Nashville patriot. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1858-1860, 1860-03-21
The Frankfnz Privilege.

The bill which has passed the United States
Senate abolishing the Thanking privilege.
meets with serious opposition in the House of
Representatives. The opponents of the meas
ure have not, so far as we have seen, given
one good reason why the reform should not
be made 1t is not because they are wanting
in ability, but rather because there are no
sound reasons to sustain their cause. One
member seriously told the House that he was
opposed to the reform because he lived in
section of the country, away ont in the back
woods, amidst the mountains. where the peo-
pie would scarcely know they had a govern
| ment, if il were not for the mail coach and
the mellow notes of the coachman's bugle!
| In these, they had ocular and auricular evil
| dence that they had a government. which
provided for them both the useful and The
| agreeable. The member strangely enough
| confounded the abolition Of the mails and the
| coacbman's bugle notes with the ranking
privilege. We admonish him to try again.
The people will have their mails and their
bugie music all the more regularly for the
abolition OF the privilege of loading down the
said he was opposed to the reform because
the privilege is the peoples privilege" ''In
a horn" do you whisper aside? What have
the people TO do with it? How is it theirs?
How are they benefited by it? Not one in
a thousand of the bone and sinew of the
country receive ranked documents. Editors
of papers, cross roads politicians, country
h. lsftlo ,.. .,sh<
petty party leaders. these are the '.pe0pLe" to
whom members of Congress frank documents.
And what sort of documents are generally
sent to them? The Presidents Message aud
accompanying documents, first rate wrapping
paper and trunk lining; political speeches.
seldom worth the time spent in reading
them; newspapers, containing complimentary
notices of the franker; and the like. In q
few cases, important documents are sent to
those who need them for the information they
contain but to the masses they are useless
lumber. For instance, a very respectable
merchant, not many years ago, had a copy o
the japan Expedition sent to him. So he in
formed us-Have you read it ? asked We
ooh no! It's a fine book for the amusement
of my children-here are so many pictures in
hW That was a useless book to him, anus
ing as it was to the .little folk.n He didn't
need it. If he had wanted it, he would have
been willing to pay ADAMS EXPRESS to bring
il from Washington. So will all who need
public documents, and who put them to good
use, be willing to pay the carriage on them.
We are about as poor as Jobs Turkey-if
Job really owned a Turkey-and we are sure
we would gladly pay for all the documents
we want. We believe every fair minded
citizen would prefer TO do the same. The
plea of the peoples privilege is a .'hum'-a
most transparent "hum" 1t can deceive
no one The privilege is members priviI-
ege-a privilege which sets the servant above
the master 1t is class privilege. 1t is
more.-it is a wrong upon the people,-a
parasite upon the tree of liberty-a vampire
upon the public treasury, preying upon its
substance for the benefit of privileged few.
at the expense of the many. The sooner il
becomes thing of the past, the better. Mark
those who oppose the reformationi