Lincoln County leader. [volume] (Toledo, Lincoln County, Or.) 1893-1987, 1898-04-22
THE POSTAL SERVICES.
Some Interesting Facts Concerning
the Expense Of the System.

n hd1S uCDdbC III biO iOuoS u iNP
Asentatives, which ended in tabling the
&oud postal bill(March 81, secured com
~paratively little attention in the daily
press, but it brought out considerable
information on alledged abuses by the
railroads in connection with the postal
service. The bill was vigorously attack
ted, and most effectuall, it appears not
on the ground that the abuses at which
it named should not be corrected, but on
the ground that the real trouble in the
postal service is to be found in'exhorbi-
tant charges which the government pays
to rail roads for transporting mail. Mr..
Loud said, in presenting the bill, thot
ii a private corporation or an individual
were to operate the post Office depart
ment, or if the department were to be
operated by any one who had a financial
interest in it, he would not fear even the
present law. In the report of the post
Office committe, Of which he is chair
man, which accompanied the bill he ex-
pressed the opinion that private lei
could transmit the mails much more
cheaply, with qnicker dispatch and bet
ter satisfaction to the people, than the
present system, adding; "There is not a
SAINT business man in the country who
has given the matter any thought but
what knows that the post office depart
ment could be operated by private indi-
viduals on u present appropriations,
and return a net profit of from thirty to
forty million dollars per year" 1t was
repeatedly asserted hat while the gov
eminent is paying about 8 cents a ID.
for the transmission of mail mrtter, over
an average distance Of AS miles, express
companies have contracts with rail roads
whereby they pay two fiths of a cent a
pound for the transmission of similar
matter a distance of 500 miles. The
length OF star routes is 265, 558 miles:
the annual travel is l54, 1913, 416 miles:
the cost for carrying for each mile tray
eled is 4.32 cents annual cost per mile of
length OF route is $20.19. Yet it will be
observed that we are paying nearly nine
times as much per mile for carrying the
mails by rail as by other conveyance.
Slightly over twice as many miles are
travelled by railway as by other convey
ance. But if the same rate per mile
were paid for carrying the mails py rail
way as by star route the annual expen-
diturs to the railroads would be the sum
OF I'll 1902 ,S23.37, instead of $50, III ,542.
90, which we now pay, and there would
be a saving to the government of $lS,
1863, 1882. If this could be effected.
the whole revenue question, SO far as
the post office department is concerned,
would be settled, for there would be a
surplus Of over $1,000, 900 annually in
the receipts of the department. One of
the most serious elements in the exor-
tons practiced upon the government re.
lates to the rent of the pastal cars used
by the department where the mails are
heavy. OF these cars there are now
nearly seven hundred in use, and the
government pays for an average rental
OF 1890 each. Yet when ex-senator
Was was postmaster during Mr.. Cleve-
lands first term he investigated the
cost OF such cars, and reported that they
could be built for less than the annual
rental paid by the government. Care
ful inquary," said Mr.. Villas in the Uni
ted States senate, "discloses that very
many of these cars, such as they are,
would not cost to build Z 5000 each, and
that, taking together all the post office
cars in the United States, their value
does not probably exceed $500" In
support OF this estimate Senator Villas
cited Senator Brice, of Ohio, a railroad
man whom no IL ever suspected of
anti-monoply leanings. The average
lie OF these cars, says representative
smith, OF Michigan, is at least twenty
years, 40 that an annual rental of 1900.
or 20 per cent, upon the cost of these
cars, would seem to be an exorbitant
charga yet the government goes on,
year after year, paying the railroads an
annual rental OF $500, or more than
loo per cent, of their probable cost.
When a few of those cars were first tried
As an experiment, this rental may not
have been so preposterous, but these
cars have become an established part of
the postal system, and their number in
creases every year. The annurl pay
ment for them is now very nearly
A,OoO,OoO. This outlay could, by the
governments purchase of the cars, be
reduced to far below 81, OOO, 900 a wear