CHAPTER V. THE PENROSE-OVERSTREET COMMISSION.

Next we will again take notice of Postmaster General Hitchcock’s peculiar figures. I do not know where he learned how to do it, but his “figerin’” has any expert accountant on the mat taking the count. He is certainly a “phenom”—or his Third Assistant, Mr. Britt, or other aid, is the “phenom.” At any rate the figures Mr. Hitchcock and his third “assist” are wonderfully, likewise mysteriously, worked into a little third-grade problem which makes it look like a proposition in trigonometry or fluxions.

It’s too complicated for me. I never had the advantage of hulling beans in Massachusetts. My cornfield arithmetic was all acquired in Illinois. So, instead of permitting myself to become enmeshed in Mr. Hitchcock’s figures, I shall resort to my frequently used tactics. I shall quote.

I have before me several analyses of Mr. Hitchcock’s peculiar application of the “double-rule-of-three,” as the schoolmaster used to call it down in that little school house at the cross roads in District 6, Town. 17, R. 3 E. The schoolmaster used to divide his time between “’rithmetic” and lamming. I graduated with honors in the latter. ’Rithmetic never seemed to take kindly to me—save to push me along in the lamming course. But——

Well, that is sufficient explanation to the reader to give broad, likewise legitimate, grounds for excusing me if I dodge, or try to dodge, Mr. Hitchcock and his Third Assistant when they get down to “figerin’.”

Candidly I am at a loss to know why young men of their physical robustness and their abnormal—yes, phenomenal—super-excellence in the matter of figuring things out, should be frittering away their time on a loafing job with the government. They ought to be holding down the chairs of Mathematics and of Expert Accounting at Onion Run University, or at some other advanced institution of learning.

But, as previously intimated, I am going to quote—am going to let someone else into the maelstrom of official figures.

I would not, however, have the reader think for a minute that I[92] lacked the courage to take the plunge myself. Not at all. I know my limitations. Mr. Hitchcock is not only a graduate of Harvard, but he is a graduate of two Republican party campaign committees. I’d be perfectly willing to take chances against Harvard in any game of figuring, but when it comes to sitting into the game with a graduate in two courses of party campaign figuring, one as Secretary and the other as Manager of the National Republican Committee,—well, when it comes to that, I believe the reader will excuse me if I push some more expert arithmeticians to the front.

I will first quote from the 1907 Joint Commission which investigated costs of second-class mail haulage and handling, and then I will quote the publishers whose figures Senator Owen so pertinently presented in connection with his remarks when speaking in opposition to the rider, February 25, 1911.

Being perfectly familiar with the proceedings of the Senate Committee on Postoffices and Postroads, he must, necessarily, have learned something from the publishers who came with the open, frank—yes, certified—information as to their business. Likewise, he must have got fairly well acquainted with Mr. Hitchcock and also have learned something of his promotive methods of figuring.

I have, as yet, not had the pleasure—the honor—of meeting Senator Owen or his strong, clean minded, clean acting colleague, Senator Gore, but I like them.

Why?

Because they stand on the floor of the Senate and fight—fight for what is right.

Now that I have a copy before me, I will proceed to quote from that report made by the 1907 commission—a commission which dug up more information regarding the haulage and handling of second-class mail matter than Mr. Hitchcock could possibly have gathered in two years as head of the Postoffice Department. The commission was composed of Senators Penrose, Carter and Clay and Congressmen Overstreet, Moon and Gardner, men far better informed as to federal postal affairs than is Postmaster General Hitchcock.

This commission was authorized by Congress to make inquiry regarding second-class mail matter. The reader may remember that I made reference to this report on a previous page. It presents much information and collated data, which, if Mr. Hitchcock had studiously[93] read would have enabled him to avoid many of the egregious blunders he has made at frequent intervals during the past two years when discussing the subject. It would, at any rate, have prudently curbed or restrained what appears in Mr. Hitchcock to be a native or acquired tendence to volume or tonnage in talk when he is speaking of second-class mail matters or of the publication and distribution of periodical literature. I do not concur in a number of the conclusions of this commission as presented in its report, but no fair-minded man can read that report without being convinced that the commissioners delved into the subjects of the classification of second-class mail matter and the cost, to the government, of its haulage and handling most earnestly; also as thoroughly and as deeply as the lack of organization in the Postoffice Department and its antiquated, careless and inaccurate accounting left it possible for anyone to go.

This commission began its sessions in New York, October 1, 1906. It sent advance notice to all the organizations of publishers in the country, to publishers not in organization, to editorial associations, to boards of trade, mercantile, commercial and trades associations and to other individuals and organizations that might be interested, directly or indirectly, in the subject matter to be investigated. It invited them to present their views, complaints, objections and suggestions in writing and also to send representatives to present their views and their grievances, if any, to the commission in person. The notice and invitation of the commission met with a large response from the newspapers and other periodical publishers, also from other individuals and associations interested in the distribution of periodical literature by reason of the commercial, educational, religious, fraternal, scientific or other benefits such literature conveyed to the people.

At the suggestion of this commission, the Postoffice Department prepared and delivered to it “an elaborate statement with exhibits” to show the “defects of the existing statute as developed in actual operation.” Also, the then Postmaster General, Mr. George B. Cortelyou, his Second Assistant, Mr. W. S. Shallenberger, and his Third Assistant, Mr. Edwin C. Madden, prepared and presented personal statements to the commission.

Now some readers may wonder why I so particularly present the work done by this commission for their consideration at this point in my discussion of the general subject we have under consideration. In[94] view of my previous statement, to the effect that I do not agree with some of the conclusions of this “Penrose-Overstreet Commission” some reader may wonder why I make reference to it at all. Well, there are several reasons why I do so and do it just at this point in the consideration of our general subject. Among those reasons are, briefly stated, the following:

The inquiry and investigation of this commission were broad, comprehensive and thorough.

Its report presents many arguments, recommendations and conclusions which must appeal to any man who is fairly well informed as to our federal postal service, as sound and sensible, however widely he may differ from the commission’s conclusions on some other points covered in its report.

Some readers who have seen and read the Penrose-Overstreet Commission’s report may possibly have concluded that it presents all the information collected and collated by the commission. The reader so concluding would, almost necessarily, think the information it presents insufficient, both in subject matter and in detail, to be as helpful to the Postmaster General as, on a previous page, I have asserted the work of this commission would be to Mr. Hitchcock, or would have been had he taken the trouble to consult the voluminous but carefully collated data gathered by the 1906-7 commission and on file in his department.

I will here quote a few lines from the report of the Penrose-Overstreet Commission in proof of the fact that its inquiry, investigations and work provided Postmaster General Hitchcock, had he but taken the time to consult it, a store of information vastly greater than that presented in its brief official report of sixty-three pages.

Read the following and you will readily understand why Representative Moon, on March 3, 1911, so strenuously objected to the appointment of another second-class mail commission and to spending $50,000 more of the people’s money to investigate a matter already thoroughly and comprehensively investigated and to collect and collate data which is already on file in the Postoffice Department. The quotation is from page 6 of the commission’s report. The italics are the writer’s:

In accordance with this plan, (outlined in immediately preceding paragraphs), which operated to economize the time as well of the commission as of[95] those appearing before it, a great volume of evidence was presented upon all aspects of the question from the standpoint both of the postal service and of the publications involved

…

The testimony taken by the commission at these hearings, with statements submitted in writing by publishers not orally heard, boards of trade, and the like, and other data collected by the commission in the course of its investigations, together with a complete digest of such testimony, are embodied in the record of its proceedings submitted with this report.

To the end of getting our corner stakes properly located in order to run our lot-lines correctly, I desire to quote further from the report of this 1906-7 commission. It says some pertinent things and says them hard. Before quoting, however, I desire to amplify a little on the character of that commission, on the general character of the men composing it as indicated in their official and public action.

The first point of interest for us commoners to note and appreciate is that the photographs of none of them, so far as I have been able to learn, have appeared in the rogues’ gallery. We may therefore presume that they are not only intelligent but “square” men—men worthy of Mr. Hitchcock’s consideration and respect as well as our own.

The second point worthy of note in considering the personnel of that commission is that none of them, so far as public reports show, ever had the advantages and opportunities of acquiring that peculiar and specialized knowledge of federal postal affairs, second-class or other, which may accrue to men from a postgraduate course in national party management.

In this connection, however, it may be said that some members of the commission may have come near to such unusual opportunities as just mentioned for acquiring expert knowledge of the classification, transportation and handling of second-class mail.

It is also fitting for me to say in speaking of the gentlemen composing that 1906-7 commission that, so far as I have been able to look up their biographies in the Congressional Directory and elsewhere, I find nothing to indicate that any of them ever tried to rob a smokehouse nor have any of them ever tried to put over any piece of “frame-up” legislation of the nature of Mr. Hitchcock’s “rider,” printed on a previous page—legislation to hobble, punish or ruin[96] periodicals honest enough and independent enough to tell the truth to a hundred millions of people.

The foregoing are some of the reasons—there are many others—why I think the membership of that Penrose-Overstreet Commission of 1906-7 was possessed of an ability, character and qualification to have commanded Mr. Hitchcock’s careful consideration of the information and data the commission so carefully collated, after thorough investigation, and submitted with its official report.

“Maybe he did make a careful study of that collated data?”

Yes, maybe he did. But if he did, then much of the “student discipline” and of the “study habit,” which graduates of Harvard are presumed to have acquired, must have lapsed in the shuffle of the cards from which recent years have dealt his hands. I say this respectfully as well as candidly.

I cannot think of it as possible for a man of Mr. Hitchcock’s known intellectual gauge to read—studiously read—the facts as presented in the testimony before that 1906-7 commission, or so read even the 63-page official report signed by five of the commissioners (Representative Gardner being ill at the time the report was submitted)—I cannot, I say, think it possible for any man of Mr. Hitchcock’s admitted intelligence to read that testimony, collated data and report, and then proceed to talk or write so wide of known facts as does he in parts of his 1909 and 1910 reports and in his letters to Senator Penrose, printed in previous pages.

It may be—yes, it is most probable—that the commission did not dig out all the facts. But admitting that, the further admission must be made by any fair-minded man that most of the facts it did dig out appear to be the very facts which Postmaster General Hitchcock ignored—ignored with the self-centered nonchalance of a “short story” cowboy when “busting” a broncho before an audience.

I shall now present a few statements from the report of that commission, first quoting some of the arguments presented by publishers who appeared at its hearings personally or by representatives, or who presented their views in writing on the various phases of the questions under consideration. The quotations made, the reader must understand to be the commission’s summary of what the publishers testified to, criticised or recommended, and not the full testimony or reports as made by the publishers.

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I have taken the liberty to italicize certain phrases and sentences in these quotations, my purpose being, of course, to bring the points so italicized more particularly to the reader’s notice:

The primary purpose and function of the postal service being the transportation of government and letter mail, second, third, and fourth class matter are not strictly chargeable with that proportion of the total cost of the service which would be equivalent to their proportion of total weight or volume, but these secondary classes, on the contrary, are chargeable only with that fraction of total cost which would remain after deducting all expenses of installation and general management involved in the maintenance of a complete postal service for government and letter mail. This method of computation should be applied not only in respect of the expenses of administration and handling, but especially in respect of the expense of railway mail transportation, in which, by reason of the sliding scale of payment, the additional burden of second-class matter entailed but an infinitesimal additional cost. As an illustration of this point, attention was drawn to the statement of Dr. Henry C. Adams, in his report to the commission of 1898 (p. 404), that if the volume of mail had been decreased so that the ton-mileage had been 169,809,000 instead of 272,000,000, the railway mail pay would have been practically the same.

In other words, the argument is that the true cost of second-class matter is merely that part of total cost which would be saved if second-class matter were now eliminated.

The foregoing is from page 9 of the commission’s report. On the same page of the report it gives a summary of another set of reasons presented by the publishers in their argument in support of their contention that the mail rate on second-class matter should be low:

That second-class matter, by reason of the fact that it is handled largely in bulk in full sacks already routed and separated and requires little or no handling by the railway mail service or the force at the office of mailing and of delivery, is in fact the least expensive class of matter. With respect to the proportion so routed and separated, it was variously estimated by the publishers as from 70 to 93 per cent of the total weight. The assistant postmaster at New York fixed the percentage for his office at 67 per cent, and the assistant postmaster at Chicago estimated it, for the country at large, to be between 50 and 60 per cent.

The representative of the American Newspaper Publishers’ Association, speaking for the metropolitan daily press, stated that less than 6 per cent of their circulation went into the mail at all, in many instances the proportion being as low as two-thirds of 1 per cent; that the radius of circulation was not more than 150 miles; that their mailings averaged 49 pounds per sack, and that 93 per cent of all second-class matter going out of New York city, for example, was already sorted and routed. It was admitted, however, that while the newspapers avail themselves of express and railway transportation for matter sent out in bulk, single copies sent to individual subscribers invariably went by mail.

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Postmaster General Hitchcock appears to have largely ignored the fact so clearly pointed out by the publishers in 1906—yes, pointed out as long ago as 1898—that second-class mail matter is a large producer of the revenues received by the government from mail matter of the first, third and fourth classes. Following is a summary of what the publishers pointed out to the 1906-7 commission:

There is an immense indirect revenue on second-class matter, due to the fact that second-class matter is itself the cause of a great volume of first-class matter, upon which the department reaps a handsome profit. While the extent to which first-class matter is thus indebted to second-class matter is necessarily indeterminate, attempts were made to illustrate it by particular instances. This was done by computing the amount of first-class mail arising, first, from the direct correspondence between a publisher and the readers, and secondly, from correspondence, between the readers and the advertisers, resulting from the insertion of the advertisements. In the instances chosen, the first-class matter thus stimulated appeared to be very considerable. Upon this basis it was argued that any reduction in the volume of second-class matter would inevitably be followed by a corresponding reduction in first-class matter. This would not only deprive the Postoffice Department of the revenue from the first-class matter, but by diminishing the total weight of the mails would correspondingly increase the rate of mail pay, so that the net result of the elimination of the socially valuable second-class matter would be an actual increase in the total cost of the service.

The foregoing is taken from pages 12 and 13 of the commission’s report. I desire to quote further from page 13—four paragraphs—and I urge they be read with care. The reader, too, should remember that this is not all that the publishers said on the points touched upon. It is, however, no doubt a fair epitome or summary of what they said or wrote to the commission. The reader should also keep in mind the fact that what they said and wrote was said and written in 1906, and all they said and wrote is on file and easily accessible to Postmaster General Hitchcock:

Within an average radius of 500 miles the express companies and railways stand willing to transport second-class matter, in bulk packages weighing not less than 5 to 10 pounds to a single address or to be called for, at rates actually lower than the second-class postage rate. Inasmuch as the average haul of second-class matter was reported by the Wolcott commission (p. 319), to be but 438 miles, it is impossible that the government should lose anything upon the transportation of this class of matter, or if in fact it should be found to be doing so, the loss must arise from an overpayment to the railways.

Even if it should be found that second-class matter was being carried at a distinct loss, that loss would be entirely justified by the educational value of the periodical press. From the beginning of the republic it had been the policy of[99] Congress to foster and assist the dissemination of information and intelligence among the people. Next to the great public school systems maintained by the states, the newspaper and periodical are the chief agency of social progress and enlightenment. So far from this being a subsidy to the publisher the advantage of the low postage rate had been passed on to the subscriber in the form of a better periodical and a more efficient service. Any substantial increase in the postal rates, while for the time being bearing heavily on the publisher, must eventually fall upon the subscriber, either in the form of an increased price for his reading matter or of a deterioration in the quality of that matter.

The correct method of dealing with the question of cost is to treat the service as a whole, and if the revenue for the whole service, including allowance for government mail, meets the cost of the whole service, it is immaterial whether each class of that service pays its own cost, or even whether the cost of one class has to be made up by a greater charge upon other classes.

With respect to rates, with the exception of some of the representatives of the stockyards journals, periodical publications were a unit against any increase. It was urged that the periodical publishing business has been built up on the present second-class rates, and that a change from 1 cent a pound to 4 cents, as suggested by the Third Assistant Postmaster General, would cripple, if not destroy, every existing periodical. While some would, perhaps, be able to adjust their business to the new rates and survive, the majority would perish, and the loss would fall heaviest on the smaller and weaker periodicals.

We will next note some things which that 1906-7 commission said on its own account or quotes some one in whose opinion they concurred or did not, as the case might be.

Some pages back, I told the reader, in effect, that while this commission’s official report was a good one, presenting some valuable suggestions, I did not agree with certain of its recommendations and conclusions. Now, any adverse criticisms I intend to make concerning that report are, I think, best made right here, after which I will quote a few paragraphs from it which I believe highly commendable. There are many suggestions and recommendations that I believe would be of great value did the department but act upon them, and the vast amount of data the commission collected and made a digest of would, had he but looked into it carefully, most certainly have persuaded Postmaster General Hitchcock to speak and write less loosely on the subjects of second-class mail rates and periodical publication and distribution, induced him to talk in a way that would not leave the impression with studious, thoughtful auditors and readers that he got his opinions at a bargain sale during its rush hours.

I shall comment adversely on but a few points of the commission’s[100] report. Three of its members (Senators Carter and Clay and Representative Overstreet) have passed—not off the edge of life but to official retirement, or, maybe, to the political morgue. They, in time, may be able to “come back.” The Man on the Ladder has heard varied opinions—some of them decidedly variegated, too—anent the probability of those three gentlemen coming back. Personally I am not sufficiently acquainted with their official service careers to justify the expression of an opinion of them. If, while in office, they directed their efforts and activities to a service of their constituents and the interests of the people in general, let us hope they may “come back.” On the other hand, if while in office they were but working models of the so-called “practical” politician, then, as a matter both of self-respect and of duty, we must hope they stay in the morgue.

“The ‘practical’ politician is the working politician.”

Well, yes, that may be. But most of those within range of my vision from the ladder top appear to be devoting their most active and strenuous industry to “working” the people.

No, I do not like that type of human animal popularly designated as a “practical” politician. Especially do I not like him in public office—executive, legislative or judicial—elective or appointive, and I have run the lines on a good many of them. Most of them when in positions of official power and opportunity act as if their consciences had been handed down in original packages direct from their jungle ancestors. At any rate most of those in positions of official power and authority seem to follow one working rule, and follow it, too, both industriously and consistently.

To conceal one theft, steal more.

The typical “practical” politician, when holding down a public office, usually holds-up the people. They pose and talk as courageous patriots and large thinkers. Under close scrutiny, however, most of them will show up or show down merely as discreet private or personal interest liars.

But I have permitted my field glass to ramble from the specific to the general. Whether the three passed members of the 1906-7 commission are politically dead or taking only a temporarily enforced rest, the situation is one which suggests the propriety of that subdued and respectful tone one is expected to use when standing by as a friend is lowered to an enforced rest.

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I shall now offer my strictures of a few recommendations made by the 1906-7 commission and of some of the arguments the commission’s report offers to their support.

The first objection I find to the report of this Penrose-Overstreet Commission is that several of its paragraphs indicate that the commission appears to have been afflicted with Mr. Hitchcock’s current ailment—an ingrown idea that some action, legislative or other, must be taken in order to curb the circulation growth and keep down the piece or copy-weight of periodicals. To The Man on the Ladder such an idea is not only faulty to the point of foolishness but it violates long established and successfully applied business practices in the transportation and handling of goods or commodities, whatever their character. The idea, it would appear, is based upon an oft-repeated but nevertheless false statement of fact, to the effect that the government is losing money in the carriage and handling of second-class mail at the cent-a-pound rate.

The falsity of that statement I shall conclusively prove to the reader later, if he will be so indulgent as to follow me. Here I shall say only this: If the government has ever lost a cent in rail or other haulage and handling of second-class mail matter, such loss has been wholly the result of excessive payments to railroads, Star Route and ocean carriers, to political rather than business management and to permitted raiding of the postal revenues in various ways—from overmanning the official and service force to downright thievery.

I have adverted on a previous page to the stealings of the Machen-Beavers gang, exposed by the investigation of Joseph L. Bristow, and a stench still exhales from the Star Route lootings exposed some years previous. In the Star Route case, the waste—a more fitting word is thievery—the stealing was largely effected through the medium of “joker”-loaded or unnecessary contracts, the contracts running to the advantage of some thief who “stood in” with the party in power.

Nor has all the Star Route grafting and stealing been stopped, though both Postmaster General Hitchcock and his recent predecessor, Mr. George B. Cortelyou, deserve great praise for having eliminated much of it, and Mr. Hitchcock’s active, continued efforts to further clean out that Augean stable must command the hearty approval of every honest citizen. But, as just stated, some of the original graft and steal still lingers.

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Last year I personally investigated one Star Route. It was a twenty-mile drive (round trip). The contractor was receiving $600 or more a year for the service. What he paid the villager to cover the route with his patriarchal team I do not know. The villager, however, picked up a little on the side by hauling over his drive local parcels, some merchandise and an occasional passenger. I watched his mail deliveries to the village office for ten days. On no day did the revenue to the government exceed sixty cents, and on seven of the ten days it was below twenty cents. One day it was but ten cents.

In this connection it should also be mentioned that the village which that Star Route was presumed to serve was on a regular rural route and received fully 95% of its mail by special carrier service connecting with a trunk line station only six miles away.

But to return to my objection to the manifest efforts of the Postmaster General and of recommendations in the Penrose-Overstreet report to adopt methods or secure legislation to restrain increase in both the circulation and the copy-weight of periodicals. Of course if the government really sustains a loss on the carriage and handling of second-class matter, the loss would be greater on 160 tons than on 80 tons. I, however, contend, and shall later prove, that—barring waste, payroll loafing and stealage—the government now transports and handles second-class matter at a profit.

Postmaster General Hitchcock, so far as I have found time to read him, has made no particular effort to restrict or limit the piece or copy-weight of periodicals. He was, seemingly at least, so occupied in his efforts to “get” a few periodicals through the means of that unconstitutional “rider” of his that he had little or no time for anything else. But the 1906-7 commission boldly advocated a penalizing of periodical weight for copies mailed to piece, or individual, addresses.

A table of graduated increases is given and some very peculiar argument, to put it mildly, is presented to support the recommended scale, or system, of weight penalization. Following I quote from pages 28-29 of the commission’s report. The italics are mine:

The rate then for copy service would be one-eighth of a cent per copy not to exceed 2 ounces, one-quarter cent per copy not to exceed 4 ounces, and one-half[103] cent for each additional 4 ounces or fraction thereof to be prepaid in money as second-class postage is now paid. Tabulated, it would appear thus:
Not exceeding—     Cents.
2 ounces     ?
4 ounces     ?
8 ounces     ?
12 ounces     1?
16 ounces     1?
20 ounces     2?
24 ounces     2?
28 ounces     3?
Etc., etc.

The net result calculated by the pound will be, upon the periodicals above the average weight of 4 ounces and not exceeding a pound, a change from 1 to about 1? cents per pound. For heavier periodicals the rate would average 1? cents per pound for those weighing 2 pounds, and increasing by an infinitesimal fraction with the proportion of weight above 4 ounces but never reaching, no matter how heavy the periodical may grow, the limit of 2 cents per pound.

While the actual increase of rate upon the normal periodical, especially in view of the publisher’s right at all times to send it by bulk at a cent a pound, would be so small as not to upset his business, there would be two advantages to the postal revenue, one at each end of the line.

(1) The making of a definite minimum charge for the handling of the individual piece. (2) Increase of revenue as the periodical grows heavier, due to the fact that the initial rate of one-quarter cent for 4 ounces is less than the incremental rate.

This system of payment by the individual piece with a minimum limit of weight and an increased rate for each increment of weight is common to the postal systems of the entire world with the exceptions of Canada and the United States. The only difference is that in the present project the incremental rate is higher than the initial rate.

Although this graduated scale would appear to be more favorable to the smaller periodical than to the large one, it must be borne in mind that the periodical weighing less than 1 ounce and of necessity paying the initial rate of one-quarter cent would be paying a rate (2 cents per pound), slightly greater than the large periodical. This increase upon the periodical weighing less than 2 ounces finds ample justification in the obvious fact that the expense of handling second class matter is not to be measured simply by gross weight. On the contrary, as was pointed out by the representatives of the publishers in comparing the cost of handling second-class with that of first-class mail, such expense is to be measured by the number of pieces handled and frequency of handling. A pound of periodicals which is made up of 10 or 12 or, as is sometimes the case, 30 or 40 separate pieces, each one of which requires a separate course of handling and delivery, can not with justice be treated as the equivalent of a pound of matter which requires but two, or, at most, four courses of handling and delivery.

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This increase would be offset, moreover, for the normal periodical weighing less than 2 ounces, the country weekly, by the retention of the free county privilege.

The foregoing is substantially the commission’s whole argument, save a little more talk about “normal” periodicals, “normal” weeklies, and a statement to the effect that all countries, other than the United States and Canada, increase the piece, or copy, postage rate as the weight of the periodical increases—that is, these other countries do not give a flat pound, gram or other unit of weight rate.

Now, I shall briefly state my objections to some points in the above quotation—those points I have italicized.

The reader, however, must bear in mind that the scale of increase in mail rates above reprinted applies only to single copies—to copies mailed to individual addresses. For copies mailed in bulk, in packages weighing not less than ten pounds, to some agent of the publisher or other individual, to be taken up by the agent or individual at train or at central postoffice, the commission recommended the cent-a-pound rate.

In adverse criticism of the commission’s argument for penalizing weight, because all foreign countries do so, I need but say:

1. There are more high-class newspapers—papers which, necessarily, have weight—published in this country than is published in all the rest of the world.

2. There are four times as many of what the 1906-7 commission—also Postmaster General Hitchcock—would class as “periodicals” published in this country as are published in all the rest of the world.

Sounds “loud,” does it? Well, look into the matter. Maybe I am mistaken. If so, it is a mistake made after thirty years of study of the conditions controlling in my country—in your country—and of the prices paid in other countries for efficient, satisfactory service.

3. Those “other countries”—the stronger ones, at any rate—either own or absolutely control the railroads which transport their mails. In some of them, rail transportation of mails—also of government officials, the service personnel of the army and the navy, and of other government “weight”—are carried free of charge.

4. Those “other countries,” of which so much is said and written ostensibly for our enlightenment, have gone through the mill—their[105] peoples have been ground fine in mills of sophistry and special pleadings, to which, for fifty years, we have been carrying our grists.

5. Those “other countries” are making their mail service a source of governmental revenue.

The people of this country, today, no more expect a revenue from the government’s postal service than they expect it from the War, the Navy, the Interior, the Judicial or other service department.

The people want service, not revenues, from any federal service department.

And you gentlemen who vote away the people’s money for services not rendered—which you know will not be rendered when you vote to “burn” the money—will, before those independent periodicals are through with the recent sand-bagging attempt to censor or control their published thought—you will learn, I mean to say, that people want service not revenues; that they want “duty,” as an engineer would name it, not a coached prattle about B. T. U. or other legislative and official thermics.

Now, let us look back at that quotation—at some of the points in it I have italicized.

First paragraph quoted: Aside from small country dailies—now carried by mail to addresses inside the county of publication free—and fraternal papers, Sunday School sheets and similar publications, there are few periodicals published in this country which weigh two ounces or less.

First paragraph following tabulation: “The rate would average 1? cents per pound” for periodicals weighing two pounds.

A glance at the table shows that the piece or copy rate on a periodical weighing 28 ounces is given as 3? cents. A periodical weighing two pounds, or 32 ounces, would be charged a half cent more, or 3? cents for mail carriage and delivery, instead of 2 cents as now.

Second paragraph following the table, also in last paragraph quoted: “Normal” periodicals.

What is a “normal” periodical? Are the 4 or 8 page weeklies published in the back counties and the small religious, college, Sunday school and fraternal sheets that weigh two ounces or less “normal” periodicals? Are the dailies of our large cities, weighing from four to twelve ounces, “normal” periodicals? Is the Saturday Evening Post, weighing from ten to twenty ounces a “normal” periodical?

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Are any of the periodicals in the following descriptive list “normal?”

The newspapers and other periodicals named in the following tabulation are those I could find within convenient, likewise hurried, reach. I tried to get them as near concurrent dates as I could. The tabulation will show the reader the proportion of advertising to body matter, printed in the different periodicals on the dates named.

Readers particularly interested in the data presented in the tabulation should, however, understand that for the newspapers listed, no account was taken of the “write-up” or “promotion” advertising printed as reading matter. Some newspapers, at certain times, carry a considerable amount of such paid matter while the standard monthly and weekly periodicals carry little or none of it at any time:
NAME OF PERIODICAL.     Date of Issue.     No. of Pages or Columns.[2]     Reading Matter, Pages or Columns.[3]     Advertising Matter, Pages or Columns.[4]     Gross Weight of the Periodical.
NEWSPAPERS.                                    
Chicago.                                    
The Examiner.                                    
Sunday Edition     6-11-11     392     Cols.     171?     Cols.     220?     Cols.     15     ozs.
Daily Edition     6-8-11     126     ”     77?     ”     48?     ”     4?     ”
Record Herald.                                    
Sunday Edition     6-11-11     448     ”     286?     ”     161?     ”     18     ”
Supplement[5]         20     pp.     14     pp.     6     pp.        
Daily Edition     6-8-11     126     Cols.     77?     Cols.     48?     Cols.     5     ”
The Tribune.                                    
Sunday Edition     6-11-11     490     ”     212?     ”     277?     ”     20     ”
Supplement         30     pp.     22?     pp.     7?     pp.        
Daily Edition     6-8-11     168     Cols.     86?     Cols.     81?     Cols.     6?     ”
Inter Ocean.                                    
Sunday Edition     6-11-11     316     ”     242?     ”     73?     ”     12     ”
Daily Edition     6-8-11     84     ”     59?     ”     24?     ”     4     ”
The American.     6-8-11     126     ”     65     ”     61     ”     4?     ”
Daily News.     6-8-11     210     ”     87     ”     123     ”     7?     ”
Daily Journal.     6-8-11     112     ”     63?     ”     48?     ”     4?     ”
[107]The Evening Post.     6-8-11     84     ”     64?     ”     19?     ”     3?     ”
Boston.                                    
The Globe.                                    
Sunday Edition     6-11-11     720     ”     399     ”     321     ”     25     ”
Supplement         28     pp.     20?     pp.     7?     pp.        
Daily Edition     6-12-11     128     Cols.     102?     Cols.     25?     Cols.     4     ”
New York City.                                    
The American.                                    
Sunday Edition     6-11-11     392     ”     221?     ”     170?     ”     12?     ”
The Herald.                                    
Sunday Edition     6-11-11     728     ”     373     ”     355     ”     23?     ”
Daily Edition     6-12-11     114     ”     73?     ”     40?     ”     4     ”
Philadelphia.                                    
The Enquirer.                                    
Sunday Edition     6-11-11     576     ”     339?     ”     236?     ”     18?     ”
Daily Edition     6-12-11     128     ”     65?     ”     62?     ”     4     ”
Pittsburg.                                    
The Gazette Times.                                    
Sunday Edition     6-11-11     504     ”     358?     ”     145?     ”     15?     ”
Supplement         20     pp.     15?     pp.     4?     pp.        
Daily Edition     6-12-11     84     Cols.     56     Cols.     29     Cols.     3     ”
Cleveland.                                    
The Plain Dealer.                                    
Sunday Edition     6-11-11     512     ”     292     ”     230     ”     16?     ”
Daily Edition     6-13-11     112     ”     71     ”     41     ”     3?     ”
Cincinnati.                                    
The Enquirer.                                    
Daily Edition     6-13-11     112     ”     66?     ”     45?     ”     4     ”
Louisville.                                    
The Courier Journal.                                    
Daily Edition     6-10-11     112     ”     91?     ”     20?     ”     4     ”
St. Louis.                                    
Post Dispatch.                                    
Sunday Edition     6-11-11     400     ”     261?     ”     138?     ”     12     ”
Globe Democrat.                                    
Daily Edition     6-13-11     112     ”     67?     ”     44?     ”     4     ”
Kansas City.                                    
The Star.                                    
Daily Edition     6-15-11     112     ”     61?     ”     50?     ”     4     ”
San Francisco.                                    
The Chronicle.                                    
[108]Daily Edition     6-10-11     126     ”     86?     ”     39?     ”     4?     ”
Los Angeles.                                    
The Times.                                    
Sunday Edition     6-4-11     1170     Cols.     586?     Cols.     583?     Cols.     35?     Ozs.
Supplement         30     pp.     24?     pp.     5?     pp.        
MONTHLY AND WEEKLY PERIODICALS.                                    
Everybody’s Mag.     4-1911     316     ”     146     ”     170     ”     22     ”
” ”     7-1911     284     ”     140     ”     144     ”     20     ”
Cosmopolitan ”     3-1911     266     ”     144?     ”     120?     ”     18     ”
” ”     7-1911     288     ”     146?     ”     141?     ”     17     ”
McClure’s ”     6-1911     244     ”     113?     ”     130?     ”     12     ”
American ”     6-1911     224     ”     132?     ”     91?     ”     15     ”
Pearson’s ”     6-1911     206     ”     143     ”     63     ”     16?     ”
Sat. Evening Post     5-20-11     68     ”     32?     ”     35?     ”     9     ”
” ” ”     6-3-11     80     ”     33?     ”     46?     ”     10     ”
Ladies’ Home Jour’l     6-19-11     84     ”     52?     ”     31?     ”     16     ”
The Literary Digest     5-13-11     72     ”     37?     ”     34?     ”     8     ”
Inland Printer     3-1911     176     ”     68?     ”     87?     ”     24     ”
Publishers’ Weekly     3-18-11     136     ”     62?     ”     73?     ”     7?     ”
Review of Reviews     6-1911     268     ”     129     ”     139     ”     17     ”
Scribner’s Magazine     6-1911     250     ”     134     ”     116     ”     16     ”
Harpers’ ”     6-1911     284     ”     164     ”     120     ”     21     ”
Popular ”     4-10-11     286     ”     226     ”     42     ”     14     ”
The Argosy     5-19-11     246     ”     194     ”     52     ”     12     ”
The All Story     4-19-11     228     ”     194     ”     34     ”     11     ”
The New Magazine     5-19-11     200     ”     192     ”     8     ”     10     ”

Next to last paragraph: Note the statement that “the periodical weighing less than one ounce” must “of necessity” pay the “initial rate of one-quarter cent” or “two cents per pound.”

The initial rate as given in the table is but one-eighth of a cent.[109] That would make a per copy mail rate of two cents per pound, whereas an initial rate of one-quarter cent per copy would make four-page sheets and leaflets “normal” periodicals weighing less than one ounce pay at a rate of four cents per pound.

Next, note the crossed argument in the paragraph just referred to. The commission seems to accept the argument made by the publishers—that it cost less to handle a pound of mail made up of but one to four pieces than it costs to handle a pound made up of from ten to fifty pieces. That is a fact which admits of no controversy, is it not?

Then why did this commission advise the adoption of a flat rate of increase of two cents a pound (one-half cent for each four ounces), as the mail rate on periodicals weighing more than four ounces.

If the argument of the paragraph just cited is sound—and it certainly is sound—a just graduation of the mail charge for the carriage and piece handling of the heavier periodicals should scale downwards and not continue a flat rate, especially not continue at a flat rate on increase in weight that is greatly excessive, as two cents a pound certainly is.

I shall speak further of periodical weights later in connection with railway mail pay and car rentals. The report of this 1906-7 commission in various other paragraphs manifests a clear intent to restrict and, if possible, to curtail the expansion of second-class mail matter, not only by curbing the enlargement of periodicals in size by increasing the second-class rate and by penalizing added weight, but by putting restrictions upon the periodical publisher which must necessarily make it more difficult for him to increase his circulation. These restrictions, so far as yet expressed, apply to the publisher’s sample copy privileges and to the amount of advertising a periodical may carry.

On page 48 of its report the commission, speaking of methods to curb a periodical’s growth in both circulation and weight, advises that the following be covered into the law in lieu of certain phrasings now in the statutes and which, the commission asserts, have proved quite inadequate in restraining periodicals from expanding their circulation beyond a point which they are pleased to call “normal.” They advise that the law “enforce the requirement that the periodical may be issued and circulated only in response to a public demand.”

[110]

In the draft of a bill which this 1906-7 commission recommends become a law, the following are the means by which circulation “only in response to a public demand” will be attained:

(a) By reducing to a minimum the sample copy, which is one of the main agencies of inflation. The legitimate periodical employing this means only to a slight extent will not be at all affected.

(b) By abolishing all premiums, whether of printed matter or merchandise.

(c) By either prohibiting all combination offers, as, for example, a set of books with a magazine, or requiring that in all cases a price shall be set upon both elements of the combination and that the full advertised price of the periodical be paid.

(d) By requiring that the publication shall print conspicuously, not only its regular subscription price, but any reduced price at which it is offered in clubbing arrangements and the like.

(e) By providing that all copies which the postmaster, in the exercise of due diligence shall be unable to deliver, shall be returned with a postage-due stamp for an amount equal to double the third-class rate. In other words, charge the publisher the third-class rate both for the forwarding and the returning of any copy sent otherwise than in response to an actual demand.

To The Man on the Ladder the commission’s talk, advising the enforcement of “the requirements that the periodical may be issued and circulated only in response to a public demand” (page 40 of report), reads much like one of two things—either the inconsidered or ill-considered prattle of persons who want to say something, or the argument of ulterior motive—of a covert purpose to restrict, to cripple, to kill the greatest instrument for the education of its adult citizens which any nation of earth has to date discovered—an instrument that is economically within easy reach of its exchequer.

How much of a “public demand” does the reader think there would have been for the reaper, for the thrashing machine, for the case-hardened, steel shared plow, for the sewing machine, for the triple expansion engine, for the traveling crane, for any brand of breakfast food, of ham, of flour, books—in short, how much of “public demand” would there have been for any of the mechanical inventions, for any of the multitude of betterments in the housing, clothing and subsisting of our people, had not that “public demand” been created? No one wants anything, however excellent it may be, until his attention is called to it and he believes it will aid him or her, as the case may be, that it will lighten the stress of labor or increase its product, or in other lines and directions improve the conditions of[111] their lives, industrially or otherwise. Ninety-nine per cent of “public opinion,” as to whether or not that public wants or does not want this, that or the other thing is influenced—is promoted by what it senses in personal contact with the thing or by what it hears said of it or reads of it.

That statement is as true of the members of the 1906-7 commission and of Postmaster General Hitchcock as it is of Mr. William Mossback of Mossville, Connecticut. The “demand” of each of us—our desire to possess this or that—is prompted—is created—by what we see, hear, feel, taste, smell or read of it. We stand at the head of the nations of earth for progress in the various fields of mechanical improvement, from kitchen utensils to laundry equipment, from the plow to the electric crane. What is true of the progress of our people through the adoption of labor-saving mechanical devices, implements and machinery is correspondingly true in various other fields of progress—a progress largely the result of promoted “demand” for the better things, for the improvements of which our people have read in our newspapers and in our monthly and weekly publications—yes, read of in the advertisements and in descriptive write-ups of such periodicals, if you will have it so.

So this prattle about issuing a periodical “only to public demand” is not only prattle—it is not only unsound and unbusinesslike both in theory and service practice, but it is also a stealthy attempt to garrote the facts, likewise an attempt to subject the great publishing interests of the country to the rankest kind of injustice.

How is the publisher to secure additional subscribers if he be denied mailing privilege to sample copies?

True, the bill recommended by this commission would allow the publisher to mail sample copies to the extent of ten per cent of his subscribed issue. Mr. Hitchcock, however, as I shall shortly show, proposes to exclude all sample copies from the mails.

The following is quoted from Mr. Hitchcock’s 1910 report and shows that the Postoffice Department, as at present directed, is determined to curb the growth and development of periodical literature in this country in every way possible—ways that scruple not at biased rulings and grossly unjust distinctions. In the following Mr. Hitchcock is after what he is pleased to designate as an “abuse of the sample-copy privilege.”

[112]

In order to discontinue the privilege of mailing sample copies at the cent-a-pound rate, legislation in substantially the following form is suggested:

That so much of the act approved March 3, 1885 (23 Stat., 387), as relates to publications of the second class be amended to read as follows:

“That hereafter all publications of the second-class, except as provided by Section 25 of the act of March 3, 1879 (20 Stat., 361), when sent to subscribers by the publishers thereof and from the known offices of publication, or when sent from news agents to subscribers thereto or to other news agents for the purpose of sale, shall be entitled to transmission through the mails at one cent a pound or fraction thereof, such postage to be prepaid as now provided by law.”

In drafting the above recommended legislation Mr. Hitchcock no doubt was greatly assisted by the luminous suggestions, advice, analyses, etc., of his Third Assistant, Mr. Britt, to be found on pages 331 and 332 of the 1910 report—which suggestions, advice, etc., is based largely on “estimates”—“estimates” which any student or careful observer of the Postoffice Department methods of figuring and accounting will readily discern are, in several particulars, somewhat “influenced,” if not, indeed, “fixed.”

Up to January 1, 1908, periodical publishers were allowed to mail sample copies of any issue in number equal to that of their subscribed lists. Acting on the recommendation of the Penrose-Overstreet Commission, no doubt approved by Mr. Hitchcock, the mailing privilege on sample copies was cut down, January 1, 1908, to 10 per cent of the subscribed issue. Now comes Mr. Hitchcock with a bit of recommended legislation, as quoted above, which would, if favorably acted upon by Congress, deny the mailing privilege to all sample copies at the cent-a-pound rate.

Though not pertinent to the subject immediately under consideration, I desire here to call the reader’s attention again to a point in Mr. Hitchcock’s recommended legislation as quoted above—a point which is conspicuously worthy of a second notice and to which I have called attention on a previous page.

Mr. Hitchcock’s report, from which the foregoing piece of recommended legislation is quoted, bears date of December 1, 1910. Keep that in mind. In that recommendation he would grant a continuance of the cent-a-pound postage rate on periodicals “sent to subscribers,” but to such only. No sample copies are to be carried and handled,[113] mind you, at the cent-a-pound rate after Mr. Hitchcock’s recommendation becomes law—that is, if it ever does become law.

Now, the subscribed mailings of any periodical—newspaper or other—are piece or single-copy mailings, which are admittedly the most expensive or costly to the government to transport and handle.

Yet Mr. Hitchcock recommends that the cent-a-pound rate shall continue to be extended to such single copies—a most just and sensible recommendation.

But Mr. Hitchcock when he wrote that bit of recommended legislation was thinking—and thinking only, if indeed he gave the subject any personal thought at all—of curbing the circulation growth of periodicals and, as a means to that end, recommends the exclusion of all sample copies from the pound-rate privilege.

Read carelessly or superficially that bit of suggested legislation in itself does not appear to have anything to do with sample copies. On second and more careful reading, however, its purpose becomes clear. If the cent-a-pound rate is to be allowed only to regularly subscribed copies of a periodical, then all sample copies must be mailed, if mailed at all, at the third-class rate—must pay eight cents a pound.

When it comes to covering or cloaking ulterior purpose or intent in legislation, Mr. Hitchcock is an expert, it would appear from the rider he so strenuously tried to put astride the 1911-12 postoffice appropriation bill, and from the foregoing as well as some others of his suggestions to Congress. But the point to which I more especially desire to call to the reader’s attention when I obtruded that last preceding quotation at a point where it interrupted a consideration of the Penrose-Overstreet Commission’s report was this:—

As previously stated, Mr. Hitchcock’s 1910 report bears date, December 1, 1910. On that date, as appears from the last quotation, he desired a law that would bar all sample copies from the mails at the present second-class rate. It also appears that Mr. Hitchcock at the date named—December, 1, 1910—desired that all periodicals issued, except sample copies, be carried, as now, at the cent-a-pound rate.

Somewhere around February 1, 1911—barely two months after he makes that cent-a-pound recommendation—we hear Mr. Hitchcock assertively declaring, and contentiously arguing, that it costs the government 9.23 cents per pound to transport and handle second-class matter.

[114]

What happened to his mental gear in so short a time to induce so loud a change in his mind?

Or was it a change of mind? On page 328 of that 1910 departmental report, Mr. Britt, Third Assistant Postmaster General, who has charge of the accounting division of the service, makes the bold statement that it cost the government $62,438,644.70 more to carry and handle the second-class mail last year than was received for the service. Being an “expert” figurer Mr. Britt found no difficulty in arriving at that absurd 9.23 cents a pound as the actual cost to the government of carrying and handling second-class mail. On pages 7 and 8 of the report, Mr. Hitchcock himself gives publicity to a conviction that the cent-a-pound rate should be increased on certain periodicals—the magazines—generously suggesting that the increased rate be confined to their “advertising pages” only. In the loosely worded “rider” he carelessly—or purposely—uses the word “sheets” in place of the word “pages” as used in his report.

Still, in face of his Third Assistant’s lofty figuring, the conclusions of which are announced on page 328 of the report, and of his own statement of the “reasons for an increase of rate” on periodicals of the magazine class, for carrying and handling their “advertising pages”—in face of these statements, how did his mental gear so slip, or “jam,” as to induce him to recommend, on page 35 of this same report, the enactment of a law continuing the cent-a-pound rate on all periodicals mailed, except sample copies?

Did he intentionally double cross both himself and his Third Assistant or, in his anxiety to curb the circulation growth of periodicals, did he forget what he and Mr. Britt had said?

What’s the answer?

I give it up. However it may appear to the reader, to The Man on the Ladder it appears that Mr. Hitchcock in his 1910 report has written, figured and “recommended” himself into a situation that is far more humoresque than it is consistent or informative.

Returning to the report of the 1906-7 commission, I will mention a few more of its objectionable recommendations.

As previously stated, the Penrose-Overstreet Commission recommended the enactment of a law requiring that newspapers and other periodicals devote not more than one-half their space to advertising matter (Section 3 of recommended bill, page 50 of report). Thus,[115] in pressing an ill-conceived purpose to restrain the growth of circulation and increase of weight of monthly and weekly periodicals, they would, it appears, cut into that division of their published matter which produces the greatest revenue to the government for carriage and handling.

The truth of the last clause preceding has been so frequently and conclusively shown as to require no argument to convince the veriest tyro in knowledge of federal postoffice affairs and the sources of its revenues that the statement made is true. Elsewhere in this volume, however, the truth of the statement will be found fully established.

I confine the application of the statement to monthly and weekly periodicals, to such as are of general circulation. It of course applies, but in lesser degree, to newspapers. The advertising matter published in the newspapers is largely of local character, while that published in our high class monthly magazines and weeklies, in trade journals, etc., is largely general in character. The advertisements published by the former are chiefly those of local merchants and manufacturers and of local, commercial, financial and other interests. On the other hand the advertisements carried by the class of monthly and weekly periodicals indicated represent persons, companies and interests widely scattered throughout the country. Because of this phase in the character of the advertisements carried, the newspapers advertising space is not nearly so large a contributor to the government’s revenues from first, third and fourth class mail carriage and handling as is the advertising space of our high-class monthly and weekly periodicals.

It is true that this 1906-7 commission makes a somewhat strained effort to assign two chief reasons for its recommendation to curtail the space which publishers of periodicals of all kinds may devote to advertising matter.

1. The commissioners appear to have been carrying around with them a stern purpose to suppress what they designate as the “mail order” publications, devoted largely to advertising the wares carried in stock by one or, at most, a few firms that individually or jointly pay for publishing the “weekly” or “monthly”, as the case may be.

There can be no question that there is a large number of such alleged periodicals which have been issued and distributed through the mails for the plainly manifest purpose of advertising the merchandise[116] of those who pay for publishing them. I believe, however, that there are fewer of such fake periodicals enjoying the mail service at second-class rates today than there were ten or fifteen years ago. The Postoffice Department, it must be said to its credit, has “disciplined” a large number of them out of existence or, at any rate, out of the second-class mail rate privilege.

But even if there are more of such fraud and fake periodicals today than formerly, any fair-minded man must agree that it is a very rank injustice to punish—to penalize by harsh restrictions and increased mailing rates—the thousands of legitimate and highly serviceable periodicals for the sins of a comparatively few alleged publications which have abused or are abusing the second-class mail rate privilege.

The department, with its large force of inspectors and investigators, should be able to weed out and exclude such “fixed” periodicals. If it cannot do so it appears to The Man on the Ladder that it would not require a very large amount of industrious, strenuous thinking on the part of six robust, competent legislators to frame a law that would reach the guilty without punishing or crippling the innocent.

2. This commission was also, it would appear, a stickler over compliance with the postal statutes—statutes (those now largely governing) enacted in 1879 and 1885, therefore so antiquated in their wording in several particulars as to be a misfit when attempt is made to apply them to the vast business and varied character of periodicals today.

The statute of March 3, 1879, in its definition of what the law would recognize as a periodical says, among other things, that a periodical must be “originated and published for the dissemination of information of a public character, or devoted to literature, the arts, sciences, or to some industry.”

This portion of the statutory definition the Commission seems to have entertained a special grudge against. At any rate it expatiated at considerable length in its report, against the inadequacy, lack of definiteness, etc., of the definition as given. The commission’s chief objection seems to center around the fact that space in periodicals should not be devoted to “commercial ends.”

On page 35 of the report the commission says:

[117]

“What was in the mind of the author (of the 1879 statute), is clear enough. He wished to prohibit the misuse of the privileges for commercial ends as distinguished from the devotion to literature, science, and the rest.”

It is possible that they knew what was in the mind of the author of that ’79 statute better than I know it, or than Jim Smith or Reuben Peachtree knows it. It is also possible that they did not know the mind of that lawbuilder any better. While the ’79 statute does not, in many particulars, meet present conditions as they should be met, in defining a publication that should be recognized as a periodical, it requires a supercritical or finicky mind to find much fault with it.

A periodical must be “originated and published for the dissemination of information of a public character, devoted to literature, the arts, sciences or some special industry.”

Now, when one considers the broad application of the word “literature,” the word “arts,” comprehending as it does not only the mechanical and liberal or polite arts, but also business, commercial, mercantile and others, including the science of business management, and the term “special industry” and the broad field covered by it—when one considers the broad application of those words, it is a fairly legitimate inference that it was “in the mind” of the writer when drafting that ’79 statute to give a broad meaning and range of service to the publications he intended should be classed as periodicals.

In this connection it is pertinent to ask why periodical publications should not serve, either in their advertising pages or in their “body pages,” devoted to fiction and articles on political conditions, economics, history, the lives and deeds of men, forests and forestry, mills, mines, factory, farm and a vast array of other features, phases and conditions—why, I ask, should our periodicals not give aid by giving space to the great mercantile, manufacturing, financial, agricultural and other interests in this country—interests which, collectively, have built up a commerce more vast today than that of any other nation of earth?

Why should not this vast commerce of ours—a commerce in which every man, woman and child of our people is directly or indirectly interested—be aided and served in every legitimate way by our periodicals? Will some politically living member of that Penrose-Overstreet Commission rise and answer? Answer, not in hypercritical nothings, but straightly and bluntly?

[118]

Another immediately pertinent thing should be stated and another asked here. Among the instruments which have contributed to build up the great commerce of the nation, the American periodical must be recognized—is recognized—as one of the most efficient.

Why, then, this recent attempt to cripple, to curb, to lessen, its influence and effort? And why, again, try to curtail its circulation and usefulness by prattle about a postal “deficit” as reason for restrictive departmental rulings and laws when, should such restrictive measures be made effective, a shrinkage of postal revenues and a consequent increase of deficit would, necessarily, result?

Will some one whose thought-dome and pockets are not full of ulterior motives and postal service “deficits” please rise and answer?

Returning to the 1906-7 commission’s agony over the definition in the act of 1879 of what should be considered a periodical and, therefore, entitled to mail entry as second-class matter, it appears that the commissioners, in an apparent anxious anxiety to prove their charge against the author of the act for careless, ambiguous wording, quote a lawyer’s opinion, or part of such opinion, in support of the carefully framed-up “arguments” which it presents in didactic order, both before and after the quotation.

The quotation, it should be noted, is from the brief of the Postmaster General’s counsel in Houghton vs. Payne, 194 U. S. 88, or so the commission’s report designates it.

The point of the commission’s argument appears to be: (1) that owing to its loose, indefinite wording, the act of ’79 was of easy evasion when it came to passing upon the kind and character of matter which might be published in periodical form and mailed at second-class rates, and (2) that, by reason of such loose and indefinite wording, periodical publishers have evaded the intent and purpose of the act—have abused their second-class rate privileges—have violated the law.

That, at any rate, I read as the point and purpose of the commission’s somewhat labored, if not strained, argument. They quote (pages 37-38) this counsel in support of that argument. I shall here reprint that quotation as evidence that the publisher of “the universally recognized, commonly accepted, and perfectly well understood periodical of everyday speech” (see fifth paragraph of quotation) have not violated the law nor sought to do so.

The quoted opinion presents some italicized words, phrases and[119] clauses as it appears in the report. I have taken the liberty to further italicize in reprinting it:

“The next words only strengthen the same idea—originated and published for the dissemination of information of a public character. Not, it will be observed, that it shall contain information of a public character, but shall be published for the dissemination of such public information. Each of these words is significant, and each gathers significance from its neighbors. Dissemination is here a word of strong color and tinges all the rest. It indicates a dynamic process, an agency at work carrying out a purpose for which it was originated and set in motion. But strong as the word dissemination is, it is fortified by the use of the word information. An agency for the dissemination of knowledge for example, might better consist with the idea of a library of books. But the word is not knowledge, but information. The distinction is obvious. One has the sense of accumulated stores; the other of imparting the idea of things for current needs. One is, as it were, human experience at rest; the other, human experience in action. One may be as stale as you please; the other must be new, fresh, vital. A book, a volume, is the medium of one; a journal the medium of the other.

“Information,” says the Century Dictionary, “is timely or specific knowledge respecting some matter of interest or inquiry.” It is, as it were, vitalized knowledge; knowledge imbued with life and activity. Nor when we come to the next phase do we find any change in the idea—or devoted to literature, the sciences, arts, or some special industry. Devoted to literature. Mark you, not that the publication shall be literature or contain literature, but that it shall be devoted to literature. What is meant by devoted? The Century Dictionary puts it thus: To direct or apply chiefly or wholly to some purpose, work, or use; to give or surrender completely, as to some person or end, as to devote oneself to art, literature, or philanthropy. There again we have the idea of a permanent continuing entity, a thing existing for a given purpose, appearing regularly at such intervals (not greater than three months), as may most effectually meet its needs, in the interest of art, of science, or literature.

Do we say that a book—a novel, a history, a drama—is devoted to literature? It is not devoted to literature; it is literature, and it would be an absurdity to speak of it as devoted to itself. Such a locution would be merely a willful perversion of language.

On the other hand, a review or a magazine may be said to be devoted to literature with perfect naturalness and propriety. For we rightly conceive of the review or magazine as one definite recognizable entity—a continuing whole, originated for a given purpose, and made up of similar parts having a common object—literature, for example, or art, or science, or whatever else it is to which the whole is devoted.

Taking these words, originated and published for, dissemination, information, devoted to, they all point to one conclusion. They are, we repeat, strong and pregnant words. There is but one concept consistent with them all. We confidently submit that an attentive reading of the statute will leave no doubt that what Congress constantly had in mind in the creating of this privileged class[120] of publications was the universally recognized, commonly accepted, and perfectly well understood periodical of everyday speech.

In establishing the rate for newspapers and other periodical publications Congress was not seeking to discriminate between good literature and bad literature or to establish a censorship of the press with prizes for merit. The thing it had in mind was not the goodness or badness of the information disseminated, but the instrumentalities by which that dissemination might be accomplished. It was not thinking of all the accumulated stores of sound and pure literature in the vast libraries of the world, but it was thinking of how the mind of an inquiring and progressive people might be kept abreast of the times in all departments of human thought and activity. Congress did not stand hesitating between a good book and a bad newspaper.

Another position taken by the Penrose-Overstreet Commission, and one which The Man on the Ladder strongly opposes, is that a periodical may not or “must not consist wholly or substantially of fiction.”

The words just quoted are exactly the words used in the sixth paragraph of Section 2 of the bill the enactment of which this commission recommended.

Now, whatever their wit or wisdom, their eloquence or adroitness of speech, their beauty of shape and apparel, or their loftiness of position, that “recommendation” should recommend the personnel of that commission, it seems to me, to some “wronghouse” for a long rest. Their conclusion, their lex recommendation and their “argument” in support, taken collectively, are as thrilling, likewise amusing, as the point in a story “where the woman is turned on and begins to short circuit the hero,” putting it as near as I can remember in the language of Sewell Ford, Bowers, or some other “enlivening writer.”

Lest the reader think my adverse criticism of the commissioners too harsh, or not in keeping with the dignity of the gentlemen composing that 1906-7 commission, I shall here quote a few of the paragraphs it presents as basis for its recommendation. The reader will oblige by carefully noting the italics. They are mine, and, following the quotation, I shall comment on some of those italicized phrasings and statements:

“Not only does the element of fiction constitute the (1) propulsive force behind the expansion of second-class matter, but it serves at the same time (2) to undermine the main statutory check upon the commercial exploitation of the second class. Being free to make up a periodical which contains nothing but fiction, publishers find ready at hand the very thing with which to interlard and disguise the advertising matter, for the sake of which the publication is really issued. This they[121] could not do if the advertisement carrying text was required to be news matter or critical matter of a current nature. (3) Deprive the mail-order journals of the right to cloak their advertising with fiction and require them to publish something in the nature of a newspaper or review with expensive news-gathering apparatus and an editorial staff and (4) the mail-order advertising journal will completely disappear. It lives only by reason of two things, the cheapness of its fiction, with which it cloaks its advertising, and the cheapness of the postal rate which that fiction cloak enables it to obtain.

“The distinction between the fiction-carrying periodical and the nonfiction-carrying periodical (5) is precisely the distinction between a periodical fulfilling the purposes of the act and the publication which, although periodical in its form, has no true periodicity in its essence.

“Another consequence of the expansive power of fiction is found in the confusion of the newspaper and magazine types and the unhealthy exaggeration of the modern newspaper, as shown especially in its Sunday editions.

“The newspaper is rapidly being extended into the magazine field at the sacrifice both of the postal revenue and the (6) true mission of the newspaper. The miscellaneous matter contained in the Sunday issue of a newspaper must of necessity lack the quality to make it socially and educationally valuable.” (Page 37.)

“No fiction necessarily involves the element of periodicity or time publication which is involved in the very idea of a newspaper or periodical. It follows, then, (7) that the real purpose of the act of March 3, 1879, namely, the diffusion in the quickest possible way at the smallest possible cost of timely information among the people, is perverted when the right to that quick and inexpensive diffusion is extended to the form of fiction. But the periodical form devoted to fiction, or in which fiction constitutes the predominant feature, is the very form of periodical which serves to swell the second class. The popular demand for fiction seems to be practically unlimited. The temptation offered by the low postal rate to supply that demand through the periodical form is a temptation impossible to resist.” (Page 39.)

I shall make my comment on the foregoing in the order that its italicized assertions are numbered.

(1) The “element of fiction” has not and does not constitute “the propulsive force” stated. Was it “fiction” that propulsed the circulation of Everybody’s? of Pearson’s? of The Cosmopolitan? of The American? of McClure’s? of The Saturday Evening Post? of The Inland Printer? of The Progressive Printer? or of scores of other monthly and weekly periodicals whose publishers are independent enough to do their own thinking and courageous enough to publish what they and their representatives found to be the truth?

Was “Frenzied Finance” fiction?

Was Anna M. Tarbell’s exposures of Standard Oil fiction?

Was the exposure of the Waters-Pierce Oil Company’s connection[122] with the great Senatorial “I” of Texas fiction? Was the shake-up of the “Big Three” life insurance companies fiction? Were the hundreds of other trenchant write-ups and exposures of wrong practices, of impositions, of crookedness and crooks in official, corporation and private life, “fiction?”

The man who reads and will attempt to answer any of those questions affirmatively needs to have his brain dusted up—that is, of course, on the presumption that he is not paid for vocal gyrations.

And yet it was the telling write-ups and exposures of these independents which greatly increased their circulation and, consequently, increased second-class tonnage.

(2) There is no such “main statutory check.” Moreover, the “commercial exploitation” given in the advertising pages of our standard periodicals to merchants, manufacturers, etc., is, as previously shown, not only just and due to the vast commercial interests of the country, but it is safely within both the letter and the intent of the statute.

(3) As previously intimated, a sextet of experienced legislators who could not frame up a law that would put the “mail-order journals” and other abusers and abuses of the second-class mail-rate privilege out of business without ruinously restricting and obstructing the vast legitimate periodical interests of the country, that sextet ought to do one of two things, either send their thought equipment to a vacuum cleaner to get the dust blown off and then try again, or they should turn the task over to some other legislators. There most certainly are scores of legislators in the Senate and the House fully equipped to prepare such a piece of legislation.

(4) In comment under (3) I noted this “mail order advertising journal.” I did so to indicate that the Penrose-Overstreet Commission, as it appears to me, worked the “mail order” print stuff overtime for the purpose of reaching certain legitimate publications.

(5) There is no such distinction between “a fiction-carrying periodical and the non-fiction carrying periodical” as that named. Fiction in a periodical is just as permissible under the act as is the series of war stories, or reminiscences, now (May, 1911), running in one of the magazines; as in the series of articles on the civil war now running in one of the Chicago newspapers, or as would be a series of articles on “the Panama Canal,” on the “Development of the Reaping Machine,”[123] on “Treason in Our Senate,” on “The Depletion of American Forests,” on “The Railroads’ Side of the Railway Mail Pay,” or on any other subject of the historical past or active present.

In fact, most of the current fiction, whether in serial or short-story, published in the standard monthly, weekly and other periodicals of large general circulation presents far more of truth than do the stories, reminiscences and “historical narratives about the civil war,” written forty-five years after the events, and, if based on personal experience, written from fading memory of the facts.

(6) While one may agree with the thought expressed by the commission at (6), its wording expresses a desire or tendency to censor the periodical press of the people by legislative restrictions and departmental rulings which not only contravene the Federal Constitution, but which are inimical to the personal rights and liberties guaranteed by that constitution.

Force is added to this objection to the commission’s recommendation by the fact that it specifically delegates to the Postmaster General the power and authority to decide the kind and character of printed matter which shall have the right of entry at second-class rates, and which complies with the requirements the commission would have written into the law.

Section 2 of the at present governing statute, the commission advised (see recommended bill, page 49 of report), should, in its opening paragraph, read as follows:—

“No newspaper or other periodical shall be admitted to the second class unless it shall be made to appear by evidence, satisfactory to the Postmaster General or his lawful deputy in that behalf, that it complies with the following conditions.”

Then follow the “conditions,” several of which I have already shown to be seriously objectionable.

(7) I have already presented, under (5), some objections to the commission’s argument made in this seventh citation. I will, however, again say that the publication of fiction, other than immoral, in periodicals, does not, in my judgment at least, in any way infringe the “purpose of the act” of 1879. I will here go further, and say that the act of ’79 does not comprehend in its “real purpose,” as the commission tries to make it appear at (7), that “the diffusion in the quickest possible way at the smallest possible cost of timely information[124] among the people”—that is, the act does not so purpose if the word “timely,” as here used, is intended to mean “news” or “currence of matter,” etc., as the commission elsewhere in its report argues for. In fact, the commission’s statement at (7) is further alee of the “real purpose” of the act of 1879 than is the publication of any fiction in a periodical, and that too, whether the fiction be a reprint of some old production or the imaginative visualizations of some current writer who moved from periodical publication in 1908 or 1909 to print as a “best-seller” in 1910, or from a best seller in 1908-9 to periodical form in 1911.

In short, the commission’s position regarding the publication of fiction in periodical form contravenes the “real purpose” of the law. So, also, does its position on several points it seeks to bolster in its report contravene the real purpose of that act, as I have previously shown, quoting in one instance the opinion of a Postmaster General’s counsel, which opinion the commission itself quoted to support a false position.

I feel constrained to make another point against the stand this commission took against the admissibility to the second class mail rate privilege of periodicals largely devoted to fiction.

It appears to me that these commissioners must have confined their reading in recent years largely to the older and so-called “classic” fiction, to professional tomes, to juridic opinions, attorney’s briefs, and to “booster” stuff for parties and candidates published in our newspapers. Certainly they could not have read much of the periodical fiction published by our high-class monthlies and weeklies. If they had done so, they would not, it seems to me, have written so loosely and unwarrantedly of the “fiction” in their report.

Had they read much of the fiction appearing in the leading periodicals during current and recent years, they would have learned at least two facts about it:

1. Much—yes, most—of the fiction printed during recent years in our standard periodicals (even in those printing only fiction as “body matter”), has been highly didactic or educational in character.

2. The periodical fiction published in our leading magazines and weeklies has taught our people lessons in morals, in politics, in political economy, in social, domestic and industrial life. It has told its readers of the habits and habitat of animals, of birds and bees; of flowers,[125] of fruits and forestry. Nor has there been much of “nature faking” in it. Some of the most informative matter ever printed bearing upon natural history, the geography, topography and hydrography of this earth, has reached us through the periodical fiction of the past ten or twelve years. Not only that, but such fiction has gone to the farm and into the laboratory, into the mine, the factory, the mill, and the lumber camp; into the mercantile establishment, into transportation, both rail and water; into the counting room, into the “sweat-shop” and into the tenement districts, the purlieus and the “submerged tenths” in both the lower and higher “walks” of the world’s various and varying civilizations, and it has taught us things we did not before know.

Then why should new laws be enacted, or old laws be twisted, turned or misconstrued, to exclude “fiction”—periodical fiction—from the second-class mail rate privilege?

One other objection I find to this 1906-7 commission’s report. It recommends the appointment of a “Commission of Postal Appeals.”

The report states that certain publishers favored such a commission. That be as it may, I do not believe that such a commission will return service value at all commensurate with the amount of public money it would cost to keep its wheels “greased” and operating. Next to a bureaucracy, government by commissions is the worst. Can the reader think of a “Commission”—a Government, a State, County or City Commission—that ever discharged, promptly and satisfactorily, the duties assigned to it? One is put to no trouble to think of scores of Civil Service Commissions, Forestry Commissions, Subway Commissions, Canal Commissions, Traction Commissions, Railroad Commissions, Postal Commissions, Inter-State Commerce Commissions and a host of others.

But do you know of one of them that ever did any real serviceable work for the people—did it until an aroused and hostile public opinion kicked it into doing the work?

You may know of one. The Man on the Ladder knows of none, and he has been watching the service value of the “commission” for thirty-five years. As a governing instrument it has largely been a subversive instrument. It always spends its appropriation. It always puts as many of its uncles, brothers and nephews on the pay roll and takes as many junkets as is possible under its appropriation[126] and, if the appropriation is exceeded, it usually asks for more and—gets it.

We have an Interstate Commerce Commission. It has been on the job ever since John Sherman put it on duty. Sherman knew what he intended—wanted—it to do. Did it do what he and the rest of us depended on it to do? Well, not to any noticeable extent. It spent hundreds of thousands of dollars of our money while it permitted the railroads and express companies to rebate, “differential” and “short” and “long” haul us out of hundreds of millions of easy or stolen dollars.

O yes! of course the Interstate Commerce Commission is, of late, getting down to business—getting down to the work John Sherman intended it to do when he drafted the bill which created it.

Why has that commission finally arrived at its starting point? Why is it now trying to do—and trying, even yet, to do it in a loose, dilatory way—what Sherman intended it to do?

“Why?” Why, simply because the people have finally learned—thanks largely to the enlightenment given them by the independent periodicals of the country—that they have been governmentally treated as fools—that they have been treated as sheep to furnish fleece and mutton for a few who feast and wear fine raiment, yet earn it not.

O yes, the people have learned some things and they, recently, have been learning rapidly. It is the people who have learned who have virtually kicked the Interstate Commerce Commission into dutiful action.

No, I positively do not like government by commission, and especially do I not like government of our postal service, or any phase, feature or division of it, by a “Commission of Postal Appeals” or by any other commission, however dignified its title may be. Any suggestion or recommendation of such a commission is, to The Man on the Ladder, but a suggestion and recommendation to further load an already overloaded service.

By that, I mean that the service now rendered by the Federal Postoffice Department is not nearly commensurate with the number of employes carried on its payrolls or with its expenditures, and that the creation of a commission—any postal commission—will only add[127] names to the department payrolls and thousands of dollars to its already excessive expenditures.

In closing my consideration of this Penrose-Overstreet Commission’s report—a report which Mr. Hitchcock appears to have taken some “hunches” from while it also appears he gave very little or no study or consideration to the vast amount of informative data it collected and filed—I desire to make a statement or two and then ask a pertinently impertinent question or two.

Among the vast amount of informative data on the subject of transporting and handling second-class mail matter, its cost to the government, etc., there are pages upon pages of testimony by publishers the commission invited to appear before it in person or by representative. Some of that testimony, so newspapers reported during the hearings in both New York and Washington, is supported or re-enforced by the jurats of the publishers testifying. Some of those publishers stated in their testimony that the sample copies they had distributed had, by reason of the correspondence and mail business resulting, amply compensated the government for carrying and handling such sample copies. Several specific and detailed statements were made by the publishers.

Again: The publishers furnished voluminous testimony—both in their own statements and in the correspondence of business men who had patronized the columns of their publications—in proof of the fact that (1) the advertising pages of their publications were as generally read, if not more read, than were the body pages, and (2) that the sales of stamps by the government for the correspondence and business resulting from the advertisements printed yielded far more postal revenue than did any other character of second-class matter the mail service handled.

Now, the questions.

When this Penrose-Overstreet Commission sent out its invitations most of them went to publishers and associations of publishers. At any rate so it would appear from statements in the commission’s report.

Did the commission believe the publishers invited were liars?

If so, why did it invite them?

After hearing their verbal testimony and looking over their[128] written statements, did the commission conclude that those publishers were liars?

If so, why did it spend the people’s money to collate, digest and file the testimony of liars for the information of Mr. Cortelyou, the then Postmaster General, Mr. Meyer and Mr. Hitchcock, his successor, and other Postmaster Generals who will follow Mr. Hitchcock?

Again—If those commissioners of 1906-7 concluded, either before or after hearing them, that the publishers were or are liars, why may not, or should not, those publishers conclude (after reading their report) that the commissioners are liars?
FOOTNOTES

[2] Covers are included in the total for pages given.

[3] One cover page included in count for periodicals carrying cover with no advertising matter on title page of same.

[4] Three pages of cover are counted as advertising.

[5] The weight of supplements to Sunday Editions of newspapers (when mentioned as supplements in list), is included in the gross weight of the issue as given.