PERTINENT PARAGRAPHS ON THE POST OFFICE

...Three years ago, by accident, I became interested in ascertaining the cause of postal deficits, and not getting satisfactory information from postal officials, I looked into the subject on my own account and reached the conclusion that such an unfortunate condition is caused by the failure of the government to exercise its rightful, constitutional and lawfully expressed monopoly in the carriage of all mail matter...

...the exercise of a full monopoly of this class of matter would raise such average to three pounds, nine times what it is at present...

...Provided, That nothing contained in this section shall be construed as prohibiting any person from receiving and delivering to the nearest post office, postal car, or other authorized depository for mail matter, any mail properly stamped...

...If the term "packet" does not include all other mail matter, then what does it mean...

...it does not mean or has never meant any thing other than what is expressed in the more modern term "mail matter...

...Only by the full enforcement of the monopoly of the postal service can the country come to know, in the light of experience, whether they want the service restricted, enlarged, or to use its increasing revenue in developing and extending its benefits...

...The right to make rates on mail matter is contained in Congress...

...The duty of all good citizens is plain...

...A new declaration of independence for the postal service, a reiteration of time-honored principles which have actuated Congress and the American people in the consideration of this subject from 1790 to 1910...

...The bill reported by the joint postal commission in December, 1908, by a few amendments in a few minor particulars becomes a most excellent post code...

...State commissions and rate regulating bodies should see to it that no private agency violates the law in the transportation of mail matter between points and places over which they have jurisdiction...

...Post Office a Natural Monopoly THE post office is a natural, proper, governmental monopoly, and it was early considered by those responsible as necessary that the general government should have and exercise the duty and responsibility of providing ways, means and facilities for the carriage of the mail and at the same time be entitled to and receive all the emoluments and profits growing out of the performance of that service...

...To say that the word "packet" in this statute is surplus-sage, or that it means nothing, or that it does not mean or does not include all other mail matter not included in the term "letter," is to accuse Congress of carelessness in the use of words, an imputation which Congress should properly resent...

...These laws prohibiting transportation by private express or other unlawful means are the supreme law of the land...

...Section 181 of the new criminal code of the United States, effective January 1, 1910, provides: "Whoever shall establish any private express for conveyance of letters or packets, or in any manner carry or provide for the conveyance of the same by regular trips or at stated periods over any post route, which is, or may be established by law, or from any city, town or place, to any other city, town or place, between which the mail is regularly carried, or whoever shall aid or assist therein shall be fined not more than five hundred dollars or imprisoned not more than six months, or both...

...Judge Cadwallader, in an exhaustive opinion, said, "No government has ever organized a system of posts without securing to itself to seme extent a monopoly of the carriage of letters and mailable packets...

...That was eleven years after the first comprehensive law prohibiting such carriage had been passed by Congress...

...The monopoly of the government is an optional not an essential part of its postal system...

...To charge second class mail, newspapers and magazines, is simply putting a tax upon public education which should properly be borne by all...

...Congress has made certain proper exceptions from such monopoly in the new criminal code effective January 1, 1910...

...once admitted to the mails publications should be entitled to a reasonable doubt before having their business destroyed, and publishers desiring their publications admitted to the mails and being denied such admission should have the same opportunities...

...I met Uncle Joe, who has not caught what I think is one of his greatest opportunities—the passage of a new postal law...

...How must the shades of the immortal fathers of our country be grieved at the monster deficits now annually appearing in our postal department...

...the cost of handling would be no greater and if a third of a pound produces a revenue of two million dollars, nine times two millions is eighteen million, and the postal deficit is no longer in the way of improvements in the service and the extension of its benefits to the whole people...

...Thus, the mailable package of the business of the government averages one-third of a pound...

...Representing no interest, I have attended the House Committee hearings considering the question of how the postal deficit may be eliminated and addressed such Committee...

...In 1859, Congress solemnly declared that it was inexpedient to abolish the post office Department or repeal all laws that restrained individuals or corporations from carrying mails or mail matter...

...A committee of Congress reporting on the subject said, "That further legislation is necessary to protect the public service and that such competition raised the momentous question whether the constitution and laws of the country or a lawless combination of refractory individuals shall triumph" A distinguished Attorney-General has said that the business of carrying letters and other mail matter belongs exclusively to the government...

...To permit any rate-making body to make rates on mail matter is to supercede and set aside the work of Congress en the same subject, to make havoc and create chaos in the constitution of the postal service...

...The term "letters or packets" has been in postal law and postal history since 1650...

...Investigation has succeeded investigation for about ten years, and during much of that time the publishing business has suffered and the public funds have been wasted in inexcusable postal deficits...

...forcibly declare that under the constitution and laws the post office has and of right ought to have a full monopoly in the carriage of all mail or mailable matter...

...If the public official charged with the duty of administering such law, when violated, has a court or courts open in which he may proceed, that is all the government can reasonably ask...

...No postal official should have the power of life ahd death over the public press, as in that bill provided...

...How they must marvel at our lack of vigilance which permits private greed to make enormous profits upon this most beneficent agency of the government...

...These observations have been abundantly verified by the testimony at the present hearings...

...This conception of the legitimate field of the post office has been by Presidential statement designated as embracing "the comforts of friendly correspondence, the exchanges of internal traffic and the lights of the periodical press, shall be distributed to the remotest comers of the land at a charge scarcely perceptible to the humblest individual and without the cost of scarcely a dollar to the public treasury...

...The agitation over the private carriage of mail matter by express companies and others was constant for many years before the passage of the law mentioned...

...Since the establishment of the government, this grant has always been taken to mean that thereby Congress is vested with the exclusive control of the entire postal system...

...Abolish Private Competition IT is inconceivable that the government should provide .for postage upon "letters and packets" and not have the right to protect the revenue arising from such service by making all mail matter pass through the mails when carried over the post route...

...The post office is a public establishment instituted for the purpose of performing such public service as it may by law be authorized and required to undertake...

...merely do what Congress has always done when the question was understood...

...Courts of the United States, of the states, distinguished attorneys-general, distinguished postmasters general and many other eminent authorities fully sustain this position...

...its head may be a political plum, but the personnel, those who do the real work, are imbued with the intent to make the institution as useful as possible...

...When each citizen and public official shall join with Congress in an earnest endeavor to perform their full duty with respect to this great public agency, the post office will be restored to the lines of its founders, there to remain a beneficent public service, carrying comfort and profit to the whole people and "without the cost of a dollar to the public treasury...

...If Congress meant it only to include the plural of letter, then why resort to such unusual methods, then why violate all laws of good education and accuracy in terminology in, such an unusual way...

...the whole people pay all taxes in some form...

...What Should be Done CONGRESS gets its authority in postal matters from ten words in Section 8 of the Constitution of the United States reading: "Congress shall have power to establish post offices and post roads...

...To talk of who pays postal deficits is merely juggling...

...No Need to Raise Rates" NO need to raise rates...

...To do otherwise is to invite private enterprise to take the profitable routes and absorb a great volume of the business properly belonging to the post office, and to leave the serving of those remote and isolated portions of our country to the post office at a loss and with no opportunity to recoup such losses from the business done in the more populous sections...

...The policy of such an exclusive system is the subject of legislative, not judicial inquiry...

...the weight limit is four pounds...

...Its service is alike to all the people...