Postal Riders and Raiders

by W. H. Gantz

Much of the information publishers get now is fragmentary, uncertain, often considerably warped and belated cold-storage news, void of substantial life-sustaining qualities. The annual reports of the department in which publishers are most vitally interested are less complete than formerly. Many important facts do not appear in them. For instance, no statement is ever made as to the amount of first-class matter originated by the second-class, none, or very little, account is made of it. No attempt has ever been made to gather, much less publish, statistics on the subject.

Formerly a list was accessible of publications annually thrown out of the mails at second-class rates, but not in recent years.

The report of the Third Assistant Postmaster-General in 1897 comprises 97 pages of compact statements and postal information in small type; that for 1901, 133 pages; while those for 1909 and 1910 contain only 60 and 65 pages in larger type, respectively. I am not censuring Mr. Britt in this matter, but simply stating facts.

Then as to the rulings, laws and regulations, there is not a publisher living who knows what they are, or can definitely ascertain what they are, from month to month. They are liable to change without the publishers being informed directly of the change. What purported to be “The Postal Laws and Regulations Relating to the Second-class of Mail Matter” was issued in 1910, but in it the law, rulings and regulations are so jumbled up together that it is difficult for a publisher to know which is which; instead of being illuminating and helpful, this compendium is confusing and involved in obscurity. It is a well recognized legal maxim, that “where the law is uncertain there is no law.”

Publishers have not known that an active propaganda in favor of a higher rate has been in progress ever since Congress adjourned, but such is the fact. The Postmaster General went before the Hughes Commission and advocated it.

The Third Assistant Postmaster General, in the early summer, made an address before some publishers in Chicago, wherein he stated that it was the purpose of the Postmaster General “to adjust postage rates based upon the principle of the payment on each class of mail matter of a rate of postage equal to the cost of handling and carriage, and no more, and that one class of mail matter shall not be taxed to meet deficiencies caused by an inadequate rate on another class,” meaning by this that the rate must be raised on second-class matter and lowered on the first class.

General DeGraw, Fourth Assistant Postmaster General, in an address before the West Virginia Association of Postmasters, stated the purpose of the Postmaster General to be exactly what Mr. Britt declared it to be; and he had the postmasters pass a resolution indorsing the Postmaster General, and even as late as September 22, at Milwaukee, he advocated “the crystalization of the proposed increase in second-class mail rates into law.”

Jesse L. Suter, representing the Postoffice Department, brought greetings from the Postmaster General, to a round-up of postmasters in Michigan in August last, and said that “the great subsidy extended the publishers in the form of a ridiculously small rate of postage is unreasonable. Were the publishers required to pay more in proportion to what it actually costs the government to transport their products, the people of the United States would be benefited. Every man, woman and child in the United States is taxed seventy-three cents by way of his letter postage over and above the cost of carrying his own letters in order to meet the deficiency of underpaid second-class matter.”[7] And then, of course, the postmasters passed a resolution thanking Mr. Suter for his “timely hints relative to second-class matter and commending the Postmaster General.”

On August 22 and 23, there was a postmasters’ convention at Toledo, Ohio, at which a resolution was proposed complimenting the Postmaster General “for his efforts to bring about a fair compensation from those enjoying the benefits of second-class rates.”

James B. Cook, Superintendent of the Division of Postoffice Supplies, Washington, D. C., also addressed a postmasters’ convention in the West, in which he said: “There is one thing I am going to ask you to do—it is a simple thing and one that should be near to your hearts. Certain publishers have attempted to create public sentiment against an increase of postage on advertising matter in magazines.… Many of us believe that the postage rate is class legislation of the rankest kind in favor of the few at the expense of the masses. Talk to your business men about it; the Postmaster General is going to win this fight because he is in the right. Tell the business men that the Postmaster General feels that he is entitled not only to their moral but their active support.”