Postal Riders and Raiders

by W. H. Gantz

Some years previously the congress authorized what was known as the Penrose-Overstreet Postal Commission, composed of members of the postoffice committees of the Senate and House, of which Senator Penrose was then the Senate chairman and the late Jesse Overstreet the House chairman. This commission met in various places, had long hearings and made a report and prepared a bill. Before making its report or preparing its bill the commission employed, at a cost of seventy-five thousand dollars, or thereabouts, chartered accountants and business experts to make a thorough examination into the business methods of the postoffice department, its expenditures and its resources. The results of the work of these examiners was incorporated in the report to Congress by the Penrose-Overstreet commission. It is notable that this commission asked the late Postmaster General, Charles Emory Smith, of Philadelphia, who was responsible for the statement that it cost seven cents a pound to transport second-class mail matter, where he got his figures, and he did not remember, nor would he testify concerning them.

At any rate, when the Penrose-Overstreet bill, providing for the reorganization of the Postoffice Department and the placing of that great institution on a business instead of a political basis, was introduced in the Senate and the House, it contained no recommendation for the increase in second-class postage, because the commission had been unable to find any figures of cost of second-class transportation on which such an increase could justifiably be demanded, even after expert examination of the books of the department by unprejudiced men.

Of course, I may be mistaken—I may be. But how, in the name of Jehosaphat, Pan and all the other ghostly deities of antiquity, does it happen that men like Samuel G. Blythe and hundreds of others,—men in position to learn and know the facts, likewise, who have both the ability and the courage to tell what they know—agree with me? Why, I ask, if I am mistaken in what I have said and am trying to say, do so many other men who have studied this question, all of them probably of greater ability, most of them certainly of far greater opportunity than have I, why, I inquire again, do they so unanimously concur in the judgment I am trying to pass on Mr. Hitchcock and his department?

I shall probably take the liberty, later, further to use the data given in Mr. Blythe’s timely and informative contribution, quoting or otherwise, for which I confidently feel he will excuse me. Just here, however, it is fitting that the reader be given a reprint of that night “rider” to which I have made so frequent reference.

House bill No. 31,539 brought the postoffice appropriation bill to the Senate. In the Senate it was read twice and then on February 9, 1911, it was referred to the Senate Committee on Postoffices and Postroads from which it was reported back by Senator Penrose, Chairman of the Committee, “with amendments.” It is only one of those amendments we shall here care to consider. That one appeared on page 21 of Senate Bill (Calendar No. 1067), and the “rider” portion begins at line 7. Following is the “rider:”

(Page 21.)
7	“Provided,
8	That out of the appropriation for inland mail transportation
9	the Postmaster General is authorized hereafter to
10	pay rental if necessary in Washington, District of Columbia,
11	and compensation to tabulators and clerks employed in connection
12	with the weighings for assistance in completing computations,
13	in connection with the expenses of taking the
14	weights of mails on railroad routes, as provided by law:
15	And provided further, That during the fiscal year ending
16	June thirtieth, nineteen hundred and twelve, the rate of postage
17	on textual and general reading matter contained in periodical
18	publications other than newspapers, as described in the
19	Act of Congress approved March third, eighteen hundred
20	and seventy-nine, entitled “An Act making appropriations
21	for the service of the Postoffice Department for the fiscal
22	year ending June thirtieth, eighteen hundred and eighty,
23	and for other purposes,” and in the publications described
24	in an Act of Congress approved July sixteenth, eighteen
25	hundred and ninety-four, entitled “An Act making appropriations
(Page 22.)
1	for the service of the Postoffice Department for
2	the fiscal year ending June thirtieth, eighteen hundred and
3	ninety-five,” shall be one cent per pound, or fraction thereof;
4	and on sheets of any publication of either of said classes
5	containing, in whole or part, any advertisement, whether
6	display, descriptive, or textual, four cents per pound or
7	fraction thereof; Provided, That the increased rate shall not
8	apply to publications mailing less than four thousand pounds
9	of each issue.”

As previously stated, and pointed out by Senator Owen, all amendments of character with the above are clearly in violation of Section 7, Article 1 of the Constitution of the United States. Here is the wording of that section:

“All bills for raising revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with amendments as on other bills.”

That is plain enough, is it not, as to the Senate’s lack of right or power to originate revenue-producing measures either by bill or amendment? A glance at lines 4 to 9 (page 22), as above quoted, will convince even a stranger in a strange town or a market garden delegate that this “rider” amendment, if it had passed, would originate revenue.

Mr. Hitchcock talked, so it is alleged, that it would produce $6,000,000 or more, thus removing that “deficit” he has had in his brain or on his mind. Some of the best qualified men in this country have shown, and they have used Mr. Hitchcock’s own figures in doing so, that the increased mail rate as this “rider” provided would not produce over $2,000,000 additional revenue, probably not over $1,000,000, after paying for the added clerical and inspection service which such a discriminating classification would require.