Mr. GLASGOW. In other words, you thinks the increase of wages is the most important fact of the whole matter?

Mr. HUBBARD. Well, I have set out the importance of it in my paper as I see it.

Mr. GLASGOW. Now, Mr. Hubbard, do you not think the broad and conservative way to look at the question of the Post-Office Department is that the Department, taken as a whole, should, so far as is consonant with the public service, be self-sustaining as a whole? Mr, HUBBARD. Oh, as a whole; yes.

Mr. GLASGOW. It is not a question of segregating, so that each particular part of the service should repay the Department for that particular service, but that, taken as a whole, so far as consonant with the public service, the Department should be self-sustaining.

Mr. HUBBARD. Oh, well, when we call the dogs to dinner, you know, we call them by their names. We have to give them their names or they would not know what they were when they came to dinner. If they did not have any name, you could not name them. Just so I would have the classes of mail matter named and understood, and would have each class pay its way if it could. I do not know why it should not.

The VICE-CHAIRMAN. Are there any other questions to ask Mr. Hubbard? Has any member of the Commission any questions?

Senator CARTER. Mr. Hubbard, you state in your paper that the cost of carrying first or second class matter is easily ascertainable. Will you kindly explain the method, in simple fashion, by which you arrive at the cost of carrying second-class mail matter?

Mr. HUBBARD. Well, possibly I was too easy in that statement. think my statement says "the cost of carrying second-class matter.” Senator CARTER. I think that is correct.

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Mr. HUBBARD. In writing that statement I perhaps said that too easily. I do not know that I would want, just here and without further consideration, to say just how that could be done. It still seems to me, however, that it can be done and that it would not be a serious matter to work out. I do not know that I would want, right on my feet, to say in simple fashion just how I would arrive at a computation of the cost.

Senator CARTER. From your experience, which is very long and varied, you would proceed upon some substantially equitable basis to ascertain with approximate accuracy what elements would enter into the computation of transportation?

Mr. HUBBARD. Certainly.

Senator CARTER. Handling at the office of origin

Mr. HUBBARD. Origin and destination.

Senator CARTER. And destination.

Mr. HUBBARD. Yes; just as I have made figures in our statement concerning the cost of handling the hundred pounds of fully made-up matter as it reaches us and the cost of handling the miscellaneous matter. We call it in the one case fully made-up, tagged out, and in the other we call it miscellaneous, or that which we have to separate according to the State and then take it over to the State cases, make the distribution, sack it, and send it to the depot. I have undertaken to make a computation of that, one costing 4 cents a hundred pounds and the other 41. Those are things that would be figured out in much the same way, on similar lines.

Senator CARTER. Are lines of demarcation so drawn in the handling of the mails as to enable the person charged with the task to separate, with approximate accuracy, items of cost properly applicable to second-class matter, to first-class matter, and to third-class matter, etc.?

Mr. HUBBARD. Oh, yes; it can be done.

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Mr. GLASGOW. May I ask one other question which I omitted. notice in the report of the Postmaster-General an estimate of $19,000,000 as the cost to the Post-Office Department, at the current rates of postage, of handling free matter for the Government, the Departments. Would you suggest any qualification of that line of procedure?

Mr. HUBBARD. I may say upon that point that I hear a great deal about the free matter and about it being the cause of a deficit. Those who have adopted that popular cry are not acquainted with the facts. Now I undertake to say that if the great post-offices of the country, and all the post-offices of the country that occupy Treasury buildings paid a fair rent. paid for their fuel, light, furniture, and janitor service, it would more than pay the free mail-matter cost.

Mr. GLASGOW. But the fact is, as it appears from the report of the Postmaster-General, that if the other Departments of the Government, outside of the Post-Office Department, paid the Post-Office Department for services rendered during the year ending 1905, the PostOffice Department would have had $19,000,000 more money than it had under existing conditions.

Mr. HUBBARD. Yes; but

Mr. GLASGOW. And therefore instead of there being a deficit, there would have been a surplus.

Mr. HUBBARD. Still, in that view, then, what I was getting at, if you will pardon me

Mr. GLASGOW. Let me ask my question, please.

Mr. HUBBARD. Yes.

Mr. GLASGOW. Now the question that I propounded to you is. would you suggest any way of curing that defect, as a matter of bookkeeping or whatever you call it, so that the Department would show what is the real fact, that it has not a deficit but a surplus? Would that make any difference in your view concerning it? Mr. HUBBARD. It does not trouble me on that score. As I say, they were sliding out of paying rent. For instance, speaking for the post-office with which I am connected, I am in one of the Government buildings. If we had to pay for space what it is worth in Chicago, in the place where the post-office is; if we had to pay for the more than 4.000 electric lights that we burn; if we had to pay for the heat, and if we had to pay for all our furniture and pay for the janitor service, all taken care of by the Treasury Department, and then could get from the various Departments all they ought to pay as postage, putting it that way, I guess we would be out more than we would get in. That is what I think.

Mr. GLASGOW. Are the payments which are made by the Treasury Department on account of lights and janitor service and water, and things of that kind, charged up to the Post-Office Department? Mr. HUBBARD. Not in any way.

Mr. GLASGOW. They are not?

Mr. HUBBARD. Oh, no; not in any way.

Mr. GLASGOW. That is the view that you take of it-that if the Post-Office Department paid for these things that $19,000,000 would be taken up?

Mr. HUBBARD. Certainly; I do think so.

Representative MOON. Mr. Hubbard, unless the furniture and other matters sent through the Post-Office Department by other Departments are weighed during the weighing time, they do not count at all, do they, in transportation?

Mr. HUBBARD. I think not. The compensation is fixed according to weights taken during the weighing period.

Representative MOON. In other words, unless the weighing happens to be at the time the furniture is carried, then all the rest of the furniture carried during the rest of the year is carried at a loss to the railroad company.

Mr. HUBBARD. I would say so. It would look that way. Representative Moon. But if it so happens that the furniture is put in the mail during the weighing period, and is counted in the bulk, then the Government becomes the loser.

Mr. HUBBARD. Well, yes; I should say that would be true.

Representative MOON. So it depends largely upon how that question is handled.

Mr. HUBBARD. Yes, sir.

Representative MOON. Can you tell us how much more is paid for the carrying of first-class mail than the cost of carriage? I mean how much more than the Government receives?

Mr. HUBBARD. No; I can not give you any figures on that.

Representative Moox. Can you give the figures that third or fourth class mail pay?

Mr. HUBBARD. No; I can not give you it on that.

Representative MOON. What was your data on the loss on second

class?

Mr. HUBBARD. The figure that I put, the cost of carrying second class, handling and delivery, is 5 cents a pound. That is, I assume it to be that.

Representative Moox. That is just an assumption.

Mr. HUBBARD. An assumption.

Representative Moon. You do not know whether that is a correct figure or not?

Mr. HUBBARD. I do not know whether it is five, six, or seven. Representative MOON. You just made your calculation on that as an arbitrary basis.

Mr. HUBBARD. I put it at a figure that I thought came within a reasonable point.

Senator CARTER. Will you prepare a computation on the subject of the cost of carrying second-class mail matter, for the use of the Commission, to be presented later?

Mr. HUBBARD. Without making a definite promise, I will endeavor to give you light upon that subject. I will do the best I can in that regard, without giving you an absolute calculation. It is a practical question, of the means that I am able to use.

Mr. GLASGOW. As I understand you, Mr. Hubbard, when these matters of furniture and so forth are carried in the mails, unless

they happen to be weighed the railroads are the people who suffer by carrying them.

Mr. HUBBARD. I said I think so. On that score I am about as green as you are, you know.

Mr. GLASGOW. Well, I don't know about that.

Mr. HUBBARD. Not assuming that you are particularly green; not that, but you and I know about as much on that subject.

Mr. GLASGOW. If I could get in the same class as you I would be satisfied, whether it is green or not.

Mr. HUBBARD. How is that?

Mr. GLASGOW. I say if I could get in the same class with you I will be satisfied, whether it is green or not.

Mr. HUBBARD. Thank you.

Mr. GLASGOW. What I want to direct your attention to is this: Even if the railroads suffer loss by reason of the carriage of this furniture and so forth for the Departments-and that would be so under your idea-then if the Government was paid by the people who sent this furniture and so forth, they would get paid for it, and it would not cost them anything to carry it; is that so?

Mr. HUBBARD. Yes; that would be true, too.

Mr. GLASGOW. Then that would help your revenues very considerably.

Mr. HUBBARD. Yes; that would be a good speculation.

The VICE-CHAIRMAN. Mr. Hubbard, as a matter of fact you do not undertake to leave the impression that much furniture is carried by mail, do you?

Mr. HUBBARD. Not at all. I do not know anything about it as a matter of fact.

The VICE-CHAIRMAN. And when you have spoken about furniture, you have meant the furniture furnished in the offices and not the furniture transported by mail.

Mr. HUBBARD. Yes, sir.

The VICE-CHAIRMAN. It is true, is it not, that there is a statute. now which absolutely prohibits the transportation of furniture by mail?

Mr. HUBBARD. I think so.

The VICE-CHAIRMAN. You made answer to Mr. Moon relative to the profit, if any, in the carriage of first-class mail matter?

Mr. HUBBARD. Yes, sir.

The VICE-CHAIRMAN. The rate on first-class mail is 2 cents an ounce, or 32 cents a pound?

Mr. HUBBARD. Yes, sir.

The VICE-CHAIRMAN. Is it not true, as shown by the statistics of the Post-Office Department, that by reason of the fact that the great majority of letters bearing 2-cent postage are under weight they yield a revenue of approximately 87 cents a pound instead of 32 cents a pound?

Mr. HUBBARD. I should say that is true.

The VICE-CHAIRMAN. I now want to direct your attention to that part of your statement relative to the handling of second-class mail in the Chicago office. You made reference to some calculations that you had made, which showed a cost of 4 cents a hundred pounds in handling second-class mail. Was that second-class mail which was

received for entry at the post-office at Chicago or was it received from other post-offices?

Mr. HUBBARD. It was mail delivered at the Chicago post-office publications entered at the Chicago post-office.

The VICE-CHAIRMAN. Both the calculation for the bulk mail at 4 cents a hundred and for what you call miscellaneous mail at 41 cents a hundred was on second-class mail entered at the Chicago post-office? Mr. HUBBARD. Absolutely.

The VICE-CHAIRMAN. Have you made any calculation of the cost of handling second-class mail, either in bulk or by pieces, at the Chicago post-office which originated at other offices?

Mr. HUBBARD. I have not, except in that part of my paper which deals with the cost, with the number of men who handle second-class matter in the city division--that is, the division of delivery.

The VICE-CHAIRMAN. Is there any mail of the second class received at the Chicago post-office which originated at other offices, which is handled exclusively in bulk?

Mr. HUBBARD. Let me get that question again.

The VICE-CHAIRMAN. What I mean is, are there any bulk packages of second-class mail addressed to individuals in Chicago, which bulk packages originated at other offices, which are not handled by the distributing clerks in Chicago?

Mr. HUBBARD. Oh, very many; sent to news agents who call at our office.

The VICE-CHAIRMAN. That is what I mean.

Mr. HUBBARD. Yes, sir.

The VICE-CHAIRMAN. Now, approximately, what proportion of second-class mail, originating at offices other than Chicago, and received at Chicago, is handled exclusively in bulk at the Chicago office? Is it a small per cent or a large per cent?

Mr. HUBBARD. Of the mail that comes into the Chicago post-office, the bulk mail-oh, I would hardly say how much that is.

The VICE-CHAIRMAN. What I want to know is, is the relative proportion large or small?

Mr. HUBBARD. Well, it is small.

The VICE-CHAIRMAN. What proportion of the second-class mail originating at the Chicago post-office is routed by the publisher—that is, the second-class bulk mail which goes through the Chicago office? Mr. HUBBARD. Originating at Chicago?

The VICE-CHAIRMAN. At Chicago?

Mr. HUBBARD. There is a very large percentage of it as to tonnage that is routed by our publishers.

The VICE-CHAIRMAN. How large a percentage?

Mr. HUBBARD. Oh, 60 per cent.

The VICE-CHAIRMAN. From your experience in the service, what, in your opinion, is the percentage of the second-class mail which is routed by the publishers, taken the country over?

Mr. HUBBARD. Well, I should say 50 to 60 per cent.

The VICE-CHAIRMAN. From your experience in the service, would you say it would be practical for the Government to handle by freight from the city of publication bulk second-class matter which is to be distributed in the town of destination?

Mr. HUBBARD. I do not know why it would not.

The VICE-CHAIRMAN. In other words,if a sufficient amount of