“Furthermore: If reduced carrying charges would enable American merchants to capture Brazilian trade by reducing selling prices, why wouldn’t reduced carrying charges tend toward lower selling prices in the United States?
“Finally: Is there any reason on earth why the United States Government, which is opposed to a parcels post in this country, through an official publication, welcomes a parcels post in Brazil—is there any reason except the one fact that there are no American express companies in Brazil?
“Figure it out for yourself. I have figured it out for myself. As I figure it out, the United States Government is treating us as if we were a little weak in the head; as if we are just foolish enough so that it was safe to print, in a semi-public official publication, an acknowledgment that all of its excuses for not giving us a parcels post are really impudent lies.…
“‘Should the mail trade have a government subsidy?’ asked one gentleman who represented an association of jobbing firms. Let us see how much honesty there is in this question. A subsidy implies the payment of money, either for nothing, or for something that is not immediately received in return. That is what these same rich gentlemen mean by subsidy when they ask you to subsidize American ships. What element of subsidy would there be in a parcels post that enabled the government to derive a great profit from the mail-order business? We have all the machinery for handling ‘packets’—costly postoffice buildings, cars, letter carriers, rural mail carriers. Why not use them? Why not let the rural mail carrier, whose average load is now 25 pounds, carry 500 pounds at a cent a pound? The postoffice department would earn $40,000,000 more a year if the rural wagons were loaded to the 500-pound limit.
“‘The fact is,’ said the same jobber gentleman, ‘that the United States Government cannot carry merchandise by parcels post without having to meet an enormous annual deficit for conducting the service.’ The fact is that the fact isn’t. What brazen effrontery to declare that the government would lose money carrying packages at a cent a pound, when the German government makes money by carrying packages at a little more than half a cent a pound! It is true that German rates are based upon distance, but it is also true that Germany, without any mail monopoly, competes with all comers and beats them out with low tariffs. The German government can compete with the German express companies because the German parcels post will accept packages up to a weight limit of 110³⁄₁₀ pounds, while our Government turns over to the express companies everything that weighs more than four pounds.
“Furthermore, if the carrying of packages is such a hazardous business that our Government should not dare to attempt it, how comes it that the express companies have become rich at it? The combined capital of the express companies is a little in excess of $48,000,000. For years, the big stockholders in express companies have been apoplectic with wealth. All of this money came from somewhere. All of this money came from those who consumed products sent by express. Only a few weeks ago the Interstate Commerce Commission brought out the fact that the Adams Express Company’s business in New England yielded a profit, in 1909, of 45 per cent, upon the investment. Yet, there was nothing brought out in the proceedings to show, that the Adams Express Company was gouging New England any harder than it was the rest of the country, or that the other express companies were not doing to the rest of the country approximately what the Adams was doing to New England. If you had the Government’s equipment for handling express matter, would you feel particularly frightened at a proposition to give you a monopoly of the ‘packet’ business at an average rate almost twice that of the German Government’s average rate?”
Knowing that my readers have not wearied of Mr. Benson, I shall presume to take further liberties with his articles on our subject. His handling of the point I have raised—railroad control of the express companies—is so informative and so able that I would do neither my readers nor my subject justice were I not to quote him and do it right here:
The railroads have become the express companies, not in legal fiction, but in transportational fact. The railroads largely own the express companies, entirely control the express companies, and, to all intents and purposes, are the express companies. We, the highly intelligent American people, simply don’t know these facts. Never has it seemed to occur to us that, since Benjamin Harrison was President and John Wanamaker was in his cabinet, the express grafters may have devised improved ways of working the express graft. Therefore, in this parcels post matter, we don’t know who is pushing the knife that we feel between our ribs. We accuse the express companies. A man who was being murdered might as well accuse the shadow of his murderer.
Perhaps the facts that follow will show you who are behind the shadows of the express companies. I quote from Senate Document No. 278, Sixtieth Congress:
| Stock held by railways in express companies | $20,668,000 |
| Railway securities owned by express companies | 34,542,950 |
| Holdings of express companies in the stock of other express companies | 11,618,125 |