SUGGESTIONS THAT HAVE BEEN MADE.

From time to time various suggestions have been made with a view to economy in the expenditure of $50,000,000 for transportation. The most attractive, as well as the most complicated and impracticable suggestion, was that which contemplated the establishment of zones within which uniform rates could be charged. Postmaster-General Smith suggested the possibility of reducing newspapers to half a cent a pound within a limited area. Assistant Postmaster-General Madden discussed the possibility of an absolutely free rate for newspapers, if it could be properly confined. Postmaster-General Payne proposed to confine the present rate to daily and weekly newspapers. Several officials recommended the consolidation of the third and fourth classes at 1 cent for each 2 ounces. Congressman Loud advocated a change from the system of compensation to railroads from the basis of tons per mile to the payment on space basis. Others proposed a combination of space and speed. Some wanted the Government to make an arbitrary award on the basis of service rendered by each railroad company. One Commissioner seriously considered the idea that the Governmnt should monopolize the transportation of all second-class matter. The Commission itself recommended the stoppage of the special facilities appropriation. The Postmaster-General has proposed that bulky periodicals be forwarded by fast freight instead of by mail.

Tentatively and subject to revision, as your investigation may give us better light, we recommend:

RECOMMENDATIONS OF COMMITTEE.

First. Abolition of any distinction in favor of weekly newspapers. There is no reason why a weekly newspaper should be favored in a carrier delivery office. In this respect it should be on exactly the same basis as the daily paper or monthly periodical.

Second. Abolition of free postal service for county matter. In a number of offices the free county matter is reported to exceed the paid second-class matter.

Third. Prohibition of sample copies as second-class matter.

Fourth. Prohibition of bills, receipts, and orders for periodical subscriptions as second-class matter.

Fifth. Stop the use of second-class privilege for unpaid periodical subscriptions.

Sixth. Prohibition of premium schemes or clubbing schemes which serve to make abnormal discounts upon the price of subscription.

Seventh. Prohibition of second-class privilege where dissemination of public information is not the primary purpose of the publication. Periodical publications that are filled with business announcements of the owners of the paper and which exchange advertising with other publications similarly situated should be rejected as house organs.

Eighth. Give the right of court review upon the exercise of the authority of the Post-Office Department either in the granting, withholding, or withdrawal of the second-class privilege or the exclusion of improper matter, or the interpretation or construction of the postal law.

Ninth. If periodical publications, issued by benevolent or fraternal

societies or lodges, or trade unions, or institutions of learning, or publications (not necessarily privileged) or professional, literary, historical, or scientific societies, are to continue to enjoy the second-class mail privilege, they should be, at least, made to conform to the requirements imposed upon others admitted to that class, and they should divest themselves of a mercantile flavor. One of these publications, The Modern Woodman, in 1901 circulated 8,000,000 copies through the mails.

Tenth. If any material restriction is adopted in the use of secondclass mail privilege, the reweighing of mail on all railroads should be made with reasonable dispatch and thereby secure the immediate advantages of economies that may be planned by you, instead of awaiting the quadrennial weighings of railway mail matter. Eleventh. Restrict the franking privilege.

Twelfth. Maintain 1-cent rate for periodical publications devoted to current news. We entirely agree with the Postmaster-General of 1899, who said in his annual report:

It is a gross and manifest wrong that a particular and limited group of private interests, using the mails solely for its own business ends and with no public object, direct or incidental, should succeed in eluding the plain purpose of the law, and should thus carry on its mail transactions, not at its own expense, but at the expense of others. If there is to be a favored class, let it embrace all the people.

Thirteenth. Cut-outs, music, pictures and like matter not germane to the purpose of the publication should unquestionably be barred. What is not germane should be determined by a reasonable and sane construction.

Fourteenth. The words " nominal rates" should be eliminated from the postal rates or materially qualified. They are not expressive and serve no purpose, The department has undertaken to apply the rule that a low rate is a nominal rate. The distinction does not hold, since a rate of 5 cents a year would not be nominal for a publication costing less than that for white paper and postage. Beyond $5 a year would be nominal for a publication costing $50 for paper and postage.

Fifteenth. The law contains a specification barring regular publications designed primarily for advertising purposes. A strict and impartial enforcement of this provision would bar every successful publication from going through the mails, since every publication is not successful, at least not in theory, unless designed for advertising purposes.

Sixteenth. The post-office regulations require that each copy must be complete as originally printed" and mailed, and be exactly like all those of the same edition. Any change in the printing or removal of any part of the publication makes it third-class matter. The New York post-office can not handle the Sunday newspaper mail under such conditions. There is not enough space, nor force, nor time to handle it according to these regulations.

Seventeenth. Require county free publications to separate according to local routes.

MEANINGLESS PHRASES IN STATUTES.

The laws relating to second-class postage are crude, incomplete, confusing, and contradictory. It stands to reason, therefore, that there should be an intelligent revision. The present laws have been

enacted from time to time and in many cases the new law has been passed with no regard to laws already on the statute books, so that inconsistencies and contradictions have inevitably grown up. In addition to this, phrases and expressions are employed which are apt and appropriate at the time the statute in which they occur was enacted, but the tremendous progress that has taken place in journalism since that time has made these expressions entirely meaningless in their application to present day conditions.

One of the examples of the effete and meaningless expressions in the existing postal laws may be found in section 457 of the act of March 3, 1879. This provides for the issue of supplements which must contain matter "germane to the publication," which is explained to be "matter supplied in order to complete that to which it is added or supplemented, or omitted from the regular issue for want of space, time, or greater convenience, which supplement must in every case be issued with the publication." Endeavor to apply this section of the law to a Sunday newspaper or any daily newspaper having more than one section and the absurdity and meaningless character of the provision will be at once developed.

WRAPPING ACCORDING TO STATUTE.

Another illustration of a provision no longer applicable to existing condition is section 489 of the act of March 3, 1897. This provides that the Postmaster-General "may prescribe, by regulation, the manner of wrapping and securing for the mails all packages of matter not charged with first-class postage, so that the contents of such packages may be easily examined." All the methods employed in doing up packages by newspapers or other publications would have to be abandoned if this law should be enforced. Packages are not wrapped so that they can be "easily examined." The only way by which they can be examined is by breaking the wrapper, yet the law obviously contemplated some form of wrapper which could be removed without breaking. In a similar way the law provides that newspapers shall be deposited in the mails at the postoffices in a form for convenient distribution, and the Department has construed this as meaning that each separate postmaster can determine whether the paper shall be sent out in quarter-page folds or half-page folds.

A bulk of postal matter, not related to the public advantage, has been superimposed upon the admittedly proper rating of daily newspapers. For this reason a new rating of second-class matter seems indispensable.

In closing we reiterate our statement that the newspapers are carried at a profit to the Government and that we are not in the position of beneficiaries of any bounty. We thank you for the opportunity you have given us to correct the erroneous impressions which postal officials had cultivated on inadequate information.

The VICE-CHAIRMAN. Have any members of the Commission any questions to ask? I believe you stated, Mr. Norris, that you had a list of the names of the publications?

Mr. NORRIS. I have that list here.

The VICE-CHAIRMAN. Will you leave it with the secretary?
Mr. NORRIS. Yes.

The VICE-CHAIRMAN. Does your organization contain any other than daily publications?

Mr. NORRIS. It contains newspapers which have weekly editions. The VICE-CHAIRMAN. They also have daily editions. Does it contain any newspapers which have weekly editions, but which do not have daily editions?

Mr. NORRIS. None that I am aware of. There may be one that occurs to me merely from seeing the name-the Utica Saturday Globe which would suggest the possibility that it was a weekly publication.

The VICE-CHAIRMAN. But generally they are dailies?
Mr. NORRIS. It is confined entirely to daily newspapers.

The VICE-CHAIRMAN. Both morning and afternoon issues?

Mr. NORRIS. Morning and afternoon.

The VICE-CHAIRMAN. You spoke with reference to the average haul of a daily paper being 80 miles. How did you arrive at that? Mr. NORRIS. That is entirely an approximation.

The VICE-CHAIRMAN. I thought possibly you might have sought information from the various publications comprised in your asso

ciation.

Mr. NORRIS. I think that is very properly a subject for your inquiry.

The VICE-CHAIRMAN. It was for that reason that I was trying to learn your source of information.

Mr. NORRIS. At the time that point occurred to me I did not have sufficient opportunity to start all of the newspapers upon that line, and there would be great variety among them.

The VICE-CHAIRMAN. I presume you know that the Congress at its last session provided for a weighing of the different elements of second-class mail, and as nearly as practicable the ascertainment of the average haul.

Mr. NORRIS. It is not necessary, as I understand it, to provide any appropriation for that purpose. In each post-office there is a payment made weekly and a report made, I think, quarterly, to Congress, of all of the receipts of second-class mail matter.

The VICE-CHAIRMAN. I think perhaps you have misunderstood the purport of my inquiry. I merely wanted to suggest that as you say that the matter of average haul is a proper subject of inquiry, efforts are really being made along the line of that inquiry.

Mr. NORRIS. I am quite sure that the Government could not obtain the data which you have in mind in the way that you indicate. The only possible way in which that could be done is for a newspaper to take the number of papers going to each town, to each post-office, and multiply that by the number of miles of transportation, and the products of that multiplication, when added up, and divided by the number of papers sent out, will give the average haul on the mail circulation of that newspaper. It is absolutely impossible for the United States Government on any inquiry or any weighing which they may make on a train, to follow any publication, because I know there is in our office one copy that requires 39 tracings from the office of origin before it reached its distribution in Texas. No post-office inquiry is tracing the particular papers in their distribution from

route to route.

The VICE-CHAIRMAN. It is on that account that I am trying to ascertain the methods by which you arrived at the 80-mile average.

Mr. NORRIS. It is an approximation based upon the 150-mile zone, and upon some general knowledge of the circulations of papers in various cities with which I have been acquainted.

The VICE-CHAIRMAN. That estimate of 80 miles you confine, I understand, to papers that are mailed.

Mr. NORRIS. Entirely to papers that are mailed, and not papers that are sent by express or outside of the mails.

The VICE-CHAIRMAN. That is what I understood. What is the extent of the practice of the papers in your association, in the use of express and freight for transportation? You mentioned at one point where there was one paper, I think, that transported only about 2 per cent by mail.

Mr. NORRIS. The New York Evening World sends only two-thirds of 1 per cent.

The VICE-CHAIRMAN. Only two-thirds of 1 per cent of its entire output?

Mr. NORRIS. Of its entire output. The Chicago Daily News, which has probably the largest output, other than the New York Evening Journal, has 2 per cent of its circulation in the mail.

The VICE-CHAIRMAN. To what distance from the office of publication is the practice carried of using freight and express?

Mr. NORRIS. It is used primarily with the idea of securing expedition. That service which will first deliver the paper to the reader is the one which is used.

The VICE-CHAIRMAN. But what is the distance? Is it 500 miles, or what?

Mr. NORRIS. We send as far as Pittsburg. There was a statement made here yesterday that the Pennsylvania Railroad carried from New York to Philadelphia at a quarter of a cent, and beyond Philadelphia at a half a cent.

The VICE-CHAIRMAN. You stated this morning that it is a quarter of a cent to Pittsburg.

Mr. NORRIS. I have had inquiry made. I have the list of points where we ship at a quarter of a cent-Liberty, Pa., Carlisle, Gettysburg, Lancaster, Washington, Wayne.

The VICE-CHAIRMAN. The radius is how many miles?

Mr. NORRIS. The Pennsylvania Railroad has substantially 440 miles at a quarter of a cent.

The VICE-CHAIRMAN. Are not practicaly all of the short hauls, express and railroad, utilized by the second-class publishers, and by short hauls I mean within a radius of 500 miles?

Mr. NORRIS. Before answering that I want to answer as to the practice. There is a distinction to be drawn between newspapers shipped to newsdealers and newspapers shipped to the mail subscribers. The United States has a monopoly of the individual subscribers.

The VICE-CHAIRMAN. Suppose you limited them to shipments to agents.

Mr. NORRIS. Of the shipment to news agents in our own office we ship 14 per cent by express and 4 per cent by mail to news agents. The VICE-CHAIRMAN. And that shipment by express is almost entirely, if not quite, within the radius of the 500 miles?