Mountain Home maverick. [volume] (Mountain Home, Idaho) 1906-1911, 1907-02-28


this strong indictment:
Nowhere is graft more brazenly
practiced than in the carrying of
the United States mails. Nowhere
does the bare-faced robbery of the
American people exhibit at once
the depths of moral turpitude to
which the government itself has
fallen and the absolute and imper-
ious power exerted by the corrupt
rail way interests over the recreant
public servants than are seen in
the contracts with the railways
for mail service. The postal def
icit is a deficit only because our
railways are owned by private par
ties on the one hand and because
the government is also the servant
of these INSCRIPTIONS interests on
the other. In his chapter on 'The
Railways and the Postal Service"
Professor Parsons lays bare this
unholy alliance on the part of de-
partment of government with the
railways which is a confession that
the government is the tool of the
interests.
"Another and most grievous form
OF graft,' says the author, ICON
sists in excessive charges for the
carriage of the mails. While the
railways in other countries carry
+ba ,,,o;Ie for ,,otLf,,o or az coct
our government has to pay much
higher rates than private shippers.
The railway tax on the transmits
sion of intelligence is one of the
worst handicaps resulting from
our transportation system. For
hauling mails the railways receive
from the government from two to
four times as mucn as they get
from the express companies for
equal haulage, more than twice
what they get for carrying commu-
tation passengers and excess bag
gage equal weights and distances,
two to five times their charges for
first-class freight, twelve times
what they receive for some of
their dairy freight, and sixteen
times what they get for the mass
of common freight. F"
Professor Parsons cites at length
from Professor Henry c. Adams of
Michigan University, the statisti-
clan of the United States Commerce
Commission, giving Professor Ad-
ans tables, after which he con-
tinues:
ION these estimates the railway
receipts from the express between
New York and Boston would aver
age so cents per hundred, and 38
cents for first-class freight, against
SO cents for the mails; New York
to Chicago, IS cents freight, SIPS
express and So. mail; New York
to Atlanta, SIPS freight, 81 ex-
press, and SO. so mail; Chicago to
Milwaukee, Is cents freight, 80
cents express, "a cents mail per
hundred this seems fairly reason
able) New York to San Francisco,
So freight, $6.75 express, and
$13. % mail this seems very un-
reasonably Atlanta to Savannah,
OF cents freight, 81 cents express,
and $l3.17 mail (morc unreasonable
still).
''Thcsc and other data too nu-
merous for insertion here indicate
that as rule railways receive for
express so to 100 per cent more
than for first-class freight, and for
mail 100 to 800 per cent more
than for express.
"A specific case will show more
clearly the relation between railway
receipts from mail and express.
The New York Central gets 40 per
cent of the gross earnings of the
express company operating over its
line. The result is the following
relation between mail and express
for the route from New York to
Buffalo, 43o miles:
Railway earnings per year for
125 tons of mail daily ST., 447, $40.
Railway earnings per year for
125 tons of express daily $43e, $50.
Railway officers claim that the
value received from the express
should be put somewhat above the
40 per cent contract division of
earnings because the express per-
forms some 'gratuitous' service in
the handling of railway packages,
ETC., but even make full allowance
for this and all other claims OF the
railroad in relation to such COM
parison, as Adams does on page
ID of the Railway Mail Pay re-
port, the railway value from express
would only be $507, 312 in the
above statement, against 81, 447, :
$40 from the mail without counting