Rowell Advertising Agency of New York, in naming the six best mail-order publications in the country at that time, placed the Woman's Magazine third in the following list:

Everybody's Magazine.

Ladies' Home Journal.
Woman's Magazine.
Saturday Evening Post.
McClure's Magazine.

Collier's Weekly.

These conditions could be attained only by and were attained by combining in the Lewis Publishing Co. skill and diligent attention to the public needs and demands, the faithful performance of its quasi-public duty as a publisher, economies possible only in a business conducted on a large scale, and enormous capital invested in good faith in an honorable enterprise, fostered and encouraged by the laws of the United States. Both the Woman's Magazine and Woman's Farm Journal complied with the laws of the United States for mailable matter of the second class, and were in the year 1905 and for a long time previous admitted to the United States mails as matter of the second class, and at the postage rates fixed by law for publishers of matter of that class, at the St. Louis post office.

The business of the Lewis Publishing Co. was and is substantially of the same nature as that of other publishers, of which there are estimated to be between 10,000 and 15,000 in this country. Its use of the mails was and is under the same laws and regulations as apply to other publishers. By reason of the matters hereinafter stated, the business of this company has been destroyed. Its publishing plant is now dismantled and its presses idle; its losses amount to millions.

The company complains that this destruction of its business was designed and was accomplished by means of a conspiracy among certain officials of the postal service and others to misuse their authority and powers to bring about that result, and that it was the artful cooperation of those in the conspiracy which gave plausibly the appearance of duty to some of the official acts and conduct, when in reality those acts and that conduct were wrongful. The wrongful things done were accomplished in part by disregard of the orderly course of administration and management of the department and the postal service; in part, by violations of the postal regulations; in part, by violation of law; in part, by crafty devices of construction to give unlawful acts the appearance of lawful ones; in part, by the misrepresentation of laws and the use of manufactured or false evidence; and in part by other abuses. By these means and other insidious processes the company's business has been destroyed.

It is roughly estimated that from its inception to date at least a quarter of a million, and possibly as much as half a million, of public funds has been consumed in the course of and as the expenses, direct and indirect, of this official campaign against this company's business. This money was required to compensate for the time of persons occupied in the so-called investigations at the publishing plant, which were more or less continuous for a period of two or three years and at which a large number of persons were often engaged at one time as many as 65 for a period of three and a half months. It was required in expense of the more or less continuous circularization of the hundreds of thousands of patrons of the company in all parts of the country in connection with the so-called "inquiries" from time to time, which were more or less continuous for a period of five years. It was required in the expense of printing, paper, postage, clerical work of selecting and recording of names and addresses from the company's outgoing mail matter for the aforesaid circularization, traveling, compiling,

consumption of time of postmasters, letter carriers, post-office inspectors, and others-for be it understood that the entire postal service was put in operation and kept in operation against the company with substantial continuity from the beginning.

But whether there was or was not a conspiracy to accomplish the ruin of the company's business, as stated, the following acts were done by the officials and the result is as alleged. Of these specific acts the company now complains, under the provisions of the resolution of your committee, quoted in your letter of May 27, 1911:

(1) That the Classification Division of the Post Office Department, Bureau of the Third Assistant Postmaster General, was charged, during the time these matters took place, by established postal regulation, with initiating and conducting all inquiries and all investigations, etc., and with the making of all decisions on matters connected with the classification of mail matter and the collection of the lawful postage thereon; that this division was equipped with "special agents" as distinguished from "postoffice inspectors," specially trained for the performance of any field work required in due course of business of that division;

That nevertheless in March, 1905, the post-office inspectors, special representatives of the Postmaster General and acting for him, without consultation with the Classification Division of the Bureau of the Third Assistant Postmaster General whatsoever, instituted, conducted, and reported to the Post Office Department upon a so-called "exhaustive inquiry into the publication methods of the Lewis Publishing Co."; that ostensibly this so-called "exhaustive inquiry into the publication methods" was to determine whether the Woman's Magazine and the Woman's Farm Journal complied with the law of mailable matter of the second class;

That the statutes governing matter of the second class required only that a publication, the thing to be transported and delivered, in order to be entitled to that classification and the rates therefor, should comply with the conditions enumerated in the statute; that "publication methods," whether good or bad, right or wrong, are not. matters with which the law concerns itself; that neither the Postmaster General nor any officer of the department, charged with duty of classifying the mail and charging the lawful rates thereon, is required to determine for the purposes of such classification and charging rates on any mail matter whatever, whether "publication methods" are good or bad; that the department never before this case undertook to determine a question of mail classification upon such considerations; and

It is charged and complained of that such an "inquiry" was not required, and would not have been made in due course of the administration of the postal service, or of the administration of any postal law; that it was not authorized by any postal law; that it was without proper cause; that it was without precedent; that it was in open disregard and violation of the orderly manner of transacting the business of the postal establishment; and that it was not in good faith.

(2) That the alleged official report of the post-office inspectors upon this "exhaustive inquiry into the publication methods of the Lewis Publishing Co." was dated May 17, 1905; that it contained criticisms and condemnation of the company's methods and business in general and was made the basis of a recommendation by said inspectors that the Woman's Magazine should, without notice or a hearing, as required by the act of 1901, be summarily denied the mails at second-class rates, and that in the case of the Woman's Farm Journal a hearing should be accorded the company on the right of that publication to continue;

That while this report was pending in the department and before action had been taken thereon the substance thereof was given out, or manipulated so that it would get out, for publication in an unfriendly newspaper of large circulation in St. Louis, namely, the Post-Dispatch; that the May 31, 1905, issue of that paper did contain the substance of the said report and quotations therefrom;

That this publication of the contents of the inspector's report was, notwithstanding such reports are under the rules of the department "confidential," often being denied committees of Congress on the ground of incompatibility with the public interest; that the making of the said "inquiry" because of the public knowledge thereof had already done great damage to the company's commercial credit and standing locally; that the publication in the newspaper of the alleged findings, recommendations, etc., of the inspectors greatly intensified the injury and enlarged the field thereof; and

It is charged and complained that it is fairly and rightfully to be assumed from the circumstances of this whole case, the contents of the report itself, and the publication of the contents thereof in the newspaper that the latter was the real purpose of the said "inquiry," rather than for any action which might under the law and circumstances properly be taken upon what that report contained.

(3) That, although the summary action recommended by the post-office inspectors in the report upon the said "exhaustive inquiry" was not taken by the department, the company was nevertheless cited to appear and did appear at the Post Office Department on June 17, 1905, to answer and show cause why its two publications, the Woman's Magazine and the Woman's Farm Journal, should not be cut off from the second-class rates, without which the company's business would be suppressed.

That the hearing was before the Third Assistant Postmaster General; that officer did decide and did report on July 8, 1905, to the Postmaster General that the two publications were free from wrong; that there was no cause to disturb their status in the mails; that the post-office inspectors' report to the Postmaster General on the so-called "exhaustive inquiry" was without proper cause, irregular, and improper; and

It is charged and complained that this citation and hearing, like the inquiry so-called and the publication in the newspaper were extraordinary; that they were unnecessary; that they would not have occurred in due course of administration; that they were in violation of orderly procedure and practices in the department; that they were uncalled for under any circumstances in due and proper course of the administration of the postal service; and that these matters, because of the public knowledge thereof, and of the reflections upon the company's integrity, greatly damaged its commercial credit, public good will, and prestige.

(4) That, notwithstanding the findings and the report of the Third Assistant Postmaster General upon the hearing of June 17, 1905, these same post-office inspectors, acting on behalf of the Postmster General and persistent in their purpose, instituted a second inquiry into the business affairs of the company; that this inquiry, like the first, was ostensibly for the purpose of determining whether the Woman's Magazine and the Woman's Farm Journal were entitled to be mailed as matter of the second-class, which right if taken away would destroy the company's business; that this inquiry, like the first, was undertaken and conducted without the knowledge of the Classification Division of the department having jurisdiction of all such matters;

That this second inquiry was conducted also in direct violation of an express agreement of the Postmaster General, dated July 19, 1905, to issue for the information and guidance of all publishers the rules of the department in determining whether a publication complied with the requirements of the statutes in relation to second-class mail matter; that it was also in violation of his agreement to provide that after the publication of said rules and before their taking effect, ample time should be allowed publishers to adjust their publications to the requirements, if when the rules were published, they were not already in conformity therewith;

That this second inquiry was undertaken and conducted at the very time the rules aforesaid were formed but yet unpublished; that the rules were published December 16 the following, and provided that publishers should be allowed until April following to adjust any irregularities in their publications to be in conformity with the rules;

That from 20 to 50 postal officials were engaged in this second inquiry; that during the time they had possession of the company's records and files the company was greatly embarrassed and at much disadvantage in the transaction of its business with its patrons; that when leaving the company's building at night the postal officials sealed up the entrance doors to the offices so that the officers or employees of the company could not have access to its files and records; that when the files and records were restored to the company they were in such a state of disorder that it was two months before the company was able to transact its business with its customary dispatch and attention and with satisfaction to the needs of its patrons; and

It is charged and complained that this investigation or inquiry, begun on October 12, 1905, would not have been instituted in due course of administration; that it was undertaken and conducted in violation of the postal regulations; that it was not required in good faith for any proper purpose; that the expenditure of the public money for services in that connection was unauthorized and unlawful; and that, like the previous "inquiry," was greatly damaging, because of the public knowledge thereof, to the company's public standing and credit.

(5) That the aforesaid post-office inspectors, the St. Louis postmaster, and the Postmaster General, and other public officers cooperating with them, did, in October, 1905, secretly seize and confiscate 300,000 copies (three carloads) of one of the company's magazines, namely, the Woman's Farm Journal; that this seizure took place after the company had deposited the copies in the mails and had paid the lawful postage thereon; that neither the postage paid nor the copies themselves were returned to the company; that the seizure was discovered weeks after; that from the distress of this seizure, covering half of an entire edition, and the company being in ignorance of the names and addresses on the copies seized, there could be no relief in starting the presses again and printing an additional 300,000 copies to send in their places;

that this seizure forced the company into the position of defaulting upon a great number of its subscription contracts and advertising contracts; and that these circumstances greatly added to the damage already done the company's business; and It is charged and complained that this secret seizure was in direct violation of law; that it was in violation of the postal regulations; that it was unwarranted by any circumstance; that it would not have occurred in due course of orderly administration; that it was not in good faith for any lawful or proper purpose; that the statute made such a seizure a penal offense; and that the company was helpless to prosecute the offenders because the administration thereof was in the hands of the guilty parties themselves.

(6) That between March, 1905, and the date of this statement the Postmaster General, his assistants, and the officials under them have on numerous occasions prevented the company in one way or another from exercising its lawful privilege to mail copies of its several publications at publishers' second-class rates; that those officials have assessed against many hundreds of thousands of the company's publications unauthorized and prohibitive nonpublishers' rates; that by this process many thousands of dollars have been wrongfully extorted from the company as alleged postage; that in so far as those rates were prohibitive and the company was unable to pay them the effect of the assessment thereof was to force the company to default upon its subscription and advertising contracts; and

It is charged and complained that all such assessments of other than publishers' rates on copies sent by the publisher and from the office of publication was unwarranted; that it was in violation of law; that it was not done in good faith and in due and orderly course of proper administration; and that it occasioned great material damage to the company and great injury to its public faith and credit.

(7) That in December, 1905, the post-office inspectors and the postmaster at St. Louis secretly seized and detained in the St. Louis post office thousands of the company's outgoing sealed letters upon which the lawful postage was prepaid; that this action resulted in great injury to the company's business, its public faith, credit, and prestige with advertisers, subscribers, and correspondents; and

It is charged and complained that this holdup of the first-class letter mail was in violation of law; that it was in violation of the postal regulations; that it could be for no other purpose than to examine into the contents of the letters, which is believed was done, and which was unlawful.

(8) That beginning in the year 1905, and continuing to date, there have been frequently sent out from the Post Office Department, the post office at St. Louis, from many other post offices throughout the country, and from post-office inspectors at St. Louis and elsewhere, a great number of alleged official communications and inquiries, so called, to all or a great part of the subscribers, advertisers, and patrons of the company; that some of these communications called for one kind of information and some for another; that some were to ascertain if the business transactions of the persons addressed with the company were satisfactory; that some asked for signed statements from the persons addressed concerning their dealings with the company; that some asked for the sending in of the communications and papers received from the company; That many orders were sent out to postmasters, directing them to instruct their letter carriers to make a series of verbal inquiries concerning the private business of the persons addressed at the time of making delivery of the company's mail matter to them; that the letter carriers were instructed by their postmasters to record the answers and send them in;

That all these things were done as if necessary or required in the administration of the mail classification laws and regulations in respect to the Women's Magazine and the Woman's Farm Journal; that while the company can not state the exact number of the different forms of communications sent out, or the different kinds of information called for, or the different papers called for, or the different statements called for, the company has seen some 70 different forms which, more or less, meet the descriptions given;

That for the most part these communications and inquiries seemed to carry in them a threat, and in some cases did threaten the parties inquired of with some sort of trouble or chastisement by the officials; that the inference to be drawn from all of them, or the most of them, was that officially it was regarded as an improper or reprehensible thing to patronize the company at all; and

It is charged and complained that the making of such inquiries of the company's patrons concerning their business transactions was unnecessary and uncalled for in the orderly and proper administration of the mail-classification laws; that such inquiries were unauthorized by any law; that they were made for the ulterior purpose of intimidation and to create distrust, doubt, and question of the integrity and good faith of the company in its dealings with the public; that it was one of the insidious

processes employed by the officials to undermine and destroy the company's business, which depended upon public good will and credit; and that all public money spent in this connection for services of the officials for paper, for printing, for postage, for traveling, and otherwise was unwarranted by any law.

(9) That on March 4, 1907, without notice whatever, and without a hearing as required by law, all copies of the company's Womans' Magazine and Woman's Farm Journal were summarily denied the mails at publishers' second-class rates, and the third-class rate was assessed against them; that this action closed down the presses and stopped the publishing business completely; that this action, with what had gone before, completed the wrecking of the company's business, public faith, and credit, since it forced it to default on officially admitted over 800,000 subscription contracts, and on all of its advertising contracts; that this act discredited the company and its publications for all future time; that notwithstanding the publications were restored to their place in the mails and at publishers' rates about nine months after this complete close-down, and the company made great effort to revive them and restore its business prestige and spent enormous amounts of money in that undertaking, it was nevertheless obliged, because of the effect of all that has been recited to abandon the work of rehabilitation and did so on October 10, 1910, finding restoration of public confidence beyond the possible, the Government blight having reached to the remotest corners of the land; and

It is charged and complained that this act was immoral and lawless; that it was unwarranted by any circumstances whatsoever; that in some part it was the Postmaster General's personal penalty inflicted upon the company for having offended him by publishing severe criticisms of his previous official acts; that it was a wanton disregard of property rights; that it violated the constitutional guaranty of the liberty of the press; that with what had gone before it completed the wrecking and the closing up of the company's business and injured and damaged an honorable, lawabiding enterprise greatly in excess of a million dollars.

(10) That on March 19, 1907, 15 days after, the official act had destroyed and rendered idle the company's plant and stopped its business, there was issued from the Post Office Department a printed pamphlet, ostensibly conveying to the public and to the press of the country a statement of the alleged reasons and justification of the high-handed act of March 4, 1907; that this pamphlet was sent in large quantities to the company's patrons, as well as to the press and the public in general; and

It is charged and complained that if the official conduct of March 4, 1907 was lawful and proper, it needed no such explanation to justify it; that this pamphlet contained untrue and libelous statements concerning the company; that it greatly enlarged and intensified the damage already done to the company's business; that this pamphlet was printed and circulated in direct violation of law; that the expenditure of public money for paper, printing, circulation, etc., was unauthorized by law.

(11) That the president, secretary, and treasurer of the Lewis Publishing Co. were, in alleged true bills returned by the United States grand jury December 1, 1905 (No. 5222), May 4, 1906 (No. 5257), and July 6, 1907 (No. 5316), indicted for alleged conspiracy to defraud the Government of postage on copies of the Woman's Magazine and Woman's Farm Journal; that those indictments alleged the form of the statute limited the number of subscribers' and other copies the company might send in the mails at publishers' rates of a cent a pound; that the limit had been exceeded; and that the form of the statute required on the excess the rate of 1 cent for each 4 ounces or fraction thereof, prepaid by stamps affixed; and that this rate was not as required by the form of the statute, prepaid on the excess, but that the excess was mailed fraudulently at the publishers' rate of a cent a pound; and

It is charged and complained that all three of these indictments were fraudulent; that neither the law nor any postal regulation limited the number of copies which the company might mail at the publishers' rate of a cent a pound; that neither the law nor the postal regulation required the payment of the nonpublishers' rate of 1 cent for each 4 ounces or fraction thereof upon any copies whatsoever sent by the publisher from the office of publication; that the indictments were fraudulent for the further reason that there was actually no excess of copies mailed over the alleged limits at the cent-a-pound rate, even if such limits were, as a matter of truth, in the form of the statute; that the alleged evidence of the excess mailings was manufactured and false; that these indictments were without probable cause and not in good faith, but for the ulterior purpose of intimidation; that it was the purpose by means of them to railroad the officers of the company into the penitentiary on executive-made law and false evidence; that the publication of said indictments in the newspapers and in official documents, issued from the department at Washington, stigmatizing the officers of the company as charged with fraud against the Government, greatly added to the damage and injury already done to the company's public faith and credit.