The record-union., 1894-12-29
A SAMPLE LIE.

The very latest lie out and tramping
through the press is to the effect that the
deficit in the Postal Department for
the transmission of mail matter is due to
the extortionate charges of the railroad
companies. The fact is entirely ignored
that the companies, at least the subsi-
died transcontinental roads, are not free
agents in the fixing of the charges. The
Government pays no more than it thinks
just, and the roads must carry the mails
whether or not.
Again, the transcontinental companies
have not for many years been paid any
thing for mail carriage The Govern
ment has refused to pay on the ground
that the roads will become indebted to
the Government on their bonds. The
claims of the Central Pacific, for instance,
were long ago sent to the Court of Claims
and there found to be just due and
owing, and judgment has been entered
against the Government for the amount,
but Congress has not appropriated dol
lar to pay it.
Still another matter is urged as rea-
son for Government ownership of rail-
roads, namely, that if the Government
owns the roads it will be free from pay
ment of fees for carriage. and as it is the
railroad charge that makes the postal de-
ficit, with railroad control that deficiency
Will disappear. Was there ever any
thing more silly? The fact is as every
one knows who reads the official reports,
and keeps posted on the mail system,
that the most unremunerative part of
the service is on the routes where there
as no carriage by rail, on routes where
mud wagons, coaches and ponies are
necessarily used to transport the mails
1t will occur to any unprejudiced in
felligence that it costs precisely as much
to carry the mail between "Pin Hook''
and squat Ham, in a mud wagon one
day as another, though one day the mail
may weigh ten pounds and the next day
but one pound; that under our system
the far distant and thinly-settled, and
the nearby and densely-settled Sec
fions, are served at precisely the same
charge to the recipient of mail matter.
And it is a right system, for it
removes what would else be handi-
cap upon the settlement and development
of the frontier and sparsely-occupied Sec
tions. There are mail routes over which
not fifty pounds of mail matter go in
day, that cost more to operate than some
routes by rail where the transmission in
wolves five hundred miles of travel and
as many tons weight as pounds in the
other case.
Then, too. there is the free matter
which under frank costs Just as much to
carry as if under stamp. There are thou
sands of tons of this matter All the
Government reports, all the official let
ters between Government departments
and their outlying posts and employees;
the Congressional Record the reports.
papers and packages of the numberless
institutions under Government direc-
zion; the army and navy correspond
ence, etc.-all this enters into tie calcula-
ton of cost of transmission that an
average per pound cost may be arrived
at, since segregation of the cost is inn
possible.
So, too, the postal reports take into cal
culation all the routes, rail, water, coach
and pony-back in ascertaining the de-
4icency and in arriving at the cost per
pound for mail transmission. It is very
glib, very taking supposedly, to shout that
the postal deficiency is chargeable to the
railroads, but it is just as much lie.