Chapter VII: Section 2: shall remain in force for three months from the last

day of the month in which this act is approved. (Page 38, 1910
Report.)

I have probably quoted sufficient to show that Postmaster General Hitchcock is _reaching_ for power and authority _which should not be delegated to any bureau or cabinet head_. The last statement is made, of course, in the confident belief that the reader joins me in the desire and _confident_ hope that the basic principles of our government will be neither superseded nor abrogated by legislative grants of bureaucratic power and authority, which power and authority once granted is _seldom or never recovered to a people without sanguinary action on their part_, with all the waste of effort, vitality, money and human life usually a concomitant of such action.

There are several more of Postmaster General Hitchcock’s legislative recommendations I would like to quote, did space permit, but there is one other which I will quote, because it wears a sort of humoresque drapery when taken in connection with that “rider” Mr. Hitchcock so industriously tried to put through the necessary three-ring stunts required in the senatorial circus; also when taken in connection with a little, not separately stitched, _brochure_ which Mr. Hitchcock turns loose on pages 7 and 8 of his most excellent, _though ulteriorly tutoring, report_.

On pages 7 and 8 the Postmaster General tells us, as best he can, under _influenced and influencing conditions_, the why and wherefore for his attempt to load his department deficit onto a few periodicals which he, likewise certain of his “influencers” possibly, does not like. Well, I want my readers to _read_ this bit of official effort, _in a wrong cause_. I want them to read it in the _raw_, with no spring papering or decorating on it.

As has been my practice in quoting, I shall take occasion to italicize a little. But that will not cut any four-leaf clovers this early in the season. I italicize merely to call the reader’s attention to the elegant _assertiveness_ of Mr. Hitchcock’s “style” and to his _planned_ determination to “put it over” on those pestiferous periodicals--weekly and monthly--in spite of _constitutional prohibitions_, Senate rules or publishers’ opposition.

Stay! I have another reason for italicizing. I want the reader to read those italicized phrasings of Mr. Hitchcock’s unstitched _brochure_ a _second_ time, and to read them more carefully the _second_ time than he did the first. If the reader will kindly do this we will be better acquainted, also be mutually better acquainted with Mr. Hitchcock and his dominating purpose, whether _ulterior_ or other, in attacking a special class or division of periodical publications in order to recoup a deficit _created wholly by the rural delivery service and by the free_ (franked and penalty), _service rendered by his department_. We will first quote his little second-class _brochure_ and follow it with his humoresque legislative recommendation:

In the last annual report of the department special attention was
directed to the _enormous loss the government sustains_ in the
handling and transportation of second-class mail. Owing to the
rapid increase in the volume of such mail _the loss is constantly
growing_. A remedy should be promptly applied _by charging more
postage_. In providing for the higher rates it is believed
that _a distinction should be made_ between advertising matter
and what is termed _legitimate reading matter_. Under present
conditions an increase in the postage on reading matter is not
recommended. Such an increase would place a special burden on a
large number of second-class publications, including _educational
and religious periodicals_, that derive little or no profit from
advertising. It is the circulation of this type of publications,
which _aid so effectively in the educational and moral
advancement of the people, that the government can best afford
to encourage_. For these publications, and also for any other
_legitimate reading matter in periodical form_, the department
favors a continuation of the present low postage rate of 1 cent
a pound, and recommends that the proposed increase in rate be
applied only _to magazine advertising matter_. This plan would
be in full accord with the statute governing second-class mail,
_a law that never justified the inclusion under the second-class
rates of the vast amounts of advertising now transported by the
government at a tremendous loss_.

_Newspapers are not included in the plan_ for a higher rate
on advertising matter because, _being chiefly of local
distribution_, they do not burden the mails to any such extent as
the widely circulating magazines.

Under the system proposed it will be possible, without increasing
the expenditure of public funds, to utilize _for the benefit
of the entire people_ that considerable portion of the postal
revenues now expended to _meet the cost of a special privilege_
enjoyed by certain publishers.

In view of the vanishing postal deficit it is believed that
if the magazines could be required to pay what it costs the
government to carry their advertising pages, _the department’s
revenues would eventually grow large enough to warrant 1-cent
postage on first class mail_. Experiments made by the department
show that the relative weights of the advertising matter and
the _legitimate reading matter in magazines_ can be readily
determined, making it quite feasible to put into successful
operation the plan outlined. Under that plan each magazine
publisher will be required to certify to the local postmaster, in
accordance with regulations _to be prescribed by the department_,
the facts necessary to determine the proper postage charges.
The method of procedure will be worked out in such manner as
to insure the dispatching of the mails as expeditiously as at
present. (Pages 7 and 8, 1910 Report.)

That sort of a literary hand-out may be all right for certain of our citizens transplanted from south European environment, likewise from malnutrition and inanition, by the ship load to this country, where most of them expected to find $1.50 or $2.00 per day growing on vines or low bushes--and found it, in most cases, too.

But to the home-grown American citizen, “His Majesty,” such departmental literature is a noise something like a “chuck” steak makes when his hunger suggests a “porter house” and he is without the price. That is “His Majesty” who _earns_ what he acquires and _pays_ for what he gets and who does not take on an over-load of the sort of official talk Mr. Hitchcock ships him in packages similar to the above. Our home-grown American citizens like to have their officials say something that _means_ something. They do not want any literary ham-and’s served to them at four prices, they knowing where to obtain them at first cost.

I intended to make further comment on the foregoing--or gone--quotation from our Postmaster General. I shall, however, deny myself that pleasure, confidently believing that my italicization of certain of its phrasings and statements is sufficient comment for the reader who is following me in this effort to peel the varnish and frescoe from a _planned_ bad cause.

The reader who has followed me thus far and has not discovered that I am writing _against_ the men who are, I believe, trying _to set the brakes on legislation in order to serve some_ “good interest” which pays them a thousand or more for each of the twelve annual connections with the cashier or “deposit certificates”--the reader who, I say, has followed me thus far and failed to discover that fact should quit right here. It will not cure him to read the rest of what I shall say. It is to be worse than what I have previously said; in fact, it is going to be some distance beyond “the limit.” My advice to any “frail” reader, therefore, is to quit right at this point and give his brain a rest until he is able to “come back” _and learn something_.

We will now take a look at the humoresque “throw” of our Postmaster General for legislative action. To fully appreciate it, the reader must bear in mind that Mr. Hitchcock’s division of his 1910 report is of date, December 1st, 1910, and signed by himself. The reader should furthermore bear in mind that Mr. Hitchcock had previously reported--and more frequently _asserted_--that the transportation and handling of second-class mail cost the government 9.23 cents per pound. The reader should, in this instance, likewise take into his judgmental grinder the fact that Mr. Hitchcock, in the quotation which follows, is _trying to put up another hurdle for the magazines and other periodicals to jump_; that is, for _such of them as he may not like_, to jump.

This recommendation for _legislative authority_ is intended to cut out the sample copy privilege of periodicals, a privilege which the government should _encourage rather than discourage_:

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.”

While I have not the act of 1885 at hand, I am aware that it permits what the Postmaster General asks for, _a 1-cent per pound rate_ for periodicals admissible under the acts of 1879 and 1885. Mr. Hitchcock asks for this legislation, a-cent per pound rate, December 1st, 1910.

Before that date and since he has repeatedly asserted, both in print and “_interview_,” that second-class mail _costs the government 9.23 cents per_ pound to transport and handle. Do you see the _equivocating_ “ulterior” in this bit of recommended legislation? If you do not, just go into the back yard and kick yourself until you awaken to the fact and then come back and read Mr. Britt’s statement, page 328 of the 1910 report. Britt is Third Assistant Postmaster General and knows--well, he knows so much that he has to _space-write_ in order to fill in about sixty pages of this 1910 report. But, as I have to take notice of Mr. Britt’s _furnished_ data later, I shall give him no more attention at this point.

I believe that I have either furnished the evidence to prove the purpose, _the ulterior purpose_, of Postmaster General Hitchcock, or of his _influences_, to punish certain periodicals, _to penalize them for telling the truth_, likewise to acquire bureaucratic powers to give his department the right of censorship over our periodical literature; not only that, but to have the successful introduction of a parcels post _dependent on conditions of his own choosing_.