exhibit A), many of the comparatively small groups of periodicals left to be published, after the favored ones were exempted, would find that it required more than all their income to pay their share of the new rate.

You can not take away from a person more than 100 per cent of all that he has—even from a publisher. It is not there.

These figures of increased revenue to the government are based on the department’s own statements. They are mathematically accurate.

They must not be interpreted, however, as measuring the extent of publishers’ losses. They take no account of the increases, certain to follow the enactment of this legislation, in the rates of other lines of distribution from which the government derives no revenue. They take no account of the loss in circulation volume, that is certain to follow an attempt to raise the price of magazinesto the public. They take no account of the loss in advertising revenue that is certain to follow a loss in circulation.

Neither are these figures a complete record of the effect on the government revenue. They take no account of the certain destruction of publishing properties, and the consequent destruction of postal revenue on the profitable first-class matter their advertising once created.

“Postscript: Since this calculation was made and a flood of telegrams from agricultural publications has come to Congress, the afternoon newspapers of Tuesday, February 14, reported that at a cabinet meeting on that day it was decided by the Administration and announced by Postmaster General Hitchcock that agricultural periodicals will be exempted from the increased postal rate. The owners and other representatives of agricultural periodicals gathered in Washington to oppose the amendment to the postoffice appropriation bill at once left Washington for their homes. It was reported at the same time that the religious periodicals had also been assured that a paternal Administration would take care of them.

“This leaves the situation in such shape that the Administration has at last got down to the comparatively small group of popular magazines.

“These magazines proper, the Postmaster General says, constitute 20.23 per cent of second-class matter, or only 162,000,000 pounds, out of the 800,000,000 pounds of second-class mail.

“As the Postmaster General says, as explained above, that the proposed increase would only mean 1 cent a pound more on the whole periodical, he could only figure out a theoretical gross gain of $1,620,000. But his figures are, as usual, all wrong.

“From this $1,620,000, that his figures come to, he would have to deduct, of course, the exempted periodicals and also all expenses of administering the proposed new measure.

“The pretense of raising second-class rates to do away with the postoffice deficit therefore disappears.

“A few popular magazines are to be punished.

“The absurdly unjust discrimination involved in the proposed increase of postal rates on certain subclasses of second-class mail,leaving the larger subclasses, more costly to the postoffice, untouched, is shown in Exhibit C.”

But how about this new development, in which the Postmaster General apparently decides from day to day and hour to hour as towhether one class of periodicals or another shall be allowed to live or made to die?

Has there ever before been in America, or in Russia, or in China, a censor with this power? If the institutions of this country are to be so changed as to give this despotic censorship to one man,ought that man to be the official in charge of the political machinery, as patronage broker, of the Administration?

Now, we come toweights, and here the publishers begin to talk back a little. In introducing the publishers’ “Exhibit C” Senator Owen said:

“It is insisted by the Postoffice Department that it is entirely just to increase the cost on advertisements in the magazines. I submit their answer:”

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