The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1900-04-02

the Loud bill. 1t has been
amended in committee and again re-
ported to the house this time doing
away simply with the right of publish
ers of books or reprints of books to call
their issues periodicals. and get the
cent-a-pound rate, and suspendng the
privilege whereby unsold periodicals
are now returned at the pound rate
In this form there can be no shadow
of just excuse for opposition to the bill
among congressman who believe that
the cent-apound rate should be re-
stricted to actual newspapers and peri
odicals having contents in the nature
of news and timely instruction.
This BILL" as the Washington cor
respondence of the Philadelphia Press
explains, cuts off the shameful abuse
and evasion of existing law under
which books, if not bound, are sent
through the mails at the rate of one
cent a pound, when it costs the gov
ernment, according to Mr.. Loud, over
sixteen cents a pound to handle these
books. The government pays the rail.
road companies for the Transportation
of these books eight cents per Mound
to say nothing of the cost of handling
them, and then publishers pay the gov
ernment only one cent a pound. There
is no pretense that these books are
newspapers or periodicals within the
meaning of the statute. They first
n fn al
under an opinion given by an attorney
general great many years ago. Books
ISSUED fifteen years ago are now being
circulated in vast quantities as alleged
back numbers of periodicals, though
these back numbers We're printed
Wlthln Few weeks AS the law now
stands the books are started out from
one city and sent to another, where
they are put on sale, and then what is
lett is shipped to another city, and so
they are kept going all over the couu-
try from point to point, and every time
they are shipped the government loses.
according to Mr. Loud, fifteen cents a
pound on them and it actually pays
the railroad companies seven cents
pound more for transportation than II
receives in postage. 1t is amazing that
this scandalous abuse should have re-
ceived the support of a single member
of congress.
THE other abuse aimed at in the bin
is so shameful that it is not believed
that any man would be bold enough to
get up in congress and justify his vote
in favor of it.. AS the law now stands
under a special act passed six years
ago, news companies are allowed 10
send return second-class matterthrough
the mails at three cents a pound less
than the publishers. This gives the
news companies monopoly and forces
the publishers to do business with the
news companies. which carry the
papers for the publishers and charge
them a cent or more a pound for post.
age more than the news company paws
the government, thus making a profit
out of the government, while the gov
ernment loses seven cents on each
pound carried in payment to the rail-
road companies alone. No more shame
full wrong was ever perpetrated than
this law which gives this special sub.
sidy to the news companies. The pub
fishers of books and the news com
panies have furnished the money here
tofore to defeat the bills to remedy the
abuses in second-class mail matter. Bv
wholesale misrepresentation they have
misled publishers of country news.
papers into helping them. But as this
bill does not AFFECT anybody except the
publishers of books and the news com
panies, there will be no excuse for any
honest member of congress >to vote
against it,"
The Loud bill should have passed In