now, let us look into and over that postoffice “deficit,” to the origin of which the memory of man scarcely runneth back, and which mr. hitchcock, by some strenuous effort on right lines readily converted into a surplus—a $6,000,000 deficit into some hundreds of thousands of dollars surplus. the returns are not all in yet. at any rate the postmaster general has not announced them loud enough for the man on the ladder to hear, or he was in his physician’s hands when the announcement was made.
however that may be, mr. hitchcock has proved quite conclusively that there is no deficit—or, at least, no valid reason for one under present conditions.
and here, again, i desire to say that our present postmaster general is deserving the praise or commendation of every american citizen for having demonstrated, by a few economies here and a few betterments there in the operation of his department, that the service can be rendered, and rendered efficiently, with an expenditure safely within the bounds of the department’s receipts or revenues.
especially is mr. hitchcock deserving of commendation for this demonstration, because in making it he has done what so many of his predecessors talked of as desirable, but failed to do.
but with full acknowledgment of the splendid effort mr. hitchcock has made in converting a postal deficit of $6,000,000 in 1909-10 into a surplus for the year 1910-11, i desire to discuss, briefly, postal department deficits of the past—or the future—and the origin and cause of them.
in the future pages of this volume little if any reference will be made to our vigorous postmaster general’s attempt to put onto the senate course a rider that would run down certain periodicals which were to him and certain of his friends, as it would appear, of obstructive if not offensive character. it is possible, if, indeed, not probable, that i may, in this somewhat hurried discussion of our postoffice department deficits and their sources, cause and origin,[206] repeat something, in whole or in part, that i have said elsewhere in this volume.
the discussion of the postal deficits leads us into the raider factor or feature of our general title—into a consideration of the political, partisan and business influences and interests which have for thirty-five or more years been conspicuously—yes, brazenly—looting the revenues of the department. i shall not be able to advert to all such influences, interests and persons. especially can i not mention some of the persons. many of them have gone to “their reward”—or to their punishment—as the almighty has seen fit to assign them. as a matter of venerable custom and of current conventional courtesy we must leave them to his justice—to our silence. one by one many of the dishonestly enriched from our postal revenues have dropped into “the dead past,” which christ instructed should be left to “bury its dead.” in our treatment of this subject we shall obey the master’s instruction—we shall discuss methods, practices, and acts, not men.
in turning to our subject directly, i desire to make a few positive statements or declarations.
1. the postoffice department is a public service department—a department intended to serve all the people all the time.
2. the people are paying, have paid, and are willing to pay, for their postal service.
3. the people do not care—never have cared—whether the expenditures exceed the receipts by $6,000,000 or $100,000,000, if they get the service for the money expended.
in comment on the last, i wish here to ask if anyone has heard much loud noise from the people about the army and the navy expenditures—expenditures larger than that of any other nation on earth for similar purposes?
yet, for twenty or more years, the people have paid the appropriations for—also met the “deficit” bills of—each of those departments without any noticeable “holler.”
but, again, it must be pertinently asked, what have the people received in return for their billions of expenditures for those two departments?
yes, what? they have had the doubtful “glory” of having their army debauch some island possessions, maneuver for local entertainments and do some society stunts while on “post leave”—which[207] “leave”, for epauletted military officers, appears to have occupied most of their time.
and the people have put up, ungrumblingly, $100,000,000 to $150,000,000 or more (i forget the figures), for a navy—a navy carrying on its payrolls more “shore leave” men and clerks than it has service men. (at any rate that was the showing in a recent year). for this vast expenditure of their money the people got—got what?
well, for their hundreds of millions expenditure on that navy of ours, the people, to date, have received in return newspaper reports of numerous magazine and gun explosions with, of course, a list of the killed and wounded, and reports of “blow-hole” or otherwise faulted armor plate, turrets, etc., of raising “the maine,” of shoaling this, that or the other battleship, or of “sparring” or “lightering” off, to the music that is made by a “blow-in” of fifty thousand to two or three hundred thousand more of their money.
reader, if you read—if you have read—the “news”—the periodical literature—of those past twenty years, you will know that the people have received little or no returns for the vast expenditure of money—of their money—that their representatives (?) have made for the navy department.
oh, yes, i remember that our army and navy fought to a “victorious” conclusion the “spanish american” war.
no patriotic american citizen alive at the time that war occurred will ever forget it. he will ever remember siboney, camp thomas, camp wycoff, and the cattle-ship transports for diseased and dying soldiers. he will also remember the “embalmed beef” and the “decayed tack” and other contracts and contractors.
if the patriotic citizen has been an “old soldier,” or is familiar with the history of wars, he will also know that, if the whole land fighting of that spanish american war was corralled into one action that action would be infinitely less sanguine than was the action at a number of “skirmishes” in our civil war—that, if the several naval actions of that war were merged into one, it would not equal, in either gore or naval glory, farragut’s capture of mobile, the action in hampton roads, nor even perry’s scrimmage on lake erie in 1813.
what has all this to do with the postal department deficit, some one may ask? it has just this to do with it:
if a people stand unmurmuringly for the expenditure of billions[208] for a service that yields them no return, save a protection they have not needed and of doubtful security if needed, that people is not going to raise any noisy hubbub over a dinky deficit of a few millions a year for a service which should serve them every day of every year.
i have expanded a little, not disgressed, in writing to my statement numbered 3. i will now proceed with my premeditated statements. some of them may be a little frigid, but none of them are cold-storage. some one may have told it all to you before, but that is his fault, not mine. he merely beat me to the facts.
4. as stated in a forward page of this volume, the people of this nation want and demand service of its postoffice department. they care not to the extent of a halloween pea-shooter whether the service is rendered at a deficit of six million or at a surplus of ten million, if service is rendered for the money expended.
5. the people of this country will object more strenuously against a surplus in their postal revenues—their service tax—than they ever have or will object to a deficit in the revenues of that service, if they get the service.
6. the postoffice department is not understood—is not even thought of by intelligent citizens—as a revenue-producing department. it is understood to be a service department, and the citizen—his majesty, the american citizen—is always willing to pay for services rendered.
7. the postoffice department has not in the period named—no, not for thirty or thirty-five years—rendered the citizen the service for which he paid.
i mean by that, of course, that the citizen has been compelled to pay far more for a postal service than he should have paid for that service.
8. had that service been honestly, faithfully and efficiently rendered, the price the citizen has paid for it would have left no deficit for any year within the past thirty.
9. the only deficits in those thirty or thirty-five years have been the result of manipulated bookkeeping, of political trenching into the revenues of the department, of loose methods in its management, of disinterest in the enforcement of even loose methods, and of downright lootage and stealings.
“rather harsh that, is it not?” asks one.
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“mere assertion,” says another
to the first i need only say that this is an age not congenial to milk-poultice talk. i have previously expressed my opinion on that point. if you have a thing to say, say it hard. the majority of people will then understand you. those who do not understand you can continue their milk poultices—or believe and talk as they are told or are paid to believe and talk.
the latter—the reader who yodles that my preceding nine statements appear to be assertions only—can make a courteous and, possibly, a profitable use of an hour’s leisure in reading a few following pages, before he rusts into the belief that those nine “assertions” are groundless assertions.
in showing that there is no “deficit”—a shortage of receipts in the postoffice department over its legitimate expenditures—i shall not take my nine statements up seriatim, but present my reasons in a general way for having made such blunt declarations. i may go about that, too, in an awkward way, but the reader who follows me will get my reasons for making those nine declarations.
no credit allowed for services rendered other departments.
if the department of public works in chicago does a piece of bricklaying, concrete or other construction work for the police, fire, health or other department of the city government, or if it carts or hauls away some excavated material or razed debris for any of those other departments, the service rendered is made a charge by the department of public works against the department for which the service is rendered.
what is true in this instance in chicago’s municipal government is true of every other city or incorporated town in this country that has its service departmentized.
if the county commissioners of mccrackin county build a bridge or culvert for ridgepole township in the county the cost of constructing that bridge or culvert (or a proportional share of it, if on a general highway), is made a charge against ridgepole township.
if the transportation department of the united states steel corporation delivers the services of three steam tugs (services rated at $30.00 per day) to the corporation’s smelting or rail departments[210] there is a credit of $90.00 given to the transportation department, and a corresponding charge made against the department for which the service is rendered, for each day’s service rendered.
that states a recognized business rule and practice among both private and public corporations. its valid and just purpose is to prevent the loading upon one department (any one department) the expenses created or incurred by another.
is it not a valid, fair and just method of business?
if it is not, then the largest merchants, the most productive and profitable manufacturing establishments, transportation companies, banking and other mercantile, industrial and financial institutions have not discovered the fact.
if the owner of an egyptian hen ranch had a shrinkage in his castor bean crop, he would not think of charging the cost or loss on those castor beans up to his hens, would he? hens do not eat castor beans. that is useless—well—yes, of course. well, hens do not eat castor beans, anyway. so my ill-chosen illustration, though may stand—stand anyway until someone finds a breed of hens which likes castor beans.
but, if the hens of that hen-rancher invaded his vegetable garden, scratched up his set onions and seeded radishes, pecked holes in three hundred heads of his “early” cabbage and otherwise damaged the fruits of his labor, care and hopes—likewise disarranged his figures on prospective profits—if the hens did that, that hen-rancher would most certainly charge his loss to the hens, would he not?
that is, he would do so, if the hens had attended to their legitimate business as industriously as they looked after his vegetable garden and, by reason of that legitimate effort, showed a “profit balance.” the preceding is based, of course, on the assumption that the rancher has acumen enough to distinguish a hen from a rooster and a sunflower from a cauliflower. if he is so wised up, whether by experience and observation or by academic training, he will most certainly charge his loss on vegetables against those hens.
“what is the application of all this to the postoffice department deficits?” some one is justified in asking.
well, my intended application of it is, first, to show a generally recognized and practical business method—a business method practiced by both public and private corporations and by individuals and[211] firms, from the hen-rancher to the department store. my second purpose is to show that this almost universally recognized business method has been and is totally ignored in conducting the vast service affairs of the federal postoffice department.
free-in-county matter.
the 1910 report of the postoffice department states that 55,639,177 pounds of second-class mail was carried and distributed free in the counties of these united states.
of course, this 1910 gift to country publishers is the result of a moss-grown custom—a custom born of an ingrown desire common to crooked politicians—a desire to trade the general public service for private service. all the second, third and fourth class cities in the country, as well as a majority of our towns and larger incorporated villages, have their party newspaper or newspapers.
comparatively speaking, few of them have any extensive telegraphic service, if any at all, in the gathering of news. those which have not, capture the early morning editions—or the late evening editions of the day before—of two or more metropolitan papers, “crib” their “news” and deliberately run it, in many instances, as special wires to their own sheets. in some cases, which i have personally noticed, that practice was indulged when their own “newspaper” consisted of but two to four locally printed pages reinforced by a “patent inside.” why should such newspapers (?) be given “free distribution” in the county of publication?
they contain little if any real news and less matter of any real informative or educational value. true, the most of them do publish a “local” column or half column of “news” for each or for several of the outlying villages in the county of publication. these “local news” columns inform the reader that “mr. benjamin peewee circulated in boneville on wednesday last;” that “mrs. cornstalk and her daughter lizzie are spending the week at the old homestead, just south of town,” that “mr. frank suds shipped a fine load of hogs from bensonville on friday of this week,” etc., etc.
most edifying “news” that, is it not? so didactic and brain-building, is it not?
now, why should the postoffice department carry those millions of pounds of reubenville sheets free?
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the department report says it carried about 56,000,000 pounds of such “periodicals” free last year. the figures for this year (1910-11) will probably be around 60,000,000 pounds.
why should the department give away $600,000 in revenues?
besides that, the department does not know how much of this “free in county” matter it does carry and distribute. of course, it may be able to make a more dependable guess at the total tonnage of such second-class matter than can i. however, any one who has been around the “county seat” or the “metropolis” of any of the “hill” or “back” counties during a county, state or national canvass for votes will know that the postmaster’s scales are often sadly out of balance when he weighs into circulation the local newspaper. in fact, it frequently happens that he does not weigh it at all—especially not, if it be an extra or extra large edition issued “for the good of the party”—and more especially not, if the edition is issued to serve his party.
“it goes free anyway, so what is the difference?” the postmaster may argue, and with fairly valid grounds for such argument. the department, acting, pursuant of law, says “carry and distribute your local papers free inside your county.” so what difference does a few hundred or a few thousand pounds, more or less, make to the department?
why, certainly, what difference can it make? it is all done for “the good of the party,” is it not?
this condition, governing, as i personally know it does govern, furnishes my chief reason for saying that the postoffice department does not know—does not know even approximately—the tonnage of the “free in county” matter it handles. it never has known and does not now know, within millions of pounds, the weight of such matter it carries and distributes.
again, i ask, why is this vast burden thrown onto the department and the department getting not a cent of either pay or credit for carrying it? is it because of a paternal feeling our federal government has for the poor, benighted farmers of the country? i can scarcely believe it is. the farmers of this country are neither poor nor are they benighted. if they were, free carriage and distribution to them of these local sheets has not enriched them to any appreciable extent, however much such free carriage and delivery may have added[213] to the bank accounts of the publishers of such periodical literature. besides, ninety-five in every hundred farmers whose names are on the publishers’ subscription books pay their subscriptions. they usually pay, too, a pretty stiff rate—$1.50 or $2.00 for a “weekly,” which gives them mostly borrowed news and much of it decidedly stale at that. if a beneficent government grants its “free in county” postal regulation with a view to dissipating the gloom which clogs the garrets of our “benighted farmers,” that government misses its purpose on two essential points. our farmers, as previously intimated, are no more benighted than are the residents of our villages, towns and cities, and even if their ignorance was as dense as a “practical” politician’s conscience, the medium which the government delivers to them, carriage free, seldom contributes much enlightenment.
no, it was not for either the enrichment or the enlightenment of the dear farmer that the present “free in county” postal regulation was made operative. it was to give some local party henchman a fairly profitable job as publisher of a county newspaper—a party newspaper—and to have, in him, a county “heeler” who would divide his time between building the party fences and telling the dear farmer how to vote.
it is due to the publishers of country newspapers to say, that hundreds of them have grown away from rigid party ties—have grown independent. it is also but just to say that as these publishers have grown independent of party domination, their newspapers have improved. we have now many most excellent country papers published in our “down state” cities and larger towns.
the points i desire to make, however, are, first, the “free in county” mail delivery regulation was originally adopted for partisan political purposes, not to serve the farmer residents of the counties, and, second, that such regulation is unjustly discriminating and is raiding the service earnings of the postoffice department to the extent of at least six hundred thousand dollars annually. in my opinion such raiding will reach seven or eight hundred thousands a year.
franked and penalty matter.
going back now to that generally recognized and practical business method referred to and which the government persistently[214] refuses or neglects to adopt in handling and directing the fiscal affairs of its postoffice department, we find another raid on that department’s revenues.
third assistant postmaster general, james j. britt, makes a sort of estimate of the amount of free second-class matter of government origin the postoffice department transported and distributed during the fiscal year ended, june 30, 1910. mr. britt places the figure at 50,120,884 pounds.
mr. britt’s estimate is based on a six months’ weighing period in 1907 (the last half of that year.) it is reported as a “special weighing” and showed 26,578,047 pounds of “free in county” second-class matter and 23,941,782 pounds of free franked and penalty matter of the second-class. mr. britt then proceeds (page 335 of the department report for 1910), to arrive at his estimated tonnage of franked and penalty matter by assuming that the weight ratio of such second-class matter to “free in county” matter would be about the same for 1910. he says: “if, as it seems reasonable to believe, the relative proportions of this character of matter have remained the same,” there would result for the fiscal year 1909-10 the figures he gives for the franked and penalty tonnage, or 50,120,884 pounds.
well, to the man on the ladder it does not seem “reasonable to believe” that such method of estimating is sound nor the tonnage result attained by it dependable. the year 1907 was a decidedly off-year in franked matter of the second-class. the then president kept most of the senators and congressmen guessing as to just what he intended to do in the matter of the presidential nomination of his party. in fact, he kept a goodly number of federal legislators guessing on that point until well along in 1908. the result of this condition of doubt was greatly to lessen the franked mailings and also reduced in material degree the mailing of departmental, or “penalty” matter of the second-class.
for this and several other reasons, the tonnage of franked and penalty matter reported as carried in the last half of 1907—even if the “special weighing” mr. britt mentions was accurate and dependable, which it was not and could not be, either then or now, under the lax methods by which such weighings were and are made—the reported weight of such franked and penalty matter carried in the last[215] half of 1907 furnishes no fair or safe basis upon which to predicate 1910 totals or to base a dependable estimate of them.
another defective factor is used in mr. britt’s estimate—the reported total weight of “free in county” second-class matter as ascertained by special weighing in the last half of 1907. as previously stated in discussing the raid of six to eight hundred thousand dollars a year made upon the postal service revenues by this “free in county” matter, the department’s reported figures for it are little more than a robust guess at its tonnage, even now, and the figures given for 1907 are much less trustworthy than are the department’s estimates and guesses for the fiscal year ended in 1910. whatever may be said of its faults and faulty purposes, it is but simple justice to say the present departmental administration has shown more judgment and activity and has put forth more strenuous effort to get to the bottom of things and at dependable facts in mail weights than has been shown by any of its recent predecessors.
still, i repeat that its reported figures for the total tonnage of “free in county” for carriage and delivery of second-class mail matter are not sufficiently reliable to warrant their use as a basis for making a dependable estimate of the tonnage of another free division of second class mail. especially unreliable are the figures reported as total tonnage of free-in-county-matter as a basis for estimating the tonnage of a division of the service so far removed from “free in county” as is that of free franked and penalty matter.
all that aside, however, the fact is the postoffice department should receive credit for every pound of franked or penalty matter it handles for the legislative and other departments of the government service.
mr. britt himself appears to recognize the force of that fact. on page 335 of the department report for 1910, he speaks as follows:
the public mind seems unusually acute on the subject of free mailing facilities, and there is much criticism in the public press of the continuance of the franking privilege and the use of the penalty envelope, the suggestion being often made that the same should be abolished and that this department should receive proper credit in accounting for matter now being carried free. it is therefore suggested that consideration be given to the desirability of eliminating the transportation of mail matter under frank or penalty clause, in order that the postoffice department may receive due and proper credit for the tremendous, and in some[216] part possibly unnecessary, services which it is performing free, to its apparent financial embarrassment.
it is probably true that the use of the penalty envelope and the franking privilege is availed of with undue liberality, even if not actually abused, as is often alleged; that is to say, the same care is not taken to confine the mailings of governmental and congressional matter to only that which is necessary as would undoubtedly be the case if there were a strict accountability for their use.
it will be noted that mr. britt in the foregoing covers other than second-class mail matter. taking the figures of his estimate of the volume of free franked and penalty matter of the second-class (51,000,000 pounds in round numbers, which i believe is so conservative as to be far below the actual tonnage), then the various other departments of the government are raiding the revenues of the postoffice department to the extent of $510,000 for the carrying and handling of their second-class mail alone. that is, they are requiring the postoffice department to render to them without pay or credit over a half-million dollars’ worth of service a year. that is figured at the 2nd class rate of 1 cent a pound. if mr. britt’s own estimate, on another page of the same report, that it cost the postoffice department 9 cents a pound to transport and handle second-class mail, is correct, which as previously shown it is not, then other departments of the government would be raiding the postal service revenues—revenues which private individuals, firms, corporations and governments subordinate, now alone pay—to the extent of more than $4,500,000 a year.
it must be borne in mind by the reader, however, that mr. britt’s estimate of 51,000,000 pounds (a round figure) of second-class matter carried and handled free by his department for other departments of the federal government does not represent the total of service rendered those other departments for which the postoffice department received neither pay nor credit. far from it.
hundreds of tons—how many hundreds of tons, i do not know, nor have i been able to find an authority or record to inform myself—of letters and other sealed matter were carried and distributed by the postoffice department for other departments. for that service not a cent in pay or credit was received.
it must be remembered that the service rate for carrying and handling the class of matter (first-class) we are here speaking of is 2 cents per ounce or fraction thereof. that is, the rate is not less than[217] 32 cents a pound, not 1 cent a pound as is the rate on second class on which mr. britt gives his estimate of tonnage carried.
why should not the senate and the house, the judicial, war, navy, interior and other departments of the government be required to provide in their annual appropriation bills for paying for the first-class service furnished them by the postoffice department?
the postal service of the government is also rendered free to the several departments to handle all their third and fourth class mail matter. what the annual tonnage of these two classes aggregates i have been unable to learn. whether or not the postoffice department keeps any records showing the aggregate mailings by the other departments, i do not know. i do know, however, that it gets neither pay nor credit for transporting and handling the third and fourth class matter put to mail by the other departments of the federal government. that the total weight mailed must run into many hundreds of tons yearly for each of the classes named there can be little grounds for doubt or question, records or no records.
the mailing rate on third-class is eight cents a pound. on fourth-class it is sixteen cents a pound. those are the rates the people have to pay. that both rates are outrageously excessive is well known to every one who has made even a cursory study of the cost of transporting and handling government mails, and the irony of it all is the stock arguments put up by postoffice and other federal officials to justify such outrageous rates.
“the rates are necessary to make the postoffice department self-supporting—to avoid a deficit,” or statements of similar washed out force and import. and that in face of the fact that the government permits its departments, bureaus, divisions, “commissions,” etc., to raid the postal revenues by loading upon the postal service the cost of transporting and distributing thousands of tons of mail matter for which it gets not a cent of pay or credit.
nice business methods or practice that, is it not?
beautiful “argument,” this prattle about deficits in the postal revenues, is it not?
why, it is humorous enough to make empty headed fools laugh and sensible men use language which postal regulations bar from the mails.
think of the tons upon tons of official reports, of the bound[218] volumes of the congressional record, of copies of the supreme courts rulings and other printed books and pamphlets distributed by the departments of war, navy, agriculture, interior and others.
all these fall into the third-class, or 8-cent-a-pound rate.
think of the tons upon tons of seeds—farm, garden and flower—sent by congressmen to their constituents—to thousands of constituents who do not need the seeds, in fact, who can make no possible use of them; of the tons upon tons of clothing, suitings, household bric-a-brac, etc., franked by senators and congressmen to their homes, to their wives, children, sweethearts or friends.
investigations in the past have shown that hundreds of typewriters, office desks, even articles of household furniture, were sent home under frank.
it was also shown in several instances, if i remember rightly, that some of the typewriters, etc., were never franked back to government possession. however that may be, all such mailings are of the fourth class and fall into the 16-cent a pound rate for carriage and handling.
let us here foot up the amount of the raidings on the postal funds, so far as we have gone.
first,—there is the free-in-county second-class—$600,000 to $800,000.
second,—there is the free second-class franked and penalty matter. third assistant postmaster general britt “estimates” it at $510,000, figured at the present one-cent rate. i have shown the weakness of mr. britt’s basis of estimate. in my judgment the tonnage of franked and penalty second-class mail is nearer 75,000,000 pounds than his estimate of 51,000,000 pounds. but to take mr. britt’s figures, there is another raid of $510,000 on the service revenues of the postoffice department.
next, we have the free first, third and fourth class matter which the postal service handles under franking or penalty regulations.
how much does this raid total? how much has and does this raid contribute toward the creation of that “deficit” which has so long, so continuously and so brazenly been used to bubble the people in politico-postal oratory and writing?
the reader must keep in mind that we are here asking about the thirty-two, the eight and the sixteen cents a pound classes of mail. to what extent have the various departments of the government[219] raided the postal funds by taxing the postal service with their over-load of the character indicated? that they have taxed the postoffice department’s revenues by demanding of that department its highest class and highest rated service in unlimited degree, and that, too, without one cent of compensation, pay or credit, is a fact which no informed man will attempt to controvert.
but what did such service (and abuse of service) cost the postoffice department? to what extent did and does this “frank and penalty” privilege in first, third and fourth class use of the mails loot or raid the postal revenues?
is it to the extent of three, two or one million dollars? is it lower than the lowest or higher than the highest figures just named?
i do not know—do you? have you, the reader, been able to ascertain from the records of the postoffice department, or elsewhere, any figures or data that enables you to make even a “frazzled” guess at the approximate cost to the postal department of this unjust—this politically and governmentally crooked burden put upon it?
i have hunted and have found nothing but talk, and a few figures scattered here and there and gathered from—well, the lord may know where. but the lord has failed to inform me. so i am in ignorance—am benighted, just like our “poor farmers,” both as to the source of the figures i have seen and as to their force and value in reaching a fair conclusion as to the aggregate amount of postal revenues the departmental raiders have been and are carrying off. if any reader knows or can dig up the facts, he will confer a great favor by handing the information to the man on the ladder. not only that, but i am confident that the people of this country will give such reader a niche, if needed not a conspicuous position, in their hall of fame, if he will give them even a dependable approximation of the extent to which the postal service revenues are raided—looted—by federal department abuses—their service and their money, for the departments pay not one dollar for the thousands of tons of mail matter of the various classes which the postoffice department transports and handles for them.
so far or so long has this departmental—bureaucratic, that is what it is—practice of raiding the postal revenues by loading its service continued, that the postoffice department has been and is looting itself by the same practice.
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this volume is written during what is known as the “weighing period” in the postal service, the weighing being done to establish a basis for four years on which the railroads transporting the federal mails shall be paid. in other words, as basis for a “railway-mail-pay” rate, which rate will govern railway contracts for carrying the mails for a period of four years.
during the current weighing period i have, at various times, both during the day and at night, watched the weighing for varying intervals of from an hour to two hours. among the revenue raids observed during those hours of leisure (?), i shall here mention a few. as the present postmaster general treats all departmental, or “penalty,” matter as “franked” matter (see page 11 of the postoffice department report of 1910), i shall, in the brief mention of personally observed facts at several railway stations in chicago do likewise.
(1) three carloads of senate speeches, franked to chicago in bulk, the bulk then broken and the speeches remailed, under frank, to individual addresses.
i do not know the tonnage of those three cars. local newspaper reports stated that there were 3,000,000 copies of one of the speeches. i take it that sixty tons is a low figure for the three carloads. the actual weight was probably nearer ninety tons. but leave it at sixty, the remailing in piece at bulk destination makes the weight 120 tons on which the post office department had to pay transportation, on sixty tons of which it also had to stand the expense of piece handling.
(2) another carload of senatorial vocal effort passed through chicago to a destination far west. i do not know, but presume it was in bulk, and on arrival, bulk was broken and the matter returned to mail for piece distribution.
the reader must not overlook the fact that the character of matter carried in those four carloads was third-class—was eight-cent-a-pound matter. there were eighty tons or more of it in bulk and its remailing in piece would make it 160 tons.
if a manufacturer, merchant or other business man put to mail 160 tons of third-class matter he would contribute to the postal service revenue just $25,600.
(3) three crates of fruit went into a mail car at one time, two cases of canned goods at another and a crate of tomatoes at another,[221] without passing over the weighing scale. a drum of coffee, fifty to eighty pounds in weight, went to mail at another time, and a large sack of sawdust at another.
both of the last mentioned went over the weighing scale before they went to the mail car.
i am speaking only of what casual or chance notice brought to my attention in three railway stations in chicago. if similar or corresponding abuses were indulged at other stations here, as it is a legitimate inference they were, it is also a legitimate inference that similar abuses were, and are, practiced throughout the country, especially in cities of the first, second and third classes—in cities and towns on which has been conferred the distinguished honor of having their mail handled under the watchful eye and supervising care of a “presidential postmaster,” that is, by a postmaster appointed by the president for partisan reasons and prospective uses.
again going back to our mutton, i repeat the question, “what is the extent of this ‘franking’ and ‘penalty’ raid upon the revenues of the postoffice department?” i have cited three local instances merely to give a “hunch”—to blaze a line along which thoughtful people may safely think, and think to some fairly satisfying conclusion. i do not know the extent of the lootage of postal revenues by the uses and abuses of those “frank” and “penalty” regulations. you do not know, and the present postmaster general admits he does not know, nor has he any means or method of ascertaining.
on page 11 of the report of the postoffice department for the fiscal year 1909-1910, mr. hitchcock very frankly states the fact and gives his personal opinion of the extent of the franking raid upon the service of his department. he also suggests a partial remedy which also i shall quote because it is a good suggestion, on right lines, and for making it mr. hitchcock deserves the thanks of a people over-burdened by the abuses his suggestion would, i believe, correct in material degree. at any rate, the suggestion is on right lines. following is what he says:
the unrestricted manner in which the franking privilege is now being used by the several federal services and by congress has laid it open to serious abuses—a fact clearly established through investigations recently instituted by the department. while it has been impossible without a better control of franking to determine the exact expense to the government of this practice, there can be no doubt that it annually reaches into the millions. it is believed that many abuses[222] of the franking system could be prevented, and consequently a marked economy effected, by supplying through the agencies of the postal service special official envelopes and stamps for the free mail of the government, all such envelopes and stamps to be issued on requisition to the various branches of the federal service requiring them, and such records to be kept of official stamp supplies as will enable the post office department to maintain a proper postage account covering the entire volume of free government mail.
“there can be no doubt that it annually reaches into the millions,” says mr. hitchcock of the cost to his department of transporting and handling the government free mail matter—frank and penalty matter. it should also be noted that he says that “the unrestricted manner in which the franking privilege is now being used by the several federal services and by congress, has laid it open to serious abuses.”
not only are the foregoing statements of our postmaster general true, but with equal truth he could have said that the abuses of the postal service practiced by other federal departments have encouraged—have coached, so to speak,—the postoffice department into abusing itself.
those crates of fruit and cases of canned goods which i saw loaded into mail cars were probably for some postmaster who conducted a grocery or fruit stand, as a “side” to his official duties. or they may have gone to some “friend” or “good fellow” along the line, or to some one who stood for a “split” of the express charges on such a shipment.
the drum of coffee and sack of sawdust may have had consignees of similar character. but their shipment as mail matter showed another abuse of the postal service by the postoffice department itself, or by employes of that department. they were weighed into rail transportation at a time when the average weight of mail carried during a period of three or six months would govern the rate of pay the transporting railroad would receive for carrying the mails during a period of four years.
the same might be said of the four carloads of senatorial eloquence referred to on a previous page. those cars were franked through during the weighing period in the postal service. there is this difference, however, between those four cars of franked eloquence and the drum of coffee and sack of sawdust. the former was an abuse of the postal service and a raid upon its revenues by permission, if not[223] by authority, of the postal statutes. the latter was an abuse of the postal service and raid upon its revenues by employes of the postoffice department itself.
but the point we are after is the extent of federal departmental raid upon the postal revenues. how much is it? i have confessed my ignorance of the sum such raid will total. our postmaster general has (see last preceding quotation), confessed his ignorance of the total. he says there can be “no doubt that it annually reaches into many millions.”
i have no other evidence or authority at hand save the testimony of william a. glasgow, jr., before the penrose-overstreet commission in 1906. mr. glasgow represented the periodical publishers’ association. in presenting the case for that association—strong, reputable body, representing vast business and public service (educational, social, fraternal and trade interests)—mr. glasgow used the following language:
you may take the revenues of the postoffice department and give away $19,000,000 per annum in the franking privilege to other departments of government and then give away $28,000,000 per annum in the beneficent advantages of rural free delivery, and then lose millions in unequal and exorbitant transportation charges, certainly $5,000,000, and thus create an apparent and artificial deficit and use that as a basis for further taxation upon those who read magazines, but no one will be deceived by such an excuse and no wise congress will be moved by considerations so transparent or necessities so unreal.—page 544 penrose-overstreet report (hearings), 1906-7.
if mr. glasgow were speaking in 1911, i have no doubt he would have raised his figure of $19,000,000 to twenty or more millions as a nearer approximate of the total of federal departmental raids upon the earnings or revenues of the postoffice department.
do not misunderstand me.
all legitimate departmental service should be rendered by the postoffice department, but that department should receive credit for such service rendered.
the departmental “abuses” of the postal service are steals. they should not be tolerated. if extra-departmental service is rendered (as is well known it is), it should be paid for just the same—and at the same service rates—that jim jones, susie bowers and widow finerty are compelled to pay for similar service.
now, we have raidings on the postoffice revenues by the government[224] departments themselves, including free in county, and by the postoffice department’s looseness of methods in handling its own business, of somewheres around $22,000,000 a year, not counting the stuffing of weights during the “weighing period”, which goes to swell the railway mail pay rates for mail carrying railroads for a period of four years.
as to the last, i wish to say that mr. hitchcock, the present postmaster general, has done more to correct such weighing frauds than has any of his predecessors within the range of my study of the question. yet it lingers—hangs on to an extent which should put some subordinate postoffice officials and railway officials in restraint—put them out of range of opportunity for such looting.
in the face of an annual raid of $22,000,000, what is the use of all this prattle—prattle extending over years—about deficits in the postal service? will some one kindly rise in the front pews of the postal department or in the sanctum of its beneficiaries and tell us?
there is no deficit in the postoffice service revenues. the people pay and have paid for more service than is rendered—for more service than they have received or do receive.
“but what difference to the people does it make whether they pay for carrying the departmental mail out of the postal revenues or have each department pay for its own mail carriage and handling?” is a common answering interrogative argument (?) to my immediately preceding charge that the various government departments raid the postal revenues to the extent of “many millions,” as mr. hitchcock has put it. “the people have to pay for it anyway, do they not?”
just so, and what difference does it make? well, here are a few points of difference which might be seen and comprehended without jarring any fairly normal intellect off its pedestal:
1. to have the departments pay or give credit to the postoffice department for the service it renders to them is an honest and approved method in any other business. the present method not only violates sound business principles but is dishonest as well—dishonest because it throws the burden of those “many millions” for mail haulage and handling of franked and penalty matter upon the postal rate papers, and not upon all the people of the country as it should.
2. if the free congressional and departmental matter now costs,[225] say $20,000,000 a year for mail haulage and handling, then the government is practicing a policy which both originates and distributes revenue without appropriation. in other words, the general government in such practice usurps the function of originating revenue which function, under the constitution, is vested in the lower house of congress.
next, the general government distributes that $20,000,000 (or its equivalent in service, which amounts to the same thing), to the several departments, or lets each department raid that service as it pleases. it does this in flat violation of another section or clause of the federal constitution which provides that the cost of maintenance and operation, including any contemplated construction and permanent betterments, shall be provided for in an annual appropriation bill.
3. the recommended method would greatly lessen the “abuses” of the postal service by government departments and officials of which mr. hitchcock speaks. on the other hand, the method of the present and the past invites such abuses. abuses grow but do not improve with age. each year the abuses of which mr. hitchcock speaks in his 1910 report have grown until abuses is scarcely a fitting designation for them. these abuses of the postal service have grown, and grown in such a stealthy, porch-climbing way, that they amount to a colossal steal every year.
4. when they hear so much yodling about “deficits” in the postoffice department, millions of our people are led to believe that such deficits are created by an excess of cost over receipts in carrying the letters, postal and postcards, the newspapers, magazines and other periodicals, the books and merchandise, which the people themselves entrust to the mails for delivery. they hear that the postal service “should be self-supporting,” that “each division of the service should be self-sustaining” and then they are called on for higher service rates to meet “deficits.”
why should this great government of ours permit its officials longer to gold-brick the people with such ping-pong talk? why not tell the people the truth, or at least give them an open, honest opportunity to learn the truth?
the annual federal appropriation bills informs them at least of the “estimated” expenditures for the year for other departments.[226] why not give them an honest estimate of what it costs the postoffice department to render a service which should serve them?
other easily comprehended differences between the present method of loading all governmental mail service upon the postoffice department without pay or credit for the vast service rendered and a method which would give that department such credit could readily be mentioned. however, the four points of difference between the two methods above cited, and the advantages which would accrue both to the service and the people by adopting an approved, honest business method instead of the present unfair, foolish and dishonest one, are sufficient, i think, to convince the reader that there are differences between these right and wrong ways of handling the nation’s postal service—its governmental mail matter—that are of vital importance—differences which on the one hand invite raidings, waste and lootage of the postoffice revenues and on the other would make for economies in the service and for business care and honesty in the use and expenditures of those revenues.
express companies conducting a criminal traffic.
but, says another apologist for the loose, wasteful methods of the postoffice department in handling both its service and its revenues, “the postal service was originally instituted for handling the government mail only.”
that be as it may, though i doubt the sweeping assertion of the statement made, just as i doubt the integrity and truthfulness of purpose of the person making it. it came to my notice as part of an argument (?) in defense of the outrageous railway mail pay and mail-car rental charges which mail carrying railroads have been permitted to collect from the postal revenues paid by the people. but whether or not the postal service was originally intended to be merely a dispatch service for transmission of government orders, documents, etc., can stand as no valid reason now for the federal government’s permitting its several departments to use and abuse the vast system for intercommunication among the people which it has permitted to be built up, and for the building of which it has taxed (by way of postal charges) those who made use of the system—taxed them excessively, if indeed not somewhat unscrupulously—whether or not, not, i say, the government originally intended the mail service to be[227] an exclusive service for use of the government only has no present bearing. if such was the original intention, the foolishness of it must soon have become apparent, for we find that federal laws were enacted to establish a general postal service for all the people. not only were laws enacted for the establishment and regulation of a mail service, but by the law of 1845 it was clearly intended to make such service a government monopoly. section 181 of the federal statutes reads as follows:
whoever shall establish any private express for the conveyance of letters or packets, or in any manner cause or provide for the conveyance of the same by regular trips or at stated periods over any post route which is or may be established by law, or from any city, town or place between which the mail is regularly carried, or whoever shall aid or assist therein, shall be fined not more than $500, or imprisoned not more than six months, or both.
the foregoing makes it quite evident that, as early as 1845 at least, this government of ours did not intend or design the service on mail routes then existing, nor on routes to be established, was to confine itself to the carriage and handling of government matter only. the establishment of rail post routes and the greater facility and speed with which such routes would handle the people’s mails—“the letters, packages and parcels of people residing along such mail routes”—was one of the stock arguments of the illinois central railroad promoters in 1849-50—an argument designed to justify before the people a grant of land to the chartered company so large as to make the grant a colossal steal. the same or similar argument was turned loose and persuasively paraded in the oratorical procession which preceded the vast federal land grants, or land steals, in connection with the building of transcontinental or pacific rail lines.
enough has been said to show quite conclusively that whatever may or may not have been the “intention” of the government at the first establishment of a mail service—a service then wholly by water transportation, by runners and by a “pony post” and mail coach—a decision was very soon reached to make the postal service a public one—a service for all our people—and to give the government a monopoly of that service.
no one reading the section of the revised statutes of the united states above quoted will attempt to controvert the statement last made.
then, it may be asked again, and justly, too, why does the[228] government continue to permit its various departments to over-load and to loot the postal service, the revenues for maintaining which the people—the mail-using portion of the people—alone contribute?
it also may be justly asked, why does the government permit its postoffice and other officials to scream at the people about “deficits,” when they have already paid far more than the service—their service—costs the government?
other equally pertinent questions might be asked, but i shall forbear. i have shown, i believe, that the raids upon the postoffice revenues by free-in-county matter and by government itself would more than meet any “deficit” yodled about in recent years.
that is what i started to demonstrate in this chapter. but there are other raids and raiders upon the revenues of the postoffice department to which i must advert. i purposed in writing to this phase of our general subject, to make official prattle about postal service “deficits” look and sound foolish.
i believe i have already done that, but in justice to the subject and to the postal ratepayers, at least three other raiders must have their cloaks slit.