The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1852-09-30
DEMOCRACY OF sCIENCE.-No. 49,
BY JOSIAH HOLBROOK,


A "cENT-AN-oUNcE" system of postage for
all matter at all distances would give great
progress to the DEMOCRACY OF SCIENCE and
an immense revenue to the Government The
Post Office is the peoples department of the
Government; more directly, Intimately and
deeply affecting the greatly-varied interests of
every citizen than all the other departments
united, coming home to the intellectual, social
moral, business, and reciprocal relations Of
every man, woman, and child, in the commu-
nifty.
No other agency but the Post Office is in any
measure adequate to the diffusion among all
classes in all places, of the light of science and
Of the so,il.-Ne service capable Of being rem
dered to our cti1ns BY this agency is 10 high
or 10 peryading rs this same diffusion light 1t
is the only agency fitted for the work and the
highest work within the power Of the agency
There is dignity, majesty, a sublimity, a
glory, in the thought Of twenty thousand depos-
itors and agencies for receiving and distribu-
ting, among twenty or thirty millions of citi-
zens members OF the same fraternity, light
which Eliminates the mind and lifts up the
soul to the Source from which it emanated
A system of postage at once simple, liberal,
and enlightened, would be no less effective and
powerful in multiplying and invigorating the
wheels Of business than in the diffusion Of
knowledge. II would set in motion thousands
and millions of new wheels never contemplated
or dreamed Of, while it would give greatly-in-
creased energy TO the whole machinery of bust
ness. Transmitting samples Of goods for deter
mining O business transaction, aided by the
telegraph for executing it, would add to the
economy, the dispatch, and the energy Of bust
ness operations to an extent beyond the reach
of calculation In simplicity, uniformity, GER
tainty, and safety, no carrying agency for small
packages can equal the National Post Office
affording business facilities for which all would
chcsrfully and gladly pay at higher rates than
10 Expresses or any other transporting agen-
cies
A cent an ounce il sixteen dollars hundred
pounds, 1920 ton. At that rate--forming an
estimate ON the ground that the mails on the
six or seven Thousand routes would average
one hundred pounds each passage, three trips
a week-the receipts 10 the Government would
I've more than thirty millions of dollars year.
Looking at the American Post Office as bust
ness establishment, conducted upon the simple
principles of business for carrying freight ut
one cent an ounce, and what intelligent basi-
ness man can come TO any other result In q
calculation but vast resources!
BY railroad conveyance freight is carried
from New York TO Cincinnati for one dollar,
and one fifty cents hundred pounds Under
the proposed plan, the Government would re-
ceive sixteen dollars hundred from New York
to Brooklyn, passage of fifteen minutes and
from each Of the twenty thousand post Offices
TO its nearest neighbor, be il ten miles or half
mile.
Not to speak of the numberless new springs
of business, with vastly-increased power TO all
in moving commercial operations, il would add