I need make no comment on that address beyond the comment implied in the phrases and wording I have marked for italics. That Mr. Hitchcock still purposes to “put over” the injustices covered in his Senate rider amendment to the postoffice appropriation bill is made baldly clear. That he still is working that “deficit” as a sort of “come-on” to his purpose is equally clear. And the ridiculous, if not ludicrous, feature of this talk before the commission is that it comes after he has demonstrated and publicly announced that there is no deficit in the Postoffice Department for the fiscal year, 1910-11.
As Mr. M. H. Madden states in a letter to me, printed on a previous page, Mr. Hitchcock reports a profit of one to three million dollars for the fiscal year named.
Later, if I remember rightly, he discovered a stealage—pardon me, I mean he discovered an “excess”—of from $9,000,000 to $14,000,000 in railway mail pay.
Just in this connection I wish to say that Mr. Hitchcock is deserving of the praise and commendation of every one of us American citizens for the aggressive way in which he has cut down expenditures in his department without impairing its service. Also is he deserving of equal praise and commendation from us for his vigorous and fairly successful methods of going after that railway mail haulage steal, which has been going on for a time to which the younger generation of our citizens wots not of. Although I may adversely criticise a man, as in this volume I have criticised Mr. Hitchcock, I like the man who puts up a stiff fight for a cause, even though I believe his cause is wrong. Candidly I can see no reason why Mr. Hitchcock and his predecessor postmaster generals should so worry themselves over a “deficit” in the Postoffice Department—a department in which a surplus should never be expected and never allowed to become permanent.
But our present Postmaster General has, by his aggressive action and close scrutiny of the loose, wasteful methods under which the vast business of his department is carried on, disposed of the “deficit” and found a surplus.
In this he has done what his predecessors failed to do.
For this he merits our highest praise and commendation. Personally I yield it to him, untrammeled and in full meed. I object only to his attempt to saddle upon second-class mail—the one-cent-a-pound-matter—the burden of recouping the government for the losses on rural route and star route service and the railway mail pay stealage. I object because I not only believe, but I know as comprehendingly and as comprehensively as does he, that the second-class matter carried in the mails today at one cent a pound should be carried and handled at a profit at that rate.
I also know that just as second-class mail (periodicals), is cut down in distribution in just about the same proportion will the revenue from first, third and fourth class mail be cut down.
It is because of this firm belief, that I oppose Mr. Hitchcock’s, to me, absurd purpose and attempt to make “each division or class of mail pay for its carriage and handling.”
I am also opposing his manifest attempt to “play favorites” in legislation and to secure bureaucratic powers for his department—in contravention of my constitutional rights—to your constitutional rights.