Chapter XXIII: Section 181: of its Revised Statutes so that even a yokel, as well as (1)

a Federal Judge, may clearly see that the carriage of _packages and parcels_, as well as of “packets,” which do not exceed the maximum regulation weight and are of mailable class and kind, is “intended” to be the _exclusive privilege of the government_.

Such an amendment to the law would force the express companies out of business.

The other action which could be effectively taken would be to make the parcels post rate so low and the maximum weight of parcels so liberally high that the railroads and express raiders would quit of their own accord, which they would do as soon as their present tonnage of loot is seriously cut down. Nothing would cut into that lootage deeper or quicker than would a service rated and weighted parcels post.

I have been severe in my strictures and condemnation of the express and railway raiders. In evidence that my condemnation is deserved I desire to quote two or three people--people who have made a careful, painstaking study of the game these raiders have played, and yet play, and of the practices and tricks which make it a “sure thing” for the high-finance gentlemen who play it.

Mr. Albert W. Atwood wrote a series of three most informative articles for the American Magazine under the caption, “The Great Express Monopoly.” They appeared in the American in its issues for February, March and April, 1911. I trust the publishers will not take unkindly my quoting Mr. Atwood. He presents some facts which so conclusively evidence several points that I cannot resist the appeal they make for quotation.

In evidencing the fact that the railroads own and control the express companies and also showing how that ownership and control was obtained and is maintained, Mr. Atwood writes as follows:

It has frequently been asserted by merchants and shippers that
the stock issues of the express companies are merely a device
to make possible the exaction of unreasonable charges. Perhaps
the most direct case in point is that of the Pacific Express
Company, organized in 1879 to do business on the Union Pacific
and Gould Railroads. Before the Indiana Railroad Commission John
A. Brewster, auditor of the company, recently testified that
there were twelve stockholders and $6,000,000 of stock. On pages
784-785 of the record there appears this colloquy:

Q. What did you do with that stock, Mr. Witness?

A. The capital stock was given to the Wabash, Union Pacific, and
Missouri Pacific for the rights, franchises.

Q. For what rights?

A. Franchises and rights to do business.

Q. We begin to understand it; it wasn’t understood before that;
nothing was received by the Pacific Express Company for the issue
of this $6,000,000 of stock? Do these railroad companies own the
stock?

A. Yes, sir.

Q. These twelve stockholders are the railroads. The railroads get
these 6 per cent dividends on the stock?

A. Yes, sir.

Before another State Railroad Commission an officer of the
company stated that so far as he knew and so far as the records
show no cash was received for the $6,000,000 stock. The Illinois
Railroad and Warehouse Commission has decided this stock was
issued in fact and in law without consideration. Ostensibly the
stock was issued by the express company in exchange for the right
to do business over the lines of the railroads, but all the
express companies pay a fixed percentage of their gross receipts,
ranging from 40 to 57½ per cent, to the railroads over which they
operate.

On the question as to whether express companies operate at a profit or not, Mr. Atwood writes as follows of this same Pacific organization:

Whatever legal view we may take of this curious stock issue,
there is no room for doubting that it has served as a device for
the extortion of money from the shipping public, for express
charges are made high enough to more than pay dividends on the
stock. Starting in business with no capital except such as may
have been temporarily loaned to it by the railroads in control,
the Pacific Express Company has paid dividends of $8,334,000 in
twenty years and in addition has been paying to the railroads,
which owned all its stock, about 50 per cent of its gross
receipts of more than $7,000,000 a year. A large block of the
stock recently changed hands at $200 a share, and yet we have
seen how it was issued without consideration in cash or property.
Indeed it is said the company operated for eight years before the
stock was issued at all.

In speaking to the same point as applied to the United States Express Company, Mr. Atwood calls attention to the fact that 55 per cent of its “stockholders” have entered suit to wind up the company’s affairs on charges of mismanagement by its dominating officers. Mr. Atwood further writes:

Although the gravest of charges of mismanagement and waste of
assets have repeatedly been made against the directors of the
United States Express Company, a profit of almost 15 per cent
was earned by the company on the capital invested in the express
business in the year 1909. This profit would have been still
greater had general trade been normal, and had there not been a
hiatus between the loss of one large contract and the securing of
another. That the stockholders have not received all the profits
proves nothing. Millions have gone into unnecessary real estate
investment and large salaries have been paid, but earnings on the
capital actually invested have clearly shown that even under a
management whose good faith and ability is being challenged in
the courts there is an ample return.

As long ago as 1875 a writer in Harper’s Magazine said the
express business had already created fifty millionaires, a
statement which does not tax the credulity of anyone who casts
a glance at the dividend record of these companies. To use the
calmly judicial words of the Census Bureau: “In no other business
is it probable that so little money, comparatively, is invested
where the gross receipts are so large.” We have seen that new
capital is not a necessity of the express business. Unlike the
railroads, new security issues to raise capital are never sold to
the investing public.

The cappers for railroad and express interests, keep the atmosphere agitated with talk about the “uncertainty and irregularity” of the quantity of express matter to be carried, “the excessive taxes paid,” etc. In answer to such bubble, Mr. Atwood has this to say:

While this may be theoretically true, the experience of years
has shown that the patronage of these companies has been fairly
regular, remunerative and growing. Not only will a study of the
gross receipts prove this contention, but further confirmation
will be found in the remarkable series of excessive dividends.
“We do not feel that any extravagant return should be permitted
upon the business of these companies,” said the Interstate
Commerce Commission in Kinde _v._ Adams _et al._, “for it
involves none of the elements which entitle an investment to a
high return.”

When the Adams Express Company enriched its shareholders with a
200 per cent extra dividend in 1907, stress was laid upon the
increase in taxation throughout the country. How ridiculous
this is can be seen from the fact that the Adams Company paid
only $145,184 in taxes in the entire fiscal year of 1909, and
$202,234 in 1910, although its extra dividend alone amounted to
$24,000,000. Profits on stock and bond speculation amounted to
$418,979 in the year 1909, and $1,943,889 in 1910. The American
Express Company, with its huge resources, paid but $283,951
in taxes in 1909. In the same year the volume of its banking
business alone amounted to more than $250,000,000. In at least
one important state, the express companies paid no taxes until a
few years ago and in Indiana the companies had the audacity to
tell the Tax Commissioner that they had little or no tangible
property in that state. When Congress voted to put a tax of two
cents on every express transaction to raise revenue for the
Spanish War the companies made the shipper pay, and when the
shippers objected fought the case to the highest courts.

At this point the question naturally arises as to how the express
companies have been able to carry on for so many years such
a perfect system of extracting money from the public without
being seriously molested. The answer involves a knowledge of
the relations existing between the railroads and the express
companies, and a knowledge of the complete monopoly which exists
in the express business--a monopoly made possible only because of
these very relations.

In Pearson’s Magazine appeared two forcefully written articles by Mr. Allen L. Benson on the parcels post. The articles appeared in Pearson’s in February and March, 1911. In his February opening and closing Mr. Benson says some things to us and says them with a kindly bluntness which we should appreciate:

Is it a pleasure to you to be treated as if you were a fool? Do
you never tire of acting like an organ-grinder’s begging monkey?

These questions are put to you in good faith. I have no desire
to insult you. I know you are not a fool. I know you don’t like
to beg. Yet here you are again, with your little red cap on and
your little tin cup out, begging for a parcels post. Begging from
those whom you should order. And the gentlemen from whom you beg
treat you as if you were a fool.

Perhaps you believe these statements are not so. I shall soon
show you that they are so. But before we go down this interesting
parcels-post road, let us hang a lantern to the wagon-tongue. You
will understand the scenery better if you see it by the light of
this particular lantern. Here it is:

Bad government is largely made possible by the mistaken opinions
held toward each other by the governing classes and the governed.
By “governing classes” I don’t mean Presidents and Congresses.
I mean the great capitalist interests that make Presidents and
Congresses. The governing classes underestimate the intelligence
of the people. That is why the governing classes are always in
process of yielding something to the people. Depending upon the
stupidity of the people, gross wrongs are inflicted that are
righted only under force, inch by inch.

The people, on the other hand, have too exalted an opinion of
both the intelligence and the patriotism of those who control the
government. They have no good opinion of the patriotic impulses
of the great capitalists, but they fail to note that the great
capitalists are the National government. Mr. Morgan in Wall
street they recognize. But Mr. Morgan in Washington, disguised as
Uncle Sam, they do not recognize. Therefore they behold him with
a certain veneration. They have been taught, since childhood,
to look up to Uncle Sam as to a father. He is the government in
breeches. The people do not always agree with the men who govern
them, but they always agree with the government. The grand old
government of the United States looks good to them. It looks good
to them because it seems to embody the power, the will and the
virtue of the people.

All of which is not true. No government is much better than
the men who control it. If the men who control it are bad, the
government is bad. If a few control it, the rest do not control
it. If a few use it to get more than belongs to them, the rest
cannot use it to get what belongs to them. If a few control the
government to rob the rest of the people, the government is not
the friend, but the enemy, of the rest of the people.

The United States government is and long has been controlled by a
few rich men. These men have used and are using the government to
enrich themselves at the expense of the rest of the people. I do
not mean so say that the government never performs an act that is
of service to all of the people, but I do mean to say that when
there is a conflict between the interests of the few who control
the government and the interests of the rest of the people, the
government is almost certain to take the side of the few as
against the many.…

The little guiding group of rich who tell you that a high tariff
helps you is the same little guiding group that tells you a
parcels post would hurt you.

…

Is it a pleasure to you always to be treated as if you were a
fool? Do you never tire of paying 16 cents a pound on mail
packages limited to four pounds, when there is hardly a little
South American republic or fourth-class European state that will
not carry at least eleven-pound packages for a cent a pound or
less?

Think of it--we have entered into agreements with forty-three
nations that have the parcels post to receive and deliver their
parcels when directed to any person in this country; we are
permitting the Philippine Government to establish a parcels post;
we have agreed to receive in this country big packages at low
rates for delivery abroad; but we ourselves have no such rights
among ourselves. We must not only pay tribute to the express
companies, but we must believe that it is good for us to do so.

_If the American people only knew their power; if they only knew
their power! If they would tear off their party labels and vote
as they talk at home among their neighbors, they could push this
country half a century ahead at the next election. Everybody
knows something is wrong, but almost everybody votes the thoughts
of those who make the wrong._

_Shall we never vote for ourselves?_

The italics in the last paragraph quoted are mine. So, too, are the sentiments of that paragraph--both the expressed and the implied. That is I believe in them--I believe in them hard and stubbornly. If my readers will think hard about them for a few minutes, I feel confident they will conclude that it is about time for them, for all of us, to act on Mr. Benson’s advice--tear off our party labels and begin “to vote for ourselves.”

In support of his charges of bad faith on the part of the government in giving the people a serviceable parcels post, Mr. Benson’s remarks are most illuminating. He makes reference to a public or semi-public document of the government, written by one Mr. Turner and proceeds as follows:

“‘This will open a great business for American retail merchants,’
wrote Mr. Turner. ‘Brazil can be flooded with catalogues. This
information, in advance, will enable those desiring to go after
business to prepare for it.’

“Mind you, these are only occasional sentences from his
enthusiastic article. He dwelt at length upon the eagerness
of the Brazilians to buy such articles as we make. He even
became specific and enumerated some of the articles that
could be advantageously sent by parcels post. ‘This opens up
great possibilities for the retail shoe houses,’ he said, for
instance, ‘as elegant shoes are worn.’ Also, there was a great
market for gloves, embroideries, ribbons, silks, stockings, and
underclothing.

“Here, then, we have the spectacle of the United States
Government making statements to business men through a
publication that the common people never read, that are directly
opposed to the statements that are made to the people of the
United States in congressional debates and other publications.

“Now, ask yourself these questions:

“Would the establishment of a parcels post by Brazil, which we
have permitted to extend to this country, open any markets for
Americans in Brazil if parcels-post rates did not permit American
merchants to deliver their goods in Brazil at reduced cost?

“Again: If a parcels-post in Brazil will enable American
merchants to lay down their goods in Brazil at reduced cost, why
wouldn’t a parcels post in the United States enable American
merchants to lay down their goods in the United States at reduced
cost?

“Furthermore: If reduced carrying charges would enable American
merchants to capture Brazilian trade by reducing selling prices,
why wouldn’t reduced carrying charges tend toward lower selling
prices in the United States?

“Finally: Is there any reason on earth why the United States
Government, which is opposed to a parcels post in this country,
through an official publication, welcomes a parcels post in
Brazil--is there any reason except the one fact that there are no
American express companies in Brazil?

“Figure it out for yourself. I have figured it out for myself. As
I figure it out, the United States Government is treating us as
if we were a little weak in the head; as if we are just foolish
enough so that it was safe to print, in a semi-public official
publication, an acknowledgment that all of its excuses for not
giving us a parcels post are really impudent lies.…

“‘Should the mail trade have a government subsidy?’ asked one
gentleman who represented an association of jobbing firms. Let us
see how much honesty there is in this question. A subsidy implies
the payment of money, either for nothing, or for something that
is not immediately received in return. That is what these same
rich gentlemen mean by subsidy when they ask you to subsidize
American ships. What element of subsidy would there be in a
parcels post that enabled the government to derive a great profit
from the mail-order business? We have all the machinery for
handling ‘packets’--costly postoffice buildings, cars, letter
carriers, rural mail carriers. Why not use them? Why not let the
rural mail carrier, whose average load is now 25 pounds, carry
500 pounds at a cent a pound? The postoffice department would
earn $40,000,000 more a year if the rural wagons were loaded to
the 500-pound limit.

“‘The fact is,’ said the same jobber gentleman, ‘that the
United States Government cannot carry merchandise by parcels
post without having to meet an enormous annual deficit for
conducting the service.’ The fact is that the fact isn’t. What
brazen effrontery to declare that the government would lose
money carrying packages at a cent a pound, when the German
government makes money by carrying packages at a little more
than half a cent a pound! It is true that German rates are based
upon distance, but it is also true that Germany, without any
mail monopoly, competes with all comers and beats them out with
low tariffs. The German government can compete with the German
express companies because the German parcels post will accept
packages up to a weight limit of 110³⁄₁₀ pounds, while our
Government turns over to the express companies everything that
weighs more than four pounds.

“Furthermore, if the carrying of packages is such a hazardous
business that our Government should not dare to attempt it,
how comes it that the express companies have become rich at
it? The combined capital of the express companies is a little
in excess of $48,000,000. For years, the big stockholders in
express companies have been apoplectic with wealth. All of this
money came from somewhere. All of this money came from those
who consumed products sent by express. Only a few weeks ago the
Interstate Commerce Commission brought out the fact that the
Adams Express Company’s business in New England yielded a profit,
in 1909, of 45 per cent, upon the investment. Yet, there was
nothing brought out in the proceedings to show, that the Adams
Express Company was gouging New England any harder than it was
the rest of the country, or that the other express companies were
not doing to the rest of the country approximately what the Adams
was doing to New England. If you had the Government’s equipment
for handling express matter, would you feel particularly
frightened at a proposition to give you a monopoly of the
‘packet’ business at an average rate almost twice that of the
German Government’s average rate?”

Knowing that my readers have not wearied of Mr. Benson, I shall presume to take further liberties with his articles on our subject. His handling of the point I have raised--railroad control of the express companies--is so informative and so able that I would do neither my readers nor my subject justice were I not to quote him and do it right here:

The railroads have become the express companies, not in legal
fiction, but in transportational fact. The railroads largely own
the express companies, entirely control the express companies,
and, to all intents and purposes, are the express companies. We,
the highly intelligent American people, simply don’t know these
facts. Never has it seemed to occur to us that, since Benjamin
Harrison was President and John Wanamaker was in his cabinet, the
express grafters may have devised improved ways of working the
express graft. Therefore, in this parcels post matter, we don’t
know who is pushing the knife that we feel between our ribs. We
accuse the express companies. A man who was being murdered might
as well accuse the shadow of his murderer.

Perhaps the facts that follow will show you who are behind the
shadows of the express companies. I quote from Senate Document
No. 278, Sixtieth Congress:

Stock held by railways in express companies $20,668,000
Railway securities owned by express companies 34,542,950
Holdings of express companies in the stock of other
express companies 11,618,125

Since this article was written (Mr. Benson adds in a footnote)
the Interstate Commerce Commission has issued a report in which
railroad holdings in express stock are given at $14,124,000. The
same report says the “total book value of property and equipment
of 13 express companies is $22,313,575.53.” The figures furnished
by the express companies are evidently somewhat bewildering
to the commission, which, having found the total value of the
express companies’ assets to be $186,221,380.54, remarks: “It
is evident that the capital stock of these companies bears no
relation to the amount invested in the express business.” On
the face of the Interstate Commerce Commission’s report, the
railroads have disposed of more than $6,000,000 worth of express
stock since the United States Senate investigated the matter
during the life of the Sixtieth Congress. Yet there is no mention
of such a transaction, and it seems exceedingly unlikely that
the railroads have suddenly reversed their policies and become
sellers instead of buyers of express stock. What seems more
likely is that both the railroads and the express companies are
continuing the policy to use figures to conceal facts. Gentlemen
who can give $186,000,000 worth of assets a “book value” of
$22,000,000 might have no difficulty in compelling figures to
turn flip-flaps upon almost any occasion.

Please notice that railroad companies--not railroad men,
railroad companies--own more than $20,000,000 of stock in
express companies. The express companies are capitalized at only
$48,000,000. Railroad companies therefore own almost half of the
stock of the express companies. Railroad men like Mr. Gould, the
Vanderbilts and Mr. Morgan also own stock in express companies.
Railroad men presumably do not vote their private holdings of
express stock in opposition to the manner in which they vote the
express stock owned by the railways they control. But, even if
railway men owned no express stock, the ownership by railways of
a solid block of more than $20,000,000 of express stock would
enable the railways to control the express companies. Mr. Morgan
controls many corporations in which he holds only a minority
interest. It is the way of big men to control more than they own.

…

Let us assume that you attach no significance to the ownership
by the railways of almost half of the stock of the express
companies. You don’t believe the railroads would take the trouble
to get control of $3,500,000 more stock and thus control the
companies. You want to be shown.

All right. You don’t mind using your common sense? Good.

Wouldn’t railroad companies be incorporated fools if they didn’t
control the express companies? Couldn’t the railroad companies,
if they cared to, control the express companies, even though
the railroad companies owned not a share of stock in any of the
express companies? What is an express company?

An express company is a corporation that is engaged in
transportation. Not a single express company owns a foot of
railway track, a locomotive, a roundhouse or a water tank. Not a
single express company employs an engineer, a fireman, a train
dispatcher, or a section hand. Not a single express company could
carry a bar of soap from New York to Albany without using all
of the mentioned instruments of transportation, besides many
others. In other words, an express company is an institution
engaged in transportation without owning any of the means of
transportation. It exists only by sufferance. So long as railroad
companies are willing to haul the cars of an express company,
the express company may do business--but no longer. An express
company, if ill-treated, has no other place to go. It cannot hire
a department store company to haul its cars, nor a dry-goods
firm, nor a manufacturer of hats. An express company must go to
railroads for its transportation facilities, accept the best
terms it can get, or go out of business.

Is it not so? How comes it, then, that you never hear of rows
between express companies and railroad companies? How comes it
that the same railroads that are always trying to squeeze you
on freight rates apparently never try to squeeze the express
companies on rates for hauling cars? The express companies are
exceedingly fat birds. They are absolutely in the power of the
railroad companies. If you owned the only vacant house in the
world and a wanderer must rent from you or die in the street,
you would not have him more completely in your power than the
railroad companies have the express companies.

Yet the railroad companies are frying the express companies to a
frazzle. The New York Central Railroad Company takes 40 per cent
of the gross receipts of the express company that operates over
its lines. But the frying is entirely friendly, and therefore
the express companies do not cry out against it. A station agent
does not complain because the railroad company for which he works
takes from him the money for the tickets he has sold. He expects
to give up the money. The officers of express companies expect
to give up the money they take in. That is what they are there
for. If they were otherwise disposed they would not be there. The
$20,000,000 block of express stock held by railroads would keep
them out. Can you imagine an express company giving 40 per cent
of its gross receipts to a railway company if the directors of
the express company were not controlled by the railway company?

Please get the full meaning of that New York Central arrangement.
It is not a mere matter of 40 per cent. It is a matter of 40
per cent of the gross receipts and then perhaps 50 per cent of
what is left. In other words, the railroad company first takes,
as a carrier, four-tenths of the express company’s receipts. As
a stockholder in the express company, the railroad next takes
almost half of the net profits.

…

In both surveying the Canadian express situation and giving the
order to reduce rates, Judge Mabee, chairman of the commission,
said:

“Cut short of all the trimmings, the situation is that the
shipper by express makes a contract with the railway company
through the express company. The whole business could go just as
it now does without the existence of any express company at all
by simply substituting railway employees and letting the railways
take the whole of the toll in the first instance.”

As showing how freight tariffs are manipulated by the railroads to force the people to make light shipments by express and pay the looting rates the express companies charge, the following by Mr. Benson should be read:

In what essential particular does the conduct of the American
express business differ from the conduct of the Canadian express
business? The Canadian express companies collect money from the
public and hand it over to the railroads. What do our express
companies do?

At this point, some gentlemen may be moved to ask. Why is an
express company? At first glance, it does seem rather strange
that the railroads should bother to do business through express
companies if the railroads not only haul the express cars, but
get the money the public pays. Yet there is nothing strange about
it, as we shall see when we consider what the express business is.

Part of the express business is an effort to commit a crime for
pay. The rest of the express business is an effort to perform a
service at an exorbitant rate of compensation. In other words,
part of the express business is the carrying of “packets” that
should be sent only by mail, and the carrying of which by a
private person or corporation is a crime, and the rest of the
business is the carrying of light freight that should go by fast
freight at a rate much below the express rate.

The express business, like every other business that has thriven,
was based upon a public need. The public need was for a fast
freight service for light freight. The railroad managers of forty
years ago were not disposed to give the service, but they were
willing to haul cars for an express company that wanted to carry
fast freight at a high rate.

In this small, timid way the express business began. The crime
of carrying mail in competition with the government had never
been considered. When shippers offered mailable packages for
transmission, they were accepted, but postage stamps were affixed
to comply with the law. Even the volume of light freight was
relatively small. The railroads themselves kept all of the light
freight traffic they could. It was not until the railroads
invested heavily in and obtained control of the express companies
that deliberate efforts were made to compel the public to send
light freight by express.

Let me explain precisely what I mean by this. The minimum freight
rate from Chicago to North Platte, Neb., is $1.10. Whether a
package weighs five pounds or 100 pounds, the charge is the same.

Suppose you want to send a ten-pound package. A dollar and ten
cents seems an exorbitant charge, especially when the fact is
considered that a ten-pound package, sent by freight, probably
would not reach its destination in less than ten days. You look
up express rates and find that you can send the package for 55
cents, with a certainty of delivery within forty-eight hours. Of
course you send the package by express.

What has happened? Apparently, the express company has saved you
55 cents. Actually, the railroad company has clubbed you into
the clutches of the express company. The railroad company never
expected you to pay $1.10 for the transmission of a ten-pound
package. In the good old days when the express companies were
not owned by the railroad companies, and the railroad companies
were not controlled by a little group of men in Wall Street, the
freight rates for ten-pound and hundred-pound packages were not
the same. The railroads wanted to carry small packages and made
rates that brought them in. But the express companies showed
the possibility of collecting a higher rate for quick delivery.
For this reason, a certain amount of business naturally came to
the express companies. But after the railroads obtained control
of the express companies, resort was had to artificial means
to drive business over to the high-priced express companies.
The freight rate for 100 pounds was established _as the minimum
rate_ for all lighter packages. No one is expected to pay this
exorbitant rate, but it is there for everyone to look at.

Slow freight delivery is also apparently employed by the
railroads to compel the public to ship by express. If one have
a full hundred pounds to send a short distance, he will find
the minimum freight rate lower than the express rate. But he
will also have reason to believe that freight trains are drawn
by snails. The Pennsylvania Railroad and the New York Central
recently struggled ten days to bring a hundred-pound package
forty miles to me. An express company would have performed
the same service over-night. If the railroads had wanted the
business, they would have required no more than two days.

Now, I have quoted extendedly from both Mr. Atwood and Mr. Benson. I have done so, because they wrote not only what I have quoted but much more that I would like to quote, and each of them has handled his subjects pointedly and forcefully conclusive. The call for “copy” by my publisher, will, I trust, argue my excuse with the publishers of Pearson’s and The American magazines for having drawn so largely upon their columns without first asking and securing their permission to do so.

But it seems to me I can hear some barker for the interests barking “Yellow writers! Yellow magazines!”

A few years since, the fling of that appellation “yellow” may have had some influence--probably did have some influence among the thoughtless. But millions of the then indifferent and thoughtless people have become serious and thoughtful recently. To such there is no opprobrium in the word “yellow” as the barkers fling it at newspapers and magazines which attack and tell the truth about the interests for which the barkers bark. In fact, the word has become an appellation of honor rather than of discredit--of repute rather than of disrepute.

Here is another quotation--two of them. They are from an article in Pearson’s Magazine, February, 1912, issue. Get the magazine and read the whole article. The article is captioned “The Railroad Game.” It will richly compensate you:

I chanced to meet a man who is now president of one of the great
Western railroad systems. He chided me good-naturedly about my
antagonism to the railroads. Finally he said: … “You are too big
a man to be fighting the railroads. Come get into the game with
us. It isn’t how much money we make, but how much we can conceal
that counts in the railroad business.”

…

These figures do not take into consideration at all the
operations of the numerous express companies which impose upon
the people a burden approximating $125,000,000 a year while their
actual investment for all purposes does not exceed $6,000,000
a year. These companies all earn prodigiously. All pay big
dividends. All have big surplus funds, and frequently have big
melon cuttings. In one of these a few years ago $24,000,000 were
distributed among the stockholders of a single company. And after
all, these companies amount in actual service to the people to
no more than a parcels post which the government should have
established long ago. With government control of the railroads
this pernicious form of extortion would end. In European
countries express companies do not exist. There the parcels post
is supreme, satisfactory to the people and remunerative to the
governments.

Of course, the writer of the above when he mentions $6,000,000 as the “actual investment for all purposes” means all the actual investment for all express service purposes. In that statement he is entirely correct.

But who is the writer? Well, the man who made the statements just quoted is Mr. O. C. Barber, the American “Match King.” Certainly no one--not even the most courageous and venturesome hired liar of the raiding combinations--will call Mr. Barber “yellow.”

“Why?” Well, Mr. Barber has a lot of real long-headed and hard-headed sense. He also has _money_. He has a _whole lot_ of money. That makes Mr. Barber a “strong” man, as Mr. Benson puts it, in the calculating eyes and minds of public bubblers. Not only has Mr. Barber money, but, as Pearson’s editor points out, “he is a man of affairs.” He has been a man of affairs for fifty years. He is an officer or director in companies which have a capital of fifty million dollars. Their combined freight shipments are from 150,000 to 200,000 cars per year, and go to all parts of the world.

No, there is nothing of the yapped “yellow” about Mr. Barber. When the barkers bark of him, the trajectory of their language will carry it scarcely beyond the walls or to the banqueters. In most cases the barker’s voice, when adversely criticising Mr. Barber, will take that humble, pendant expression so universally characteristic of the tail of a scared dog.

Mr. Barber is “strong.” If you don’t know it get the February, 1912, Pearson’s and read his article on “The Railroad Game.” You will know it then.

The clackers who clack for those who profit by the outrageous parcels post service in this country now, will tell you, of course, that Germany, France and some other countries can “afford” to give their citizens lower postal carriage rates, “because the governments own the railroads and have their mails carried free.”

It is sufficient to say in answer to such clack that if we can have a cheap, efficient parcels post service _only by owning the railroads_, then let us own them.

Why not? A good, cheap parcels post service is worth it--worth it to you, to me, to every man, woman and child of the country, both to those living and to the generations yet unborn.

Yes, sirs, such a parcels post service is worth _more to our people than our railroads cost to build_, or would cost to rebuild or to buy. Why do I say that? I say it _because_ it is a _fact_--a fact that needs but a line or two to evidence.

1. Such a parcels post service would save our people _more_ than $300,000,000 every year.

2. At 2 per cent (a rate at which the government can borrow all the money it wants), three hundred million dollars would pay the interest on $15,000,000,000.

3. Fifteen billions of dollars is _more_ than either the “book” or the “market” value of _all_ the railroads in this country--“water” included. It is more than _twice_ their tangible, or construction, value.

So, if we can have cheap, reliable parcels post service only when the “government own the railroads,” then let’s get busy.

One of the much _worn_ objections to a cheap parcels post service is that it cannot be established and _profitably_ operated, as it has been in those countries which _own_ the mail-carrying roads and pay much _lower salaries_ to the operators of the service.

In reply, I will say that in neither Great Britain, nor in _any country of continental Europe_ are _all_ the rail-mail roads _owned_ by the government. But those countries do _control_ all their railroads--and that is exactly what this government must soon do _or the railroads will control it_.

To tell _how_ these governments got control _and keep control_ of their railroads is another story. In fact, it is a story for each of the countries. Suffice it to say here that they _do_ control them. One element of that control _compels_ the railroads to carry a _large portion of the mails free of charge_.

In Great Britain, all regular trains carry at least one mail car free, or at a mere nominal charge, and the trunk line roads are required to turn out extra mail trains of ten cars each on demand of the postoffice authorities. For such a train the road can charge _no more_ for the run than the _average cost of an average passenger train_.

France guarantees and, I believe, _pays_ the interest on a 70,000,000 franc railway bond issues. That is equivalent to $14,000,000. At 3 per cent the interest amounts to $420,000 a year. For that sum the railroads carry all the _regular_ mails free--carry them _under government direction and stipulation_. Last year we paid our railroads $49,330,638.24 for carrying our mails. The French roads also carry the officials, the soldiery, and all military supplies _free_.

That, in brief, is about what the French government _compels_ the railroads of France to do.

_And those roads are all paying fair returns on the money invested in them!_

It was only a few brief years since the railroads of the German Empire were _all_ in the hands of private owners--of “frenzied financiers” who robbed both the government and the people in outrageous mail, freight and passenger rates. Germans will not stand for such conditions long. The people shouted aloud their grievances and demanded redress--demanded a remedy.

_The German government heard and heeded the demands of its people._ It usually does. When it started to give its people relief it was met on every hand with just the same sort of talk as has been heard in this country for a quarter of a century.

“You can’t cut down the rates, for the roads are now earning barely enough to pay fair interest on the investment.”

“You can’t trespass upon the ‘sacred rights’ of property.”

“You can’t think of taking such action! Why, it would create a financial upheaval--a panic--causing widespread disaster and bankrupting the railway companies.”

“You cannot possibly be so inconsiderate as to endanger the savings of the hundreds of thousands of widows and orphans who have invested in our stocks and bonds”--and a lot more of like junk.

But the Chancellor of the Exchequer was a clear-headed, _clean_-minded old German, with the _rugged honesty_ for which his race is justly noted. Well, this Chancellor listened with courteous dignity to all their “you can’t do this,” “You can’t do that,” etc., until it was made quite clear to his mind that frenzied financiers and railroad grafters in his country were _dictating as to the powers and policies of his government_.

What happened then? Why, as Creelman put in writing of the incident, when this grand old Von heard enough of those “you can’ts” to make their object and purpose clear to him, he jumped to his feet and turned loose a few yards of forceful German language which, translated, summarized and anglicized, would sound something like this:

“_I can’t! Well, you just watch me!_”

“Did he give ’em anything worth looking at?” Oh, but didn’t he? The honest old Von sat quietly into their _own_ game, played with their own _marked cards_ and “beat ’em to a frazzle,” as our strenuous ex-President would put it. Did he buy up the roads, paying for all the _aqua pura_ they had tanked up?

Well, hardly! It was _control_ Von wanted, and _ownership_ was neither immediately nor particularly sought, _beyond the point necessary to that control_.

As I remember the story, he quietly put some agents on the floor of the Berlin stock bourse and before the gentlemen who had handed him that miscellaneous assortment of “can’ts” knew what had happened, _Von had control of one or two of the German trunk lines_. Then the way he made those friends of the “poor widows and orphans” _see_ things was profoundly and, for a few weeks, almost _exclusively_ awful. He did not buy the road for his government. He merely bought _control_.

His government having control, he next slashed all the silk and frills _out of rail rates on the road or roads controlled_.

“What was the result?” Why, the “can’t” venders were on their knees to him in six months. In a year the German government _controlled_ its railroads and there was not a railway patriot in the Empire who was not busy telling the Chancellor how many _more things_ he could do, if he wanted to and, in fact, _urging_ him to do some of them.

And the “widows and orphans,” or other _legitimate_ investors in the securities of the German roads, _lost not one cent of earned income_ in the passing of _control_ from private to government hands. As a result, the German government is making money from its _owned_ railroads. The net revenues of the German Government from its railroads is now annually about $250,000,000. From 1887 to 1906, the roads paid into the government’s exchequer about $1,400,000,000. It has saved money from its _controlled_ roads and is furnishing its people _a cheap and most serviceable_ parcels post. So much for the cheap foreign mail-carriage and _the way the “cheap foreigners” got it_.

Now, as to salaries paid. Mail carriers and clerks in this country are paid something under $1,000 a year. Railway mail clerks are paid an average of $1,165--_and the latter work only one-half the time for full pay_. I have no information at hand as to the pay of mail carriers and clerks in foreign countries, but I have the figures for the pay of railway mail clerks in Great Britain, Germany and France. So, we will make comparison of the pay in that class of service. They stand as follows:

Per Year.
In the United States $1,165
In Great Britain 780
In Germany 515
In France 610

There, now, you see the shocking disparity in the very _worst_ and _all_ of its enormity--the way it is usually presented by “farmers” in Congress who are _cultivating_ express company crops. But let us look into those figures a little further.

Information carefully collected and collated, both by official and private agents, among the former being the Department of Commerce and Labor of our own government, has _conclusively_ shown that _living_ in England and in the countries of Continental Europe is _from thirty to forty per cent cheaper than in this country_.

Let us take 30 per cent--the lowest reported estimate of the difference in the cost of living--subsistence, clothing, housing, schooling, amusements, etc.--and see how the figures look in comparison as to pay of railway mail clerks:

Per Year.
In the United States $1,165.00
In Great Britain 1,114.30
In Germany 734.30
In France 871.43

The _enormity_ of the difference, you will observe, is not so shockingly enormous as it appears in _heeler’s_ figures first shown. But even the last set of figures does not afford a just comparison. Here is why:

The English railway clerk is allowed $160 a year as “travel pay.” The German rail man is provided _free_ a house that is worth an annual rental of $135 _in Germany_. Here, it would rent for from $240 to $360. In addition to his “salary” the French railway mail clerk is allowed $180 “travel pay” and is also provided _free_ with a house of a rental value of $80 per year--a house that would rent here at from $160 to $300 per year. Making these little additions to the actual service _pay_ of those “cheap foreigners,” let’s see how they compare with our “high salaried” railway mail clerks. We will figure the “travel pay” allowances at its purchasing power _in buying a living_ and for the rent allowances we will add the lowest equivalent given above of corresponding housing in this country.

On that basis the stack-up is as follows:

Per Year.
In the United States $1,165.00
In Great Britain 1,344.30
In Germany 974.30
In France 1,288.57

Those “cheap foreigners,” _who are efficiently operating a cheap parcels post_, you see, come out of the wash in pretty fair shape after all, when compared with our “high salaried” postal service men.

But even the last table does not present the whole truth as to the _lie_ so often yapped about by the _tools_ of the private interests in this country that are opposing the betterment and _cheapening_ of our parcels post service.

The railway mail clerks of England, Germany and France not only get full pay while laid up from temporary injury, the same as do our rail postal men, but their governments pay those “cheap foreigners” _a pension_ when they get old or are permanently injured--_pay it for the remaining years those “cheap” mail handlers live_!

Among the most _brazen_, yet most frequently used, objections to a cheap and serviceable parcels post is that it would “benefit but very few people in the country’s vast population,” or other vocalized breath of similar purport and _purpose_.

Objectors who use this argument belong to one of two classes: They are either fools or think _you_ are, or they are men whose sense of the right and wrong of things, commonly designated as conscience, got lost in their transit from diapers to dress suits.

The “argument” is not worth a line of consideration were it not so frequently used by objectors of the two classes just indicated. A man--_a full-sized man_--who can give it more than a smile ought to hire a janitor and a couple of scrub women to clean up his garret and dust off its furnishings.

But, seriously speaking, let’s think a moment about “the few” people who would be benefited by a cheap parcels post service.

There are 95,000,000 or more folks in this country.

There are about 36,000,000 of that number engaged in farming, farm labor, stock-raising and other agricultural occupations, counting the dependent families.

Counting the dependent families. Those “few” would be benefited, would they not?

Counting wives and babies, there are somewhere around 22,000,000 of our folks engaged in the mechanical trades and manufacturing.

Those “few” would be benefited, would they not?

Among our folks are, counting families as before, not less than 16,000,000 domestic servants, saloon, hotel and restaurant people, policemen, firemen, soldiers, sailors and laborers “not elsewhere specified.”

Those “few” would be benefited, would they not?

Next, we have around 12,000,000 of bookkeepers, clerks, agents, operators, teamsters, etc., “engaged in trade and transportation,” again counting “the little ones at home” but _not_ counting the “retail merchants” nor the _railway manipulators_.

Those “few” would be benefited, would they not?

Next, we may enumerate among our people, doctors, lawyers, teachers and other _professional folks_, counting their folks at home the same as before, some 7,000,000.

Those “few” would be benefited, would they not.

Next we have--

But we have already found about _ninety-one millions_ of the “few people” among our folks who _would be benefited_ by a cheap, serviceable parcels post. That leaves somewheres around four millions to be accounted for.

Again, including dependent families not less than 3,000,000 of that number can be classed as retail merchants. Half of that 3,000,000 are merchants, dealers, manufacturers, etc., in the “larger cities,” whom even the opponents of the parcels post have agreed would be _benefited_ by its service. At any rate it has been _demonstrated_ by organizations of merchants in the large cities that parcel deliveries within a radius of thirty or forty miles of their stores, which had cost from _eight to fifty cents_, can be made at an average cost _not exceeding four cents_.

That leaves the country merchants, the jobbers, the railroad and express company raiders and their hired opinion molders to account for. Of these, the country merchant is by far the most numerous, likewise the most deserving of consideration.

On a previous page I made it fairly clear, I think, that a good, cheap parcels post service would be of great service to him. He has the respect and the confidence of his customers. He knows the worth of goods. He can sell the goods--any line or make--at the advertised or catalogued price and _still make a good profit_, as I have previously shown.

The parcels carriage charge, either by mail or express, is now so high he is compelled to order in quantities to keep “laid-down-prices” low enough to meet competition. A cheap parcels post service would put him in position to meet the competition of the larger merchants of _the cities. A line of samples_, showing the latest patterns, makes and grades, could take the place of fully _half the shelf stock he now carries_, aside from the staples. He could take the order of his customer and have the goods delivered by parcels post either to his store or, if in a rural delivery district, to the home of his customer for a few cents--_have it delivered as cheaply as the big city merchant, manufacturer or mail order house can have it delivered_.

Do not overlook that last point, Mr. Country Merchant, when _hired_ yappers are coaching you to oppose a good parcels post service. The government will not pay “rebates” nor allow “differentials” in its parcels carriage. You can put your packages through the mails at as _low a charge_ as that paid by a merchant _with millions of capital invested in stocks of goods_.

Of all the objections now urged against a _domestic parcels_ post in this country, the dangers lurking in the _mail order house_ is the most industriously worked. “It would be a fine thing for the eastern merchant to have a parcels post system whereby he could supply the people throughout the country,” said a Mr. Louis M. Boswell, a few years since when speaking to the National Association of Merchants and Travelers, convened in Chicago.

And who, pray you, is or was Mr. Boswell? Why, Mr. Boswell was one of the main cogs at that time, in the _Western freight traffic wheels_. Mr. Boswell _talked for his personal interests_, and for those interests only. To make his anti-parcels post talk _catch_ his auditors--the Western merchants--he even told the _truth_ about the express companies.