The postoffice department might as well insist that a burglar-proof lock be affixed to every letter, under the inane impression that the only way to tear open a letter would be to pick a lock.
I know, too, personally and positively, of an instance where the great mass of western mail was sent over one railroad and when the bulk of it was transferred to another railroad, all the postal clerks previously employed were maintained on the first railroad for over two years after the mail had been transferred.
The Evening Journal, without any of the powers of the great United States government behind it, distributes its product for seven-tenths of a cent a pound, and included in this average is the 1-cent-a-pound rate paid to the government for copies mailed. Obviously, then, the proportion of the product which is not carried by the postoffice is delivered for much less than seven-tenths of a cent per pound.
The New York American distributes by mail and express 303,584 pounds of daily and Sunday papers every week at a cost of $1,655.17, or little over one-half a cent per pound. This average includes 28,028 pounds sent by mail at 1 cent per pound, so, obviously, the average of matter not distributed by mail is less than one-half a cent per pound.
The New York American sends 67,268 pounds of these papers over the Pennsylvania Railroad at one-fourth of a cent per pound, or one-fourth the rate paid to the United States postoffice department.
That same rate—one-fourth of a cent per pound—is exactly the rate charged by the Canadian Government for carrying magazines by mail through its postoffice department and for distributing them over a thinly populated territory even greater than the United States.
How absurd, then, to assert that the government cannot distribute the magazines profitably at this present rate when it handles the magazines along with all other mail distributed and without any particular extra expense because of them.
Even if, as I said, the government were handling the magazines at a loss, it would be doing a creditable thing. But it is not handling the magazines at a loss. It is carrying them at a profit, and if it taxes the magazines out of existence it will compel the postal department to be conducted at a greater loss than the loss at which it is now conducted.
What inconsistency, too, for the administration to advocate a government subsidy to restore a United States merchant marine and at the same time advocate a measure to put out of existence a much more important American institution.
If it is a Republican policy to promote business and encourage industry, and a proper Republican and American policy to take money out of the United States Treasury to subsidize a private business in order to create an industry, why is it not a proper Republican and American policy to continue to provide a cheap mail rate in order to maintain a great American industry and perpetuate a mighty educational influence already existent?