If also allowance had been made for free government matter, other than the Postoffice Department’s own free matter, being sent stamped as first-class matter is, the surplus for 1910 would have been $51,075,470.12 and these figures like all others here given, are from official reports.
A VAST INCREASE OF EXPENDITURES.
Not only did stamp mail, under the stimulus of the steady and enormous increase of second-class matter, enable the Department to meet the cost of rural delivery while reducing the deficit, but it also met and overcame the immense increase of the annual expenditures for railroad transportation which grew from $33,523,902.18 in 1901 to $44,654,515.97 in 1910: of salaries to postmasters, assistants and clerks which grew from $32,790,253.39 in 1901 to $65,582,533.57 in 1910, of the railway mail service which grew from $9,675,436.52 to $19,385,096.97 in 1910, and of the city delivery service which grew from $15,752,600 in 1901 to $36,841,407.40 in 1910. In these four items alone there was an increase in annual expenditures in the last ten years of $74,721,361.82, for which second-class matter was only in a very limited way responsible.
Entirely too much stress has been placed upon the cost of second-class matter, for it makes little difference whether it costs 2½ cents or 4 cents or 9 cents, or even more, if it produce results commensurate with its cost, and this it would do if the cost were double the highest guess yet made. The Government could afford to carry it free rather than not carry it at all, for without it the bottom would drop out of the Postal Establishment. As long as the people get the benefit of the low rate, as they are doing now, for which we have official testimony, it matters not what the rate is except that it should be kept at the very bottom notch.
WHY THE POSTAGE RATE WAS MADE LOW.
Even if the cost of second-class matter should be declared to be more than one cent per pound, it would not be good public policy for Congress to increase it, because much reading matter would be placed out of the reach of many who now are receiving the benefit of it.
Postmaster-General Meyer said in his report for 1908: “The charge for carrying second-class mail matter was intentionally fixed below cost for the purpose of encouraging the dissemination of information of educational value to the people, and the benefit of the cheap rate of postage is passed on to the subscriber in a lower subscription price than would otherwise be possible.”
The Hon. Charles Emory Smith truly declared: “Our free institutions rest on popular intelligence, and it has from the beginning been our fixed and enlightened policy to foster and promote the general diffusion of public information. Congress has wisely framed the postal laws with this just and liberal conception.
“It has uniformly sought to encourage intercommunication and the exchange of intelligence. As facilities have cheapened, it has gradually lowered all postage rates. It has never aimed to make the postal service a source of profit, but simply to make it pay its own way and to give the people the benefit of all possible advancement.
“In harmony with this sound and judicious policy, it has deliberately established a low rate of postage for genuine newspapers and periodicals, with the express design of encouraging and aiding the distribution of the recognized means and agencies of public information.