Postal Riders and Raiders

by W. H. Gantz

In a previous paragraph I stated, in effect, that Postmaster General Hitchcock is an “influenced” man or a densely ignorant one. That he is densely ignorant on matters pertaining to periodical publications has been amply evidenced by subsequent quotations from his own reports and letters. That he at least shares the prevailing ignorance as to the methods, and the result of methods, for handling the vast business of the federal Postoffice Department, I have already pointed out.

Possibly I am in error here, but when Senators and Congressmen who have studied for years the methods of handling business in the Postoffice Department were—and are—convinced that it is impossible for the most expert accountants to collect and collate dependable information, relating either to any of its divisions of service or to the department in general; when old and tried students of the loose, wasteful methods of this department, of its utter lack of business system, yes, of its crooks and crookedness—when, I say, such experienced students frankly and bluntly state their complete inability to gather any dependable data as to the business done by Mr. Hitchcock’s department, I am in doubt as to the correctness, or lack of correctness, in my previous intimation that Mr. Hitchcock is ignorant of his departmental affairs and practices, as well as of matters pertaining to periodical publication and distribution.

Mr. Hitchcock has been at the head of his department something like three years, I believe. He has talked so much and written so much about postal “deficits,” about the cause of those deficits and how to remedy them by holding up periodical publishers, that, maybe, he has learned more about his department, more about deficits and the cause of them—learned more about these things in three years than older and more experienced men have learned in ten years—yes, twenty.

Maybe he has. If so, then I was in error when I intimated that his ignorance extended to departmental matters as well as to periodical publishing. If, however, I was in error as to Mr. Hitchcock’s knowledge of his departmental matters, I find myself in a multitudinous and growing company of intelligent and informed people to whom he will have to talk and write much more, and to talk and write far more eloquently, persuasively and wisely than he has thus far talked and written, to convince them that he has accumulated more departmental wisdom in three years than numerous older students of the subject gathered in ten.

What training or opportunity Mr. Hitchcock had, previous to his installation in his present position, to qualify him for the office—training and opportunity which enabled him to grasp so comprehensively, as he would have it appear, the duties, functions, faults in accounting, frailties in the service personnel,—in short, all the essentials of knowledge and information pertaining to a competent administration of the department, general, divisional and in detail, I do not know.

Of course, Mr. Frank H. Hitchcock was chairman of the Republican National Committee in 1908, which committee, with the aid of “a very limited campaign fund,” as one colossally profound “stumper” put it, steered the votes to Judge Taft and himself to his present exalted position. Now, this experience of Mr. Hitchcock may or may not have especially qualified him for ready, quick and comprehensive understanding of all that the Postoffice Department needs to make it yield even a half of what the people of this country are today paying for.

It may have done so. Thoughtful people, however, are numerously entertaining a private opinion, and thousands of them are publicly expressing it, to the effect that, so far, Mr. Hitchcock’s voluminous talk about the affairs, methods, needs and “deficits” of his department displays a knowledge of the subjects he talks about far more comprehensive than comprehending. That is, he has talked assertively or persuasively, as his auditor or audience fit into his purpose, upon numerous departmental phases of administration, regarding which final analysis in the crucible of “plain hoss sense” shows he knows little.

And he knew less when he talked than he now knows. The periodical publishers of the country have been “handing him” some information, after they got notice of what he was trying “to put over,” since he went to President Taft not later than October or mid-November last. I say that, because President Taft covered Mr. Hitchcock’s idea (or scheme) of removing the postal department deficit in his December message for 1910.

Now, did Mr. Hitchcock influence President Taft, or did President Taft influence Mr. Hitchcock?