The Carlisle independent., 1910-02-03
RURAL ROUTES
 ARE QUITE SAFE
PoStoffice Department Has No Thought of Cutting Them,
 Despite the Deficit.
WORTH THE COST INVOLVED
Baliinger-Pinchot Row Stirs Up Much Bitterness in Washington-PubIi Hearings Are Likely to Be
 Lively

shington.-Congress is making every effort that it can to find a way to cut down the expenses of govern ment. In former years there has been the appearance of a striving after saving rather than a real saving it. self, but this year results are being accomplished. It can be said, how ever, that while there will be pairing or expenses in practically all the ap- | propriation bills there will be no at l tempt to curtail expenditures which ], will cripple the rural mail deliveries Of the country.
 Postmaster General Hitchcock was the last of the cabinet chiefs to hand in his annual report. He had hard ] problem to solve. The demands made by the people on the postofice de partment are greater year by year. and there is always resentment of any recommendation that an increased price should be added to any service rendered by the department to the people. Perhaps the country will have one-cent first-class postage some time | of maintaining the department is in- creasing it is hoped that means will be found to make the revenues great CT and yet to allow a decrease in the | cost of letter postage
 The postmaster general is firm believer in the rural route system The delivery of letters through the country districts costs the govern ment several millions of dollars year more than the returns, but the i'm mense convenience to the people who live outside of the great centers more than overbalanees, in the eyes of the department chiefs, the extra money needed to continue the service.
 | Ambitious Plans on Foot.
 Demands will be made during the next year to find some place in which l the jostoffice department expenses may be cut materially, and some means by which the income may be increased without affecting the purses Of the great body of the people If the present postmaster general can put his department on a paying basis | make his administration stand in a bright light. There seems to be little | chance, however, that affairs can be so arranged that the pages of the | ledger of the postoffice department will balance themselves at the end of the next year
 One thing can be taken for granted the rural route service of the country will be strengthened year by year. even though it be necessary to weak en some of the other branches of the service.
 | Satisfied with Antitrust Law l President Taft seems to have found to his own satisfaction, as shown by is recent message, that the Sherman antitrust law is equal to every de mand that the country makes of it. This is the presidents legal opinion, and until some greater lawyer or law yers or group of judges find to the contrary it probably will have to stand. The fact that the interests that have attacked the Sherman law have been so diametrically opposed to one another seems to have convinced l the president that the law must be a pretty good one. At any rate he has advised that it remain unchanged on | the statute books.
 There are several celebrated cases upon which the supreme court of the United States has yet to pass judg- ment, cases which came into the courts as result of the entering of | government prosecution under the | Sherman law. The case of the Stand ard Oil Company. which was decided adversely to the great corporation, will come before the high court with l in short time. The lower court, which sat ill the city of St. Louis, de- clared the Standard Oil Company to be a corporation in restraint of trade. This was Sherman law case and it is expected that within a few weeks the supreme court will decide it.
 Bitterness in Pinchot Row.
 When the members of the committee on investigation into the Ballinger. | Pinchot controversy get into the real l heart of their work the case unques- tionably will prove to be one of the most interesting which has ever been heard in the capital It would be hard for anyone at distance to realize the intensity of feeling that there is in this city over the matter, which con- gress has finally taken into it's own hands at the request of Secretary of the Interior Ballinger.
 Indications are that the congression- al investigation which the secretary has demanded, will take on much the form of an actual trial, a stout de fense and well-defined prosecution. Several of the land cases which have had or are yet to have their day in court, probably will figure prominent ly in the proceedings before they are ended There are several cases which were tried in different parts of the country when MT. Ballinger was com missioner of the land office under the Roosevelt administration, and it is | co{J thot como Of tho 0pfpiopc fhaf ho