most unjust. The principal deficit has been caused by irregular publications of a class never intended by the framers of the law to pass free.

3. The greatest deficit in the postal service is caused by excessive payments to railroads, based on the most dishonest practices. If Congress really desires to economize in the matter of the mails it can reduce the expense at least 30 per cent in railroad charges without doing the railroads an injustice.

4. The use of newspaper supplements, instead of increasing the burdens of the second-class matter, diminishes them.

5. There is no law to prevent the use of dishonest practices in connection with the weighing of mail. Any penalty for that offense was studiously left out of the statute book.

The SECRETARY. The next is the American Newspaper Publishers' Association of the United States. The committee consists of Mr. Don Seitz of the New York World, Mr. John Norris of the New York Times, and Mr. Herbert F. Gunnison of the Brooklyn Eagle. Mr. NORRIS. This Commission has been instructed by Congress to study and report upon the second-class mail problem.

In presenting the views of the American Newspaper Publishers' Association we expect to show that while the Government pays more than 10 cents to carry the 10-cent magazines from the publication office to the news stand and subscriber, it derives a profit from the carrying of daily newspapers. We will point out to you that the newspapers have been improperly included in sweeping assertions that all those entitled to the second-class mailing privilege enjoy a gratuity and subsidy from the Government. We will show the results achieved in a six years' campaign of the Post-Office Department against undoubted abuses. We will show that there is a material difference between the newspapers printing the current news and the list of so-called newspapers comprised in postal lists. We will show that the controlling factor in cost of transportation, the length of haul, has been ignored by the postal officials in their statement of cost. We will point out to you that the recent deficits in postal revenues were anticipated by Postmasters-General Smith and Payne because of the establishment of rural free-delivery service, and that the deficits need not be viewed with apprehension. We compare our postal service with that of other countries. We suggest steps that may partially remedy the abuses which have furnished occasion for complaint.

As we understand the situation, the Postmaster-General asks for this inquiry

First. Because there is an annual deficit in the operation of the Post-Office Department varying from $6,000,000 to $14,000,000 which he wants to stop.

Second. The second-class mail matter, aggregating 330,000 tons per annum, or 904 tons per day, constitutes, according to the Department figures, about 67 per cent of all mail matter carried, and it yields approximately $6,000,000 per annum, or one twenty-fourth of what it should bear if the second-class matter were to pay a share of the cost of handling and transportation based on weight. In short, the Department claims that there is a loss of at least $50,000,000 per annum on second-class matter.

Third. That a distinction in expedition should be made between first-class mail matter, which pays 84 cents per pound, and secondclass matter, which pays 1 cent per pound.

Fourth. That the second class was originally designed to promote intelligence, but that the cost of the service and the necessity for revenue should now control; that the rate should be changed, and that the ideal distinction should be subordinated to the practical consideration of direct profit.

Fifth. To stop the abuses of the second-class mail privilege.

THE COMMISSION'S QUESTIONS.

We are asked by your Commission to answer three questions: First. Whether the revenue from the second-class mail matter should not be commensurate with the actual cost of the service rendered in handling it and whether its classification should not accordingly be grounded upon practical rather than ideal distinctions?

Second. In case second-class matter is not put upon a cost-paying basis, what limitations should be placed upon the matter which may properly be embraced in that class?

Third. By what amendment of existing law may the changes which appear to be advisable be most effectually brought about?

Preliminarily: Anything that will help the postal service will have our support. It enters into the daily life of all the people. The capacity shown in its management may promote or retard many phases of industrial development. We all agree that the postal service is doing a work of the highest economic value; that it is something more than a business enterprise, and that its results can not be measured solely by a statement of receipts and expenditures.

NEWSPAPER THE LEAST EXPENSIVE ARTICLE TO HANDLE.

The uniform testimony of those officials who appeared before the Commission of 1898 shows that the daily newspaper is the least expensive article that is handled in the mail. Newspaper publishers conform to the law and give the least trouble. The work of postmasters and clerks is devoted largely to first-class matter; the first-class matter is immeasurably more expensive to handle than second-class matter, when compared on the pound basis; further, that the Government can not compete with express companies in cost of service within an area averaging 350 miles from office of publication. It is also admitted that the abuses of the second-class mail privilege have done a great wrong to legitimate interests. Under the present law almost anything printed periodically and that is not obscene can get into the second class. It will also be admitted that that part of the second-class mail matter which is growing abnormally is not that which is intended to inform or educate anybody. It is merely a medium through which certain wares can be announced for sale and whereby the public service is used for purely mercantile purposes. Thousands of these publications crept in through evasions and loose constructions of the law. Others, which were properly entered, have changed their character since admission.

REFORMS ATTEMPTED BY POST-OFFICE DEPARTMENT.

Six years ago a determined effort was made to stop the abuse of the second-class privilege and six lines of procedure were pursued. First. To exclude serial libraries.

Second. To restrict sample copies.

Third. To stop the shipment of "returns" as second-class matter. Fourth. To stop bulk subscriptions.

Fifth. To stop house organs."

Sixth. To stop premiums to subscribers.

We have been assured in the Department reports that reform of these abuses has been definitely attained and substantially established. What is the situation? We find that after the lapse of six years the paid second-class weight has grown 75 per cent in volume, as compared with a 60 per cent increase in the total postal revenue, and an increase of 25 per cent in the allowance for railroad transportation. Apparently the Department is powerless or else incapable of dealing with the situation.

A PROTEST AGAINST UNWARRANTED STATEMENTS.

But at the outset we protest against the loose and unwarranted statements of the postal reports. The colossal fabric of false statisties which was built upon utterly worthless reports to the Department officials of 1890, and the later indications of similar conjectures forced balances," have raised a serious doubt of the accuracy of all subsequent postal figures which are not based directly upon revenue and expenditures.

on

On May 5, 1890, the Post-Office Department undertook to count and weigh the mails for one week, in order that some basis might be obtained for determining the extent of the service performed by it. Blanks were sent to every post-office, and thirty-three distinct items were included in the list. When those blanks were computed the officials ascertained that the only positive check upon any part of the returns was the actual payment of second-class matter. which had been carried at 1 cent per pound. Every dollar paid to the Government for second-class matter represented 100 pounds of mail. Upon applying that test to the reports from the various post-offices it was discovered that the reported weights had exceeded the money payments by 25 per cent on the second class. Accordingly they cut that item to conform to the proved weight. Then they guessed, by the revenue from stamps and postal cards, at the probable number of letters carried and the material carried as third and fourth-class mail matter. The result thus computed was increased each year as the sales of stamps increased, and for nine years Congress and the people were filled with the most elaborate and the most ridiculous compilations which purported to show the number of letters carried, the number of newspapers carried, and a mass of statistics that was bewildering in its detail.

In 1898 Congress appointed a Commission to determine whether the railroads were not receiving too much pay for mail transportation. In the course of its examination that body summoned Mr. Montgomery, a postal superintendent of Chicago (now dead), to testify. The statements made by him led the Commission to order a new weighing of the mails, which uncovered a gigantic imposition.

THE FALSE COUNT OF 1890.

The Commission reported that the count of 1890 was false and misleading and worthless. There was hot a single reliable deduction from that count. The weighing had covered a period of seven days and had omitted the issues of the monthly magazines and periodicals. The new weighing was a surprise to all those who had long been connected with the service. The Department reports for 1898 showed approximately that a weight of 300,000 tons had been carried. Actually there were 750,000 tons carried. The postal statisticians said the weight of postal bags and equipment carried by the railroads amounted to 9 per cent. It was actually 48.4 per cent of the total weight. We understand that only 43 per cent of the matter carried on railroads was revenue producing.

The counters had failed to ascertain the drop or local business of post-offices before attempting to base their counts of weights on stamp sales. The Department had figured that the railroads were receiving an average of 40 cents per ton per mile. They were actually receiving an average of slightly over 123 cents per ton per mile, and the lowest payment was 5.85 cents per ton per mile on the densest lines. The average haul had been figured at 328 miles. It was 438 miles by one count and 484 by another. At present it may exceed 600 miles. The cost of carrying a pound of mail matter was reported at 63 cents per pound per mile; it was 2.75 cents per pound.

Until that inquiry had been made the Department officials had not apparently realized that a 50-ton postal car could not properly handle an average of more than one ton of paid matter on its entire run.

The wizards of the Department who had misled Congress and the country for nine years have continued their loose methods of compiling statistics, and we still find official postal reports based upon the data of that false count of 1890.

A TABLE OF POSTAL WEIGHTS.

One of the standards employed in the Department is the following table:

4 newspapers make a pound. 42 letters make a pound.

165 postal cards make a pound.

8 pieces of third-class matter make a pound.

24 pieces of fourth-class matter make a pound.

Upon that table they figured from false weights and pretended to show how many pieces were handled by the Department. They told how many letters, how many newspapers, and how many pieces of third and fourth class matter had gone through the mail.

They guessed then, as they have guessed for sixteen years, about the weight of franked and penalty envelope matter. Congressman Bingham, upon data furnished by the Department, said in April, 1900, that franked matter might cost the Government over $19,000,000 a year, but no reasonable estimate of it will be possible until January, 1907. At that time we will know to what extent the Treasury Department has been sending roller-top desks and carpets through the mail, the Geological Survey its instruments and tents and paraphernalia, the Post-Office Department its supplies, the onus for this pack-horse business of overloading the mails having been placed upon news

papers.

AVAILABLE DATA AS TO ORIGIN OF ABUSES.

Against reckless computations based on inadequate inquiry we are justified in asking caution-especially as to those estimates which credit the second-class matter with 67 per cent of the total weight of the mail. We question the enormous profits that are credited to the first-class matter. We question the Postmaster-General's statement of the cost of carrying second-class matter. With data in their offices always available respecting second-class matter, it did not occur to the heads of the Department to locate the precise source of the growth of weight of mail. Without any disturbance of the business of the Department they could have determined to within 1 per cent how much of the second-class matter belonged to daily newspapers, how much to magazines, how much to religious and temperance publications and business schools, and how much to the numberless schemes by which that privilege has been abused. For years the Department officials have been aimlessly blaming losses on the newspapers, though in 1899 the then Postmaster-General said that half of the second-class matter did not belong to that classification and ought to pay 8 cents per pound. The Department chiefs and the commission of 1899, with possibly two exceptions, have not discriminated in their sweeping assertions.

The system of counting and the method of formulating data exposed by the commission of 1898 is still pursued. We find the reports of the Post-Office Department abound with tables of figures that are built upon admittedly false bases. Against information of that sort we enter our protest, especially in so far as their guessing has tended to put the daily newspaper interest in a wrong light and to burden it with a charge that was unfair; and the fault in that respect has been aggravated, because the materials of disproof were in the possession of the postal officials and were not consulted.

We have a right to complain that the Postmaster-General has ignored a most important factor in making his statements and conclusions. He has confined himself entirely to weight of matter, disregarding the fact that the compensation of all the carriers is based upon the ton per mile, so that a shipment of newspapers at an average haul of 80 miles may be profitable transportation to the Department, while a load of magazines hauled 1,018 miles may cost 8 cents per pound, or 11 cents per copy, and actually may cost the Government more than the 10 cents which the 20-ounce magazines will bring at retail on the news stand in the distant city.

NEWSPAPER HAULED AT A HANDSOME PROFIT.

Assuming the accuracy of the calculations which the PostmasterGeneral has made that the second-class matter constitutes 67 per cent of all mail carried, that second-class matter costs at least 5 cents per pound to carry, that the average haul of all mail is 438 miles, yet he has not proved his case because he has lacked in diligence in not attempting to ascertain from data readily accessible in his Office the percentage which the daily newspapers constitute of the second-class weight, whether their average haul was not very much less than the average haul of other second-class matter, and whether his inclusion of daily newspapers in his statements was not a mistake.