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publications circulated beyond that radius. It would not be just to charge the passenger who travels only 300 miles the same as one who travels 3,000 miles, either would it be just to charge the same price for freights carried 300 miles as for freights carried 3,000 miles.

While it is always well to retain a system that is working well and causing no complaints from either the people, the publishers, or the parties directly concerned and who pay the freight, yet, if added receipts for long-distance transportation is deemed necessary or more equitable, it would be easy to adopt a system of different rates on second-class matter for differing large radii of circulation, say, of 300 miles from the office of mailing, similar to the system in use by existing express companies.

I think proof will be presented to you here that the Canadian Government carries second-class matter free within a radius of 40 miles; within a radius of 60 miles for half a cent a pound, and over the rest of the country at 1 cent a pound; yet they have a surplus. Why should the Canadian Government have a surplus and we have a deficit? That is the thing for the Government of the United States to solve.

I want to say right here, too, that there is much more liberality in regard to the matter that goes into the papers that come from England and Canada than there is with regard to our own papers, loose leaves and so on, that we would not be permitted to use in our papers. They come here from those countries and go through our mail. We never object to that, but it shows that they have some definition of what a paper is, and they do not examine to see that the pages are all of exactly the same length, and things of that kind, as has been done in this country.

It is claimed that the Government, although much the larger shipper, pays the railroads much higher rates for transportation than the express companies pay the railroads for like services, and it has been stated in Congress that this excess in the aggregate over what justly should be paid amounts to $25,000,000. The press has no quarrel with the railroads as to the rates they may or may not receive from the Government, if the same are deemed just, or the people through their Government, on any principle of wise public policy, wish to be liberal with the railroads. They have, notwithstanding all the abuses charged or proved, been of great public utility, and, with the public press, have been the mightiest agencies in the development of the country and making its resources available; but liberality to the railroads on the part of the Government should not be made a charge against the press or against second-class matter. The railroads do not and are not expected to render any direct services to the Government without adequate pay, as do and are the newspapers in their public capacity as purveyors of news and the heralds to the people of the policies, plans, laws, and proclamations of the Government and of all officials, from the President and the governors of States to the mayors of cities, the boards of education, and school-district officials.

Take the weather reports, the agricultural reports, the messages of various kinds-there are a thousand different items that are published by the newspapers without charge-that are for the benefit of the Government and the carrying on of the ideas and plans of the Government. So with the agricultural experiment stations and every

thing of that kind; while the Government appropriates money to maintain them, the greatest benefit that comes from them is through the distribution of knowledge with regard to what is being done by the" subsidized press.'

It may, however, be argued that the great cost to the Government as to second-class matter is that of the carrier delivery of mails, and that the present rates charged for second-class postage will render it impossible to make rural mail delivery self-supporting. The fact is that each carrier can cover only about so much territory in handling letters or first-class matter, and the addition of the newspapers and periodicals adds very little to the actual expense of the delivery service anywhere, and on the rural routes next to nothing at all.

The fact is, as any publisher knows, that we can circulate our papers by means of boys. Papers are not valuable matter in the sense that letters are, and so they can be distributed by boys, at an age when the exercise is good for them, at an expense of a quarter of a cent or less than a quarter of a cent a pound, to our subscribers in the cities. That brings me to the idea that I want to point out to you right here. You have men employed to deliver first-class matter. There is a lot of second-class matter to be distributed, and the necessity does not exist of having high-priced men steadily employed to deliver periodicals. They could be handled in a cheap manner, just as on the railroads this matter could be handled by fast freight, as it is in England, or by express. There is no necessity of piling on the price. The proper work of the Government is the carrying of letters between the people, and that is the source from which the revenue comes. The postage paid for that is a small tax on anyone, and no one is complaining of it.

It is stated on authority that the average rural route wagon travels 25 miles a day, serving 125 families with mail, and picks up about 2 pounds of mail matter. At 1 ounce for each letter that would only be an average of 32 letters a day, and it is fair to suppose that not more than four times as many letters or circulars and postal cards are received as letters sent, so that 8 pounds of mail matter taken out on an average each day, other than second-class matter and merchandise. would be a liberal estimate; that is, 8 pounds. Supposing that each family takes one daily paper, four weeklies, four monthlies, and one quarterly, or ten publications in all, this would only make an average of two publications a day for each family, and at an average of a quarter of a pound each, which is far in excess of the average, would only add 62 pounds to the carrier's 8 pounds of letters, or 703 pounds in all, and there would still be opportunity to carry 500 or 600 pounds of merchandise without overtaxing a single horse and wagon, as the load would be getting lighter all the time. I understand that nearly all our mail carriers on rural free delivery routes take two horses, because of the condition of the roads. It is in this carrying of merchandise the delivery of articles, packages, and parcels from the starting point and other points on the route to customers of the route at such fair reduced rates as would encourage and command the business-that rural routes will be made to pay.

Through some such system the rural routes could be made at once still more popular and valuable; convenient for farmers, mechanics, and merchants. The existence of rural telephone service will add greatly to the practicability of such a plan and add to its value. This

is not a postal express, but it only arranges for the rural route agents to carry packages from the post-office from which they start, or from any other place on their route. Suppose that the rate was fixed at 1 cent a pound from 1 pound up to 5 pounds, and at half a cent a pound above that; 1 cent, say, for every additional 2 pounds.

Senator CARTER. You refer now to merchandise deposited in the office from which the rural carrier starts?

Mr. HERBERT. Yes; deposited in the office from which they start. You know that the telephone service is pretty general throughout the country. Supposing a housewife wants a pound of tea in the morning. She can telephone her grocer the night before to deliver that at the post-office with a 1-cent stamp on it. The next day before dinner time she gets it. Or, if she wants a 3-pound steak, she can have the butcher deliver it in a box properly prepared, with a 3-cent stamp on it, and she gets her fresh meat for dinner. Or, take a boiling piece of 10 pounds; take a hundred and one articles, to which the same principle would apply.

It would be a great convenience to the farmers. It would add to the variety of their living, and give them an opportunity for fresh things more frequently. It would save them thousands and thousands of dollars in hitching up a team and going to the market, and it would avoid all this idea of concentrating trade. They could order from their own dealer with whom they are accustomed to trade on their route, where their carrier would come by, and he could get their goods and bring them to them. Supposing that in that way there were 300 pounds gathered in a day, in going both ways; that certainly would be a small amount if the rates were low. Three hundred pounds, at a cent a pound, would amount to $3 a day. I believe you now pay $700 or $720 to the rural delivery carriers.

The VICE-CHAIRMAN. The maximum is $720.

Mr. HERBERT. There is an increase in postage of $3 a day, or $900 a year. You would have $180 profit at once. I do not think that is visionary at all, because we know there are a hundred and one things that a farmer wants. He wants to send in a coulter to get it sharpened, or there is some break in a machine. He would telephone to town to have an extra piece sent out. Of course under the old system they had to hitch up and go and get it, but now, under the rural route system, if this modification were adopted, all that would be necessary would be for the farmer to telephone for his little article. This service could be limited to 50 pounds. The farmer could have it brought out to him. It would be perfectly legitimate and would interfere with no present fixed system of business. It would be an accommodation and a great saving to the farmer, and it would pay the Government 25 or 50 per cent profit on the rural routes. I do not think that is an exaggeration at all. As I say, I believe it is the duty of Congress, or the men who are running this, to run it on business principles. They ought to work for an increase of business just the same as those who are managing any other business should; and they should see to it that they get the same kind of rates for carrying on this business that anybody else does.

Another important fact is that the circulation of newspapers, and literary, agricultural, trade, technical, and scientific publications increases very largely the first-class mail business; and it is a fact

that since the recent correction of abuses, allowing for the increased expenditure of the first installation of the rural postal service, the Government postal deficit has decreased with the increase of secondclass matter, or, in other words, with the increase in the circulation of newspapers and periodicals. I think your figures will show that if you look at them.

One advertisement in a single paper will often bring from a few hundred to 10.000 replies by letters, which again have to be answered by letters and followed by catalogues and replies. One merchant in New York has recently set forth in a letter the fact that $2,000 spent in advertising in newspapers and periodicals brought 10,000 replies by letters; that resulted in the Government being paid in the end on incoming and outgoing postage for letters, catalogues, etc., between $3,000 and $4,000. This may be an exceptional case, but there are thousands of others; and it is selfevident that millions would not be expended yearly in advertising if replies were not received. Every business has to expend large sums for advertising, and the newspapers through the advertising therein promote the postal business, and the Government is well paid for all that it expends toward helping the greater circulation. of the same.

Now, I want to remark right here the idea has been brought out of charging an additional rate of postage for the advertising in these publications. Every practical man, if he is in business, is going to do something to increase his business, either by sending out traveling men or by adding to the attractiveness of his display or by advertising in the papers. He is going to do something to increase that business. The Government conducts the business of carrying letters and that is carried on at a rate that has proved to be burdensome to no one. I have heard no one groan under the burden of paying 2 cents for a stamp to put on a letter or 1 cent for a postal card. I say that these newspapers are all the time increasing the business of the Government in the direction of the carrying of letters, and the Government, in circulating these publications which contain advertisements that call out letters in response to them, is increasing its first-class postał business at one-tenth what it would cost to do so in any other way. If you take the want ads alone-the want ads in this city alonewill bring 1,000.000 letters a week through the post-office. I do not believe that is an exaggeration. I have known a single want ad to bring from 60 to 500 letters in reply. Practically every paper published has a want-ad department. Even the magazines have adopted it and all the trade papers have it.

The want ads alone are increasing the first-class business and I tell you the want advertising could not be sent out under any other practical plan except through these publications. A man has got to send out and reach 100.000 or 500.000 people in order to reach the eye of the right person, and it would cost him more than the article was worth that he wants to advertise. Through the newspapers the want ad is made practicable and for 30 cents or 50 cents he can reach 500,000 people. Among those he will find 50 or 100 or 200 who want the particular article that he advertises in the want ads and there come the letters in reply. It has been stated that as a result of 2,000 replies received by one man in advertising the Government received over $3,500 in postage. That is, the replies came back.

2,000 of them, answers to the advertisements. Then that of course. led to replies and to the sending of catalogues. Then, after the catalogues were received, there came back replies again and orders for merchandise. Merchandise was shipped through the postal routes at merchandise rates, being small articles that could go through the mail.

Now, of course, I have only this as a statement that the Government received $3,500 in postage as a result of the 2,000 letters stirred up by one man advertising in the newspapers. Of course that may

be an exceptional case, but you must understand that there are millions of those ads being printed and that none of them would be printed if there was not a prospect of a reply. There are very few want ads that do not bring from 1 to 20 replies and many of them from 60 to 600. I say the Government, through the papers, has promoted its own business. It is increasing the part of its postal business that pays, and is doing it without paying à cent directly for it. I say that is a legitimate thing to be taken into consideration. If this was not done in that way there would be a very large falling off in first-class matter.

The newspaper and periodical press not only promotes the postal business in the profitable branch of first-class mail, but helps to build up not only commerce, but agriculture, manufactures, and every other industry, and is of the greatest possible aid to the Government in efforts along these lines. Nearly every newspaper has its agricultural department, and all print articles that are helpful to the different industries. Then there are industrial or trade papers that render untold service toward the improvement and the making more profitable and productive of these trades that they represent, and all these result in improvements and growth, create correspondence in firstclass mail matter, as do also the fraternal and educational journals.

If anyone will sit down and study the advancement that has been made in the last fifteen years in the industries of this country he will be surprised at what has been accomplished through the constant work of trade papers that have been bringing out the thoughts of the best minds and getting hold of the best inventions, until to-day production has so increased and demand has so increased that through the different cities of the country I find that there is scarcely a manufacturing industry in this country but what is behind its orders. Those orders have come through the mail and they have come largely through advertising and the influence of the trade papers in the country, that have been building up their various industries and teaching these men the profits of using better machinery and better methods and new inventions, and in every way building up the country and building up the people and making them live workers and making them good American citizens, proud of their lot, paying their taxes, supporting their Government, and complaining not at all about the per cent charged on second-class matter.

It must be borne in mind, too, that the great bulk of religious, trade, educational, and literary publications pay out in the aggregate millions of dollars on first-class mail matter. If these were crippled there would be a very noticeable shrinkage in first-class postal receipts.

We who publish class papers understand that we write a great many letters. I do not believe that there is a class paper that does not

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