Richmond dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1884-1903, 1890-02-27
THURSDAY. FEBRUARY q. 1890.
PostalReforms.

What reasonable objection can any man
make TO allowing O marriage notice or a
death notice to be pasted on postal card
and the card thus sent to its destination
through the mail? You NAV write one SIDE
OF n postal card full of news or reading
matter of any sort-including of course
marriage notices and death notices, and
UNCLE SAM will put the postal card In his
pocket or pouch and carry it all the way to
San Francisco, Cal. or Portland, Ore,
without making the least objection. But
II you cut the same reading-matter out OF a
newspaper and paste IL on postal card
UScIx SAM will throw the card down upon
the floor Of the post-offce or into
the FIRE. What sense or reason IS there
In such discrimination? None. Nobody
can name even plausible reason for 1t.
There are millions upon millions of postal
cards sent through the mails every year
but all of them together probably do not
weigh as much as the newspapers sent
through the mails annually from the city
of New York. In fact, the postal card
weighs next TO nothing-so little that the
Government furnishes the card and de-
hvers il for cent, even If it be transport
ed from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The
marriage notice. or death notice, or news
item pasted upon postal card would not
add one third to its weight-would make
30 little difference in fact in its weight
that nobody could object to such use Of
postal card because of the additional
weight few lines Of PRINT would give
TO it.
In this matter history is repeating itself.
With comparatively few associates, we adj
vocated in years past the prepayment OF
postage upon newspapers at the Offices
where mailed. But Old Fogyism could not
tolerate the proposition. The mails were
loaded down with papers upon which the
addresses were expected to pay, but upon
which they never paid postage; and so the
postage was not paid at all. A post-oflice
70 which hundred copies of the Dispatch
were sent kept an account with each Of the
one hundred, and the postmaster some
times tried to collect postage; but often he
failed ingloriously. He was afraid to
offend the patrons of the store which he
kept in connection with his pOst-oflice.
Where is the man who would now propose
70 return to that system? Think of the I'M
utterably absurd practice of endeavoring to
collect postage from twenty thousand
newspaper subscribers instead Of collect
ing from the editor who deposits the mail
matter in the post-office. 1t took years
and years for the public to outerow that
absurdity.
Do you reply that you never advocated
that system? But you do advocate one as
indefensible. You (Mr. WANAMAKER, let
us say compel the public to load down
the mails with newspapers containing
marked paragraphs upon the plea that to
write upon postal cards would be to add
10 the weight of these cards. Was ever a
conclusion more illogically reached? Is it
not clear that TO allow postal cards to have
paragraphs pasted upon them would be to
diminish the weight of the matter sent
through the mails?
So as to prohibiting persons from writing
upon the margin of q newspaper to be sent
through the mails. That is kind Of pro-
hibition that does not prohibit. People
cannot write letter every time they wish
70 send a short message to friends. 1t
would be great accommodation to the
general pubhc-a relief-to permit them
upon paving two cents postage upon q
paper to write message upon its margin
Why not? 1t is a constant and universal
practice.
II would be feather in the cap of any
member of the national House of Repre-
sentatives to secure these and other postal
vefOrmg