Postal Riders and Raiders

by W. H. Gantz

Pretty plain, straight talk that, is it not?

The resolution to appoint a commission of three members and appropriate $50,000 for the commission’s use was tacked onto the postoffice appropriation bill after the Senate “rider” was ditched. That resolution was under discussion in the House March 3rd (1911)—the usual swan-song day for those who failed to “arrive” at the November election. Mr. Weeks, chairman of the House Committee on Postoffices and Postroads, led the discussion. The discussion was participated in by several Congressmen, among whom was Congressman Moon of Tennessee. Judge Moon is recognized as one of the best informed men in Congress on postal matters, and particularly informed as to present methods of transporting and handling second-class mail. Mr. Moon, though a member of the conference committee which had just agreed to the bill, Senate resolution and all, as amended in conference, quite vigorously opposed the appropriation of $50,000 of the people’s money for a “Commission” to investigate the cost of transporting and handling second-class mail matter. He based his opposition largely on the fact that two or three previous commissions had been appointed to investigate the same question or matter; that these previous commissions had gone into the subject thoroughly, had collected every scrap of information that, under the present methods, or lack of method, in the postoffice department, it was or is possible to collect; that these commissions had spent hundreds of thousands of the people’s money; that they had made complete and exhaustive reports covering all the information obtained or obtainable; that these reports are on file and easily accessible, and that the postal committees of neither Senate nor House had given any attention or consideration to those reports.

From the many trenchant things said by Mr. Moon I take the following:

“If the gentleman will excuse me a minute, I am trying to get to another reason which I want to present to the House as to why I deem it inappropriate and unwise to pass this legislation. Now, when the experts undertake to determine just exactly what ought to be paid for the carrying of the magazines, how the government ought to be remunerated for the carrying and handling of these magazines, or other second-class matter, they are bound to take as the basis of the investigation the manner in which the second-class matter is now handled and the manner in which it is paid for. In other words, the basis of weighing and the computation of paying are the basic facts upon which they must rely in order to determine the question. I undertake to say to this House deliberately, that in view of our method of weighing and of the computation of railway mail pay, that no expert on the face of this earth can today come within fifteen or twenty millions of dollars of what the compensation ought to be for the transportation of second-class mail.

“If every fact has been adduced that would lead to a proper conclusion as to what the pay ought to be, if we are to go again over the same field of investigation with no possibility of any more light, tell me what sense there is in expending the public money for that purpose? And, then the very minute you undertake to reach the correct result you are confronted with a proposition that you cannot justly charge the cost of transportation and handling to a class of matter flatly that in itself produces a return to the government in another class of matter, probably in excess of the charges of transportation and handling of that matter itself—the second class. How are you to draw the lines for the determination of these questions? You are in the dark; it is a chaotic proposition, considering the method by which it must be determined today.”

I take it, that however much they may differ from him in his political and economic views, readers recognize in William Randolph Hearst one of the most alert and best informed men in this country on the subject of publishing and distributing periodical literature. He certainly ranks among the largest, if he is not indeed the largest, publisher and distributer of newspapers and other periodical prints there is in this country,—yes, I may say, in the world.

On February 24, 1911, a letter over Mr. Hearst’s signature appeared in the Washington Post. In this communication he touches upon the efficiency—rather the inefficiency—of the Postoffice Department in handling the postal service of this country. I would like to reproduce the letter entire, but cannot. I will, however, reprint some of its cogent statements which bear largely upon the point under consideration. Mr. Hearst says:

I know something about the cost of distribution of publications. I know something about the reasons for the excessive cost of distribution of the postoffice. And I say that the high cost of distribution in the postoffice is largely due to loose and careless and reckless methods, to antiquated systems and incompetent management.

It is estimated that 40 per cent of the charged weight of mail matter is composed of cumbersome mail bags and their heavy iron locks and fastenings.

How absurd to imagine that a man who wanted to break into a mail bag would be deterred by a ponderous lock.