twenty-one years ago and has met in all parts of the country, and expressed opinions in regard to the wants of its members, and so forth. It largely represents the home weeklies and the home dailies, and also to some extent the metropolitan dailies and agricultural papers. That is, they belong to State associations, and by sending delegates to the national body they are represented. We represent about 8,000 different publications in the National Editorial Association. We have one delegate for every twenty-five editors in a State, and by that means we have generally from 300 to 400 delegates at our meetings.

Now, the members of this large body are, the great majority of them, newspaper men, and they are men who are largely engaged in the discussion of political matters and the disseminating of general news with regard to politics and official affairs. They are in the main what are designated the newspapers of the country.

Now, I think we are all willing to admit that everything in this country should be on a reciprocal basis. That is, if we receive service we should give service; that whoever receives pay without rendering a valuable consideration is to that extent a thief or else a beggar, whether he be the President of the United States, an editor, a Congressman, a Senator, or anybody else; that the whole system of the country is based on the idea of rendering service equivalent to what we receive. We are willing to admit that as a basis.

Now, I hope some of you read the splendid tribute that Mr. Fairbanks paid to the press in his speech at Chicago the other day, in which he spoke of the governing principle of public opinion and the necessity to the public of having a press that brought together, crystallized, and gave out that public opinion. We believe in the high standard of the press that he set for them. It has been the teaching of our association that we are responsible to the country as citizens and that we are responsible to our constitutency to give them fair and honest representations and facts.

Now, we have been told by nearly every politician, Congressman, Senator, and President of the United States that the press of this country is doing a great work; that it is through this agency that it is possible to have a republic; that the only way to have a free government is to have some agency that will go forth and inform the people as to every act of the Government, and that will gather up the wants and opinions of the people and bring them to influence the representatives of the people.

Now, I think there has been and there is apt to be a distinction between the Government and the people. My idea is that the people are the Government. We are told so by all the politicians over and over again, and when we are talking about the Government doing certain things, it is the people who are doing them through their agents; and it is not Congress, it is not the Post-Office Department. but it is the people back of them who are employing them to do certain service and for certain objects, and if those objects are worthy, they are bound to obey the voice of the people.

I have been very much pleased with this hearing so far. I think it is very wise to bring men of different opinions together. We are apt to get into grooves; and I have been pleased to hear the remarks and to see the exhibit that has been made. But it seems to me that

this reveals a fact, that instead of simplifying we have multiplied rules without any reason or any real results.

Minnesota, in her State law, has a definition of a newspaper. They say a newspaper shall consist of at least 4 pages, 5 columns to the page, to be made up of varied news and other matters. Of course, when it comes to the periodical, I think that a definition could be got of that; but the idea that I want to bring out is that before any publication should be entitled to admission to second-class rates it should show that it is such a publication as can serve the Government and serve the public, and there should be a definition along the lines suggested by Mr. Madden, in which he said that the postmaster himself would look at a paper and know whether it was a newspaper or not, and do away with all this long hearing and argument about the forms, and everything of that kind. In the public mind there is a pretty clear idea of what is a newspaper. A little slip of paper, 2 inches wide and with only 2 pages, is not, in the public mind, a newspaper.

It is easy to define that which is a newspaper. A newspaper is that which is rendering service in giving news, in giving facts, in giving varied conditions. A periodical should have something more than stories. It should be something that does not deal in stories alone, but in literature, in facts. A trade paper should be one that gives news in regard to trade and facts with regard to trade. This should not be a thing that requires any secret examination, but one that requires public understanding and public examination.

Now, some statements have been made, and I call attention to one statement of the last speaker. It is a popular idea probably that newspapers cost less to-day than they did twenty years ago. Anybody who is making a newspaper knows differently. Our expenses in every direction have increased. We have to make a larger paper. We have to supply more matter. A paper with the matter that was published twenty-five years ago, that would live, with half a dozen little local items and long editorials, such as we saw in our small country papers, would not live a month at the present time. They have got to be filled with news. They are larger, and everything that is set on paper costs more than it did then. We have got to make better papers or we could not live.

I have taken up this matter in an address that I have handed to you, and with the permission of your Commission I will read briefly from it. I begin with the idea of vested rights, referred to by Mr. Hubbard.

The present postal system has been built up by acts of Congress through many years for the benefit of the people and the diffusion of information so essential in a republic. It is the cheapest and most efficient and essential educational system in existence.

I deny that there ever was any idea of a subsidy to publishers in the postal rates. It was the idea of favoring the people, and with the idea of disseminating knowledge. I will refer to the statement of Thomas Jefferson, away back in the 1770's. Thomas Jefferson was considered the law and the gospel by some people, and a pretty good safe man to rely on. As a matter of public policy he advocated just what the Government has pursued since, not for the benefit of the publishers, but for the benefit of the people and for the safety

of the Republic. I say that under this idea, which is a true one, and which has been advocated by every statesman from the foundation of the Government until to-day-under this idea the publishers have built up their business.

They have fixed their rates, they have pushed their circulation, they have made their investment on the basis of the charges that were fixed by the Government. They have built up large properties, they have built up papers of large circulation, until the whole mass of the people is reached by newspapers. Now, I say that Congress has no right to interfere with vested rights. Those rights are sacred. If any change is made, it must be made so as not to injure rights that now exist under laws made by Congress and not by the publishers, and which the publishers never asked for.

Publishers have fixed the prices of their publications and arranged their business under the existing system, and any change would disturb present satisfactory conditions, and any radical change would be ruinous and result in the destruction of existing business and properties that have been legitimately built up under existing laws. If there are abuses, legitimate publishers are not responsible for such abuses. The abuses should be corrected, but existing business and property rights should be conserved.

I claim that there is no difficulty at all, and I think it has been shown by Mr. Madden that there is really no difficulty in finding out what a legitimate newspaper is, and what a legitimate periodical is, and, of course, that is all we ask, that this be confined to those papers. The newspaper press is the most speedy and effective method for the Departments and officers of the Government to reach the citizens, each of whom is an integral part of this free Government, whose authority or approval must be sought, and all of whom are entitled to be at once informed of the plans and doings of their employees, of the public officers chosen by them, or appointed by their employed officials. If the Government had to pay at commercial rates for all this necessary information furnished promptly by the newspapers without charge, or was compelled to send the same out by telegraph or mail to each individual citizen, the cost would be fourfold what is now paid out for carrying all the published newspapers and periodicals through the mails. The newspapers do governmental service that would be almost impossible in any other way. The newspaper and periodical press has become one of the strongest governmental arms or agencies.

It is the herald of official information, proclamations, and legal enactments, the most effective aid to the citizens in choosing their representatives and all public officials, a guard over public interests and official honesty, and the sleepless detective of public wrongs and official wrongdoers in the service of the nation, and the counselor and friend of those who do well, too. It is a school of statesmanship, of civic rights, of public policy and administration, informing as to public wrongs and needs and official abuses, and an interpreter and inculcator of mutual, individual, and public rights, insisting on respect there for and the observance thereof. It teaches and inspires to civic virtue and patriotism. It is the champion and promoter of education, of public schools and universities, of industrial, normal, and agricultural institutions, and of all the interests and industries subserved thereby. For this public service it neither receives nor

asks for direct rewards. In view of all these facts and of all the conditions of free government, must it not be admitted that Thomas Jefferson was right, in 1787, when writing from a capital of Europe, where he had witnessed all the terrors, irregularities, and interruptions in an attempt of government by the people without the means of general information, education, and intelligence, he said:

The way to prevent these irregular interpositions of the people is to give them full information of their affairs through the channels of the public papers, and so contrive that these papers should penetrate the whole mass of the people. The basis of our Government being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right, and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a Government without newspapers, or newspapers without a Government. I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter. But I should mean that every man should receive those papers and be capable of reading them.

That was Thomas Jefferson's opinion, and that opinion has been coincided with by every leading statesman from that day to this. We have heard it on the hustings, in the halls of Congress, in the administrative departments; but now we are told that we are rendering no service to the Government, that we are merely a lot of commercial chaps who are asking a subsidy from the Government without.

any return.

Has any public official, any statesman, any politician, any publicist or philanthropist-anyone who has thought he had a word to say in order to keep public opinion right-ever been denied a free hearing in the press of America? Has not the public press rather sought for free expression, and has it not expended millions of dollars in securing, printing, and publishing to all the truth and the most able views, thoughts, and arguments of the greatest and noblest in order to enlighten the opinions of the people and to safeguard the Republic? Has it not been wise and patriotic to encourage the circulation of newspapers, "so that every man should receive those papers and be capable of reading them?" The Government, as represented in school districts, townships, cities, counties, States, and the nation, expends hundreds of millions annually that the people may be able to read and understand without asking one dollar in direct money in return, and why should anyone be so greatly concerned that there is a small apparent deficiency in the postal service through encouraging the means for giving the people the information on which to form their opinions as the citizen sovereigns of this free Republic, this Government by the people?

In view of the fact that the American press renders tenfold more to the Government in actual and immediate service than is expended by the Government in carrying the papers to and distributing them among the sovereign people, the press ought not to be constantly charged with a deficit in the postal service unless such deficit actually and necessarily exists, nor should private individuals, firms, or corporations who use the mails be specially taxed or charged with carrying the mail of the different Departments, branches, or officers of the Government. Postmaster-General Cortelyou has shown that the cost of carrying the mail for the Departments of the Government, the army and navy establishments, the Departments of State, of the Treasury, of the Interior, of Agriculture, of the agricultural experi-, ment stations of 45 States, of all the different bureaus-Pensions, the Census, the Geological Survey-for free seeds, and for the judicial

executive, and legislative departments, would in 1904 "largely exceed" $19,822,000, while on the top of all this it is shown that there was an extraordinary outlay of $12,645,275.79 for free rural delivery, while the sum total of the postal deficit was $8,779,422.36.

It would thus appear that instead of there being a real deficit. there was actually a profit to the Government used in the carrying of its own mails of $11,042,577.64.

This is saying nothing of the extraordinary outlay of $12,643,275.79 for installing the free rural mail delivery system, which, it is believed, with proper management, added to the rapid increase in postal matter, largely resulting from this new and desirable service, will soon become self-supporting.

A word with regard to the explanation made by Mr. Hubbard in relation to rents. Of course the people built those public buildings, and they are owned by the people of the United States. I have had an estimate that the whole expenditure there would not be half of the amount of the $19,000,000, even if it were paid at full rates. Of course the people built the buildings and own them, and I suppose it would only be right to figure that the Government would have to pay the interest on the cost of those buildings, not the rent that some merchant in the city where the bulidings are might have to pay. The only fair charge would be the interest on the money that the people have to pay on their own investment.

While the press has given tenfold in direct services to the Government for all that has been expended by the Government to “so contrive that these papers should penetrate the whole mass of the people," it does not follow necessarily that the Government has not paid too much for the transportation of the mails, nor does it excuse Congress or the postal authorities from conducting this great business, the greatest in the world, on business principles and the securing of the transportation of the mails at such rates as are charged to other shippers of freight or express. It is a fact that the daily papers to-day are handled by the railroads and delivered at stations en route at a half a cent a pound, and that express companies will transport and deliver newspapers and periodicals within a radius of 300 miles, in 10-pound lots, at 1 cent a pound.

The express companies seek this business. They come to our office and get it, and make a profit on it at this rate. Now, I have sent my own paper by express time and again in ten pound lots for 10 cents, and I know that the Boston papers and the Chicago papers are having their papers handled for half a cent. Yet we know that the Government is paying 5 cents a pound to the railroads for doing that kind of business, and is furnishing men to handle the mail, and furnishing cars, while paying ten times as much as the express companies will charge publishers for doing like business. I have nothing against the railroads, but for goodness sake do not charge it up to the newspapers if you are giving the railroads a handsome thing. Railroads are useful, but we are not responsible for any liberality that is being shown to the railroads. They are good fellows and all right, but what is being done for the benefit of the railroads ought not to be charged up to the newspapers.

It is believed that the average distance that newspapers and periodicals are carried from the place of publication is less than 300 miles. It would be easy and reasonable to charge extra for carrying