You can take it from me flat that the man—any man—who hands you that sort of talk is either hired to talk it or he is mentally unsound.
The “interests” are already in the periodical business. They own, or control, at this hour, hundreds of newspapers, magazines and other periodicals. This is a matter of common knowledge to every citizen who reads when he is awake. Not only that, but the interests, banking, industrial, transportation, etc., have gone into the book publishing business (the bound book), and hundreds of thousands of copies of their capping “literature” have been distributed to the people, either free or at a price far below cost of production.
Not only that, but the “interests” are annually (now), distributing millions, in the aggregate hundreds of millions, of circular letters and circular matter, under seal and open circular-matter sheets, pamphlets, etc., first and third class, at a cost of eight cents a pound or more.
So, I repeat, the man who attempts to controvert my previous statement as to the intent, the ulterior motive, of the conspirators backing that rider to the 1911 postoffice appropriation bill is either hired—bought—or is a fool.
It is one of his easiest “stunts” for any writer to produce a “promotion” story or article. For instance: The “Packing Interest,” monthly or weekly, can print three or four “nice” stories. One, say, about “Lucy and Her Window Garden,” another about “High Light Pink, the Broncho Buster,” etc., etc. Then can follow a “literary” write-up of how “Jones Rose From a Wheelbarrow Man to Foreman in a Steel Mill,” or about how “Cruiser Miller Dropped His Blazing Ax and Became Partner in a Great Lumber Company,” etc., etc. After this may come a “Home Department,” and then a few local or “plant” news items.
In the first, your wife and mine will be told how to make her currants (not her currency) jell; how to make children “bread winners;” how to “crochet an art tidy,” or how to “Subsist a Family of Five on Thirty-Nine Cents a Day.”
In the “Local” or “Plant” news may appear some explanation of how Crawloffski, who had lost a leg in service, is “improving in the hospital” (County), and “is under the competent care of the company’s physician,” of the promotion of “Mr. James Field, formerly ‘run-way driver,’ to the position of ‘hammer-man’ in the slaughter pen, with an increase of $2.80 a week in salary.”
Of course, it will be understood that I am not giving the entire scope and plan of an “Interest’s” periodical. The point I am trying to establish is, that no “Interest” periodical will, for a time at any rate, advertise its own interests, save as news matter, and that each “Interest” can and will advertise the others—the mutual interests—and do it, too, at the cent-a-pound rate and without violating any postal law now existent.
I will now return to Mr. Hitchcock’s activity and arguments for this “rider” to that postoffice appropriation bill. I call it “his,” as, from the evidence, I am forced to the conclusion that it originated with him. Most certainly he nursed it and pushed it forward with the urgent solicitude which a fond father would display in advancing his first-born or favorite scion. The excerpts which I have taken from Mr. Blythe clearly evidence that fact.
Mr. Hitchcock is on record as stating that it costs “9.23 cents a pound to transport and handle second-class mail matter.” I am quoting from memory. Maybe he did not include “handling,” and put 9.23 cents per pound as the cost of transportation only. At all events I remember that one writer, with keen perception and a robust sense of the humor of things, as well as the justice involved, pointed out the fact that any of the competing railroads between New York city and Chicago (easily proven to be twice the “average mail haul”), would carry Mr. Taft, our 300-pound “good fellow” President, the “run” at less than 9 cents a pound. Incidentally the writer pointed out these facts: President Taft would have a sleeping berth or compartment, a porter in attendance, smoking room accommodations, likewise barber, manicure, buffet, library and dining-room services and conveniences. The Chief Executive would of course put himself on board and “discharge” himself at the terminal station.