"And what element but universal enlightenment of the people forms the chief corner-stone in the temple of our political hopes? and what instrument so calculated to awaken the ambition of the people to become educated as the cultivation of the taste for epistolatory correspondence, calling into action those energies o£ the mind so necessary to the intelligent discharge of the high and responsible duties of freemen, in a country where every man is equal, and the builder and maker of his Government."—Mr. Paterson in the House of Representatives, 1st March 1845 (Congressional Globe).
[168] "The extension of the mail service and the additional facilities which will be demanded by the rapid extension and increase of population on our western frontier will not admit of such curtailment as will materially reduce the present expenditure."—Message to Congress, 2nd December 1845.
[169] "The honour and interest of the nation required that as soon as the title to the country was settled, our citizens who were resident there, and those who shall go to settle there, should enjoy the benefits of the mail. And as it was the nation's business to establish the mail, it was equally the nation's business to pay the expense. No man can show how it is just and reasonable that the letters passing between Boston and New York should be taxed 150 per cent. to pay the expenses of a mail to Oregon on the pretext that the Post Office must support itself."—J. Leavitt, Cheap Postage, Boston, Mass., 1848, p. 27.
[170] Mr. Root (Congressional Globe, House of Representatives, 18th December 1850).
[171] "Sir, I am acquainted with the privations and hardships incident to the settlement of a new country: and I do not intend that my friends who are now combating the trials and hardships of California and Oregon shall be visited by their Government with such injustice. The men who are settling those countries are sacrificing their lives for a coming generation. I will not add to their hardships by taxing them four times as much as a citizen of the old States of the Union for a letter which shall give them intelligence of their friends left behind them, and shall chill that gush of feeling which will swell their bosoms, as they take possession of a letter that comes from their far-distant native land."—Mr. Sweetser (Ibid., 4th January 1851).
[172] Congressional Record, Senate, 17th January 1883.
[173] The cost of the provision and maintenance (lighting, heating, etc.) of Post Office buildings is charged directly on the Federal Treasury, and does not in any way figure in the Post Office deficit.
[174] "If the postal revenue arising from letter postage could be set aside for its proper uses, the millions of letter-writers of this country might quickly be permitted to enjoy a reduced taxation on letter-writing. In point of fact, there is a dear gain of nearly $30,000,000 from letter postages."—Annual Report of the Postmaster-General, 1890, p. 53.
[175] Ibid., 1891, p. 102.
[176] "There is now, and has been for many years, an insistent demand for the reduction of letter postage. The advocates of that reduction argue that the volume of business naturally resulting therefrom would offset the temporary loss in revenue. They insist that the charge for first-class matter is out of all proportion to the cost of its handling and transportation."—Annual Report of the Postmaster-General, 1906, p. xlvi.