The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1897-12-01
Necessary Postal Reform.

Congressman Loud the chairman Of
the house committee on post offices
and post roads, who Championed in
tn" Firty-fourth congress bill for
postal reform which passed the house
but fell into obscurity in the senate,
announces that just as soon rs con-
Gr"ss reassembles he will renew the
fight. The postal department this year
did business at a loss of $4,000, 900. The
Loud bill would turn tina. loss into
a profit Of $1,000 900, or enough. as First
Assistant Postmaster General Heath
says to double the present area ut
free rural delivery.
The Loud bill is very simple. 1t
proposes merely to prohibit the admis-
sion Of books or reprints of books to
seCond-Class rates and to abolish the
sample copy privilege. We at one time
opposed this bill under misapprehen-
sion as to its terms and scope but now
consider that while it would for a tins
perhaps t. some extent embarrass
newspaper publishers, they in the end
would gain, along with the general
public, by its enactment, and for the
reason that with the sample copy privi-
lege rcscindcd the publishing business
would descend to more business like
and common sense basis. Says Mr..
Loud in the current Forum:
The bookseller on a legitimate work
p"Es eight cents a pound postage to SEND
It Though III" mail; while Spaulding
Home Library goes through the mails
~ one cent Il pound. The following are
som" Df the books that may De 50 trans
miticd. Life Gnd Battles of James j.
Corbctt,' "HGw TO Become Boxer"
"Auw to Play BrHiquc," THE Seventh
commandment" "lf Christ Came to Con-
SrcSs,' etc. Bot the use of the second
class rate for the distribution of cheap
ana worthless bOOks--from a literary
point of yicw-under the Guise of serial
numbers of periodical publication, is
III" less Of two evils. The sample-copy
nuisance is the worst. III G. Newspaper
Publishers association, which represents
fully so per cent. of the daily newspaper
circulation of the country, after care
fully investigating this subject, has, i'm
annual CONVEX tiOn, twice recommended
tlat the sample copy privileged be abol-
iShcd-thiS, in spite OF the fact that they
would be pccuniaIy losers by the imme-
date operation OF the change If the
original intent, there would be no call for
it's curtaiment; but human ingenuity has
made II very easy weapon for "playing"
the mail service. In Augusta Maine
there Is a paper that boasts of a circu-
lation Of 100000 copies. The proprietors
do not assert that more than 80 per cent.
Of this is a paid circulation. Tho re-
mainder is issued as Sample copies 1t
is well to draw the mantle Of charity over
even the percentage claimed.
I'm other words, the sample copy priv
ilegc merely enables readers of this
paper to get literature at the puhlic's
expense, since the public is taxed to
make up the postal deficit created by
the carrying of this vOluminous mail
stun at a loss. Manifestly this fosters
an inequitable competition in the pub
fishing business no less than a false
sense of values among the favored re-
ciplents of government bounty Under
these circumstances and in view also
of the fact that a self-sustaining pos
tai service will probably bring one cent
letter postage, congress would do well
to give Mr.. Loud's bill a hearty shove
toward the white house.
Thirty years ago when Hungary en-
tered into a compact of union with
Austria, II was stipulated that she
should bear 30 per cent of the ex-
penses OF the combined kingdom.
Hungary then was poor and the per-