[332] E.g., "Mr. Franklin has in particular the great Advantage of circulating his Papers free, and receiving intelligence, which he may make the best or worst Use of in the present Situation of Affairs."—Minutes of Pennsylvania Council, 21st March 1757.
The Council recommended that the Postmaster be commanded to be extremely cautious "to prevent the publication of improper intelligence," and that the Governor should be authorized to exercise a censorship on the publication of news.
[333] It was in point of fact due to his action in submitting to the Assembly of Pennsylvania English official letters addressed from the Governor of the colony which had come into his hands.
[335] "To take it (the franking privilege) away would be levelling a deadly stroke at the liberty of the Press; the information conveyed by franks may be considered as the vital juices, and the channels of the Post Office as the veins; and if these are stopped, the body must be destroyed; it is treading on dangerous ground to take any measures that may stop the channels of public information.... It is the duty of the members to dispense the newspapers among those people who cannot, perhaps, otherwise obtain them, under the protection of franks.... The establishment of the Post Office is agreed to be for no other purpose than the conveyance of information into every part of the Union."—Debates and Proceedings in the Congress of the United States, 16th December 1791 (pub. Washington, 1849).
[336] "The poisonous sentiments of the cities, concentrated in their papers, with all the aggravation of such a moral and political cesspool, will invade the simple, pure, conservative atmosphere of the country, and meeting with no antidote in a rural Press, will contaminate and ultimately destroy that purity of sentiment and of purpose which is the only true conservatism. Fourierism, agrarianism, socialism, and every other ism, political, moral, and religious, grow in that rank and festering soil.... Relieve them (the country papers) from the burden of postage and they can successfully compete with the city publishers. Reduce the rate of postage on newspapers and pamphlets, and you diffuse light and knowledge through the land."—Mr. Venables in House of Representatives, 18th December 1850 (Congressional Globe).
[337] I.e. odd packets posted by members of the public, as against the regular bulk postings of publishers.
[338] Report of Postmaster-General, 1892, p. 68.
[339] "The law cannot be so construed as to permit such an abuse—an abuse that, while operating to load down the mails with immense masses of stuff of insufficient value to command cash-paying subscribers to any extent, would be a wrong to every business institution which issues its advertising circulars and other matter in an undisguised manner and therefore pays the lawful rate of postage on them."—Ibid., p. 72.
[340] "The most urgent need of the postal service is the rectification of the enormous wrongs which have grown up in the perversion and abuse of the privilege accorded by law to second-class matter. This reform is paramount to all others.... For this costly abuse, which drags on the Department and weighs down the service, trammels its power and means of effective advancement in every direction."—Ibid., 1899, pp. 4 and 5.