The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-11-03


served by other agencies. The Presidents
message, the reports of the heads of depart
ments, and the gst of all valuable statistical
or official information, are scattered broad
cast through the land, and placed within the
reach of every intelligent reader, long before
they can be despatched from Washington
under cover of franks. When Senators or
members of Congress say anything worth re-
porting, their remarks are circulated through
the whole country by similar agencies.
Nearly every important political event trans
piring at the capital is foreshadowed
in advance by small army of vigilant re-
porters, and the proportion between the
amount of useful information disseminated
by the newspapers and by the circulation of
documents sent under frank is as thousand
to one. The real utility of the franking pri-
vilege is so slight that no appreciable injury
would result from its entire abolition. And
while it does so little good, it constantly as
sists petty frauds upon the Government en-
courages and entails unnecessary expendi-
lures and is prostituted to unworthy and i'm
proper purposes by careless or corrupt Con-
gressmen. On the one hand an attempt is
self-sustaining while on the other the men
charged with the direction of national affairs
are constantly robbing it Of its legitimate
revenues, and loading it down with unneces-
sary expenditures. Nearly every one of the
possessors of the franking privilege is con-
stantly besieged by horde of beggars for
franked envelopes, and there are few who
have the moral courage to resolutely abstain
from becoming accomplices in this petty
thievery, by which the nation is annually robbed
of hundreds of thousands, if not millions of
dollars, by the aid or connivance of chosen
agents who have no more moral right to in
directly ALLEVIATE money from the Treasury
than to openly steal it, For this reason, if
for no other, the franking privilege should be
abolished. 1t would be infinitely better to
appropriate large fixed sum for the pay
ment of the postage of those who now pos
sess this dangerous power, than to permit
them to continue to draw drafts at will for
an unlimited amount and for the use of all
their particular friends, as well as them
selves, upon the Post Office Department. In
England this reform has been carried to
such lengths that even the Queen is obliged
to put postage-stamp upon her own private
and official letters, and as a natural conse-
quence of this and other reforms, the British
Post Office system yields handsome revenue,
despite the maintenance of extremely low
rates of postage.
But the systematized and continuous frauds
upon the Government are not the only evil
of the American franking system. The per-
sonal use to which Congressman and Sena-
tors put it is often as bad as their notorious
collusion with the beggars Of franks. They
load down the mails with surplus matter.
They appropriate vast sums of public money
to the publication of large editions of docu-
ments which would never be printed if they
could not be distributed free of expense.
They use the franking privilege as the great
adjunct and supporter of the disgraceful
system of buncombe speeches and buncombe
legislation, and it does great harm
by the aid it renders in manu-
featuring unfounded regulations for the
host of inferior or useless men who are sent
to Washington. In times of political excite
ment they scatter their favors far and wide,
not to apprise intelligent voters of anything
which it is important for them to know but
to create the impression that the welfare of
the nation is bound up in the continuance of
their power. The men who make solid repu-
tations or render real services do not need
these adventitious aids. Constituencies will
learn to appreciate the value of their services
without being deluged with franked editions
of speeches which, in many instances, are not
even written by the members who falsely
claim their authorship. AS the abolition of
the franking privilege would also, to great
extent, involve the destruction of these false
pretensions, and the false system of which
they form part, the reform cannot too soon
be adopted.