Litchfield enquirer., 1874-02-26
The FrankIns Prlvlleee.

A a The House debated at EconsidernbIe length, last week, postal bill allowing congressman to ossend publicdocuments through themail free to constituents. and restoring to newspapers their free ex- cnanges and county circulation. Mir. Facker, of Indiana, thought nothing had been gained to the regenue by the. aboli- ton of the franking privilege. On the contrary the expenses of the department had been largely increased by the adop- tlon of new routes, city delivery &c. Mir. Cannon. of Illinois, remarked that the city press favored the abolition of free newspaper transportation because they thus got an advantage oyer the country press. He said that over fve-sixths of the matter carried through the mails were papers and publications mostly printed Tn the cities. MT. Kasson offered sub- stltute providing for the sale of all pub- he documents; the presidents message and accompanying documents, and agri- cultural reports at 25 cts. per vol; other public documents at cost of paper and binding. His bill also provided for free county circulation of newspapers. Mir. Scofield, of Pa, opposed all of the bills except that giving free circulation to newspapers. MT. Kasson claimed that recent mail lettings showed reduction of cost of transportation from the omis- sion of franked matter. MT. Tyner, of Indiana, wished to give the postmaster general time to try the effect of the aboli- tion of the franking privilege; he favored free newspaper exchange and county cir culation, but nothing more at present. MT. Garfield agreed substantially with Mir. Tyner. He denounced the practice of printing thousands of useless docu- ments, but thought the exemption of county circulation due to county news papers. He said:
 In his judgment the 5000 weekly newspapers of the country were the best real exponent of public opinion. A man who clignbed to the fifth story of 8 metropolitan newspaper office at II o'clock at night and slashed of an editorial and sent it off to the country, called that the public sentiment of the American people. In country newspapers the editor, 6 quiet, sensible man, who, in the course of week, saw men from every township in the county, and had his mind filled with the best thoughts of his county, wrote mo- tices and editorials redectmg the public sentiment of that county better than all the metropolitan journals in the United States could give.
 The Tribune says:
 Whatever may be decided upon as to the meth cd of distributing the public documents, it is certain that the privilege of circulating, free of postage, within the counties where published, will be restored to weekly newspapers. The House is almost unanimous for this, the only member who has expressed himself against it being Gen. Butler, who says he wants these pa pers to suffer the consequences of their advocacy of the abolition of the franking privilege.
 We have always believed that their free county circulation would be restored to country newspapers; not because the free system is good one, but because of the manifest unfairness of plan that takes the large city papers all over the country at the same price that the country weekly is charged which only goes a few miles in the mail bags. MT. Kasson's proposition strikes us as the best. Any one who really wants public document will be willing to pay for the cost of it's binding, and paper. The old plan is only useful to the Congressman, who can thus compi- ment his partisans at the public expense.