Postal Riders and Raiders

by W. H. Gantz

In 1902 the deficit for the postoffice operations was 2.4 per cent, the smallest percentage of deficit in 18 years and the smallest but two in 40 years.

RURAL FREE DELIVERY STEPS IN.

But in this year is seen for the first time, in important proportions, a new item of expense, $4,000,000 for rural free delivery. Our government had wisely and beneficently extended the service of the postoffice to farmers in isolated communities, regardless of the expense of so doing. The report of the Postmaster General for 1902 says: “It will be seen that had it not been for the large expenditure on account of rural free delivery, the receipts would have exceeded the expenditures by upward of $1,000,000.”

It will be clear, from these figures, which are taken from the reports of the Postmaster General, that beginning with the advent of the second-class pound-rate system, the deficit of the postoffice has steadily declined, the rate of decrease being always coincident with the expansion of circulation and advertising of periodicals, until in 1902 there was a substantial surplus, which the government wisely saw fit to use for a purpose not related to the needs of magazines and periodicals or to their expansion.

A REAL SURPLUS OF OVER $74,000,000 IN NINE YEARS.

Since 1902 there has always been a surplus in the operations of the Postoffice Department, outside of the money the Government has seen fit to expend for rural free delivery, (wisely, and otherwise wastefully.) In the present year, 1910, the report of the Postmaster General shows a surplus of over $23,000,000 outside the loss on the rural free delivery service of $29,000,000. The years 1902 to 1910 have each shown a surplus in the postoffice profit and loss account, the nine years aggregating over $74,000,000, outside the actual loss on the rural free delivery system.

How enormously second-class mail aids the department’s finances by originating profitable first-class postage can be appreciated by referring to the specific examples in Exhibit F.

It should be borne in mind that the turning of large deficits into actual surpluses, which has come coincidently with the expansion of second-class mail, of circulation pushing, and of advertising, has come in spite of an enormous expansion in governmental mail, carried free, and Congressional mail, franked, which has not been credited to the postoffice at all in calculating the actual surplus shown above.

Next the publishers come forward with “Exhibit F.” Their “Exhibit F” is not merely an “exhibit.” It is an exhibition, with a three-ring circus, a menagerie and moving pictures as a “side.” Candidly, I am of the opinion that it was this “Exhibit F” of the publishers which induced our friend, the Postmaster General, to loosen the clutch on his mental gear.

Of course, it is possible Mr. Hitchcock did not, nor has not, read this “F” of the publishers. If such a misfortune has cast its shadow across his promising career, I regret it.