The Sentinel=record., 1911-02-15

John Wannamaker Postmaster General; Sena- tor Boise Penrose chairman of the great Postoffice committee of the United States Senate Thomas H. Carter, senator from Montana has served many years on that committed
 No three men in the United States are better sed in postoffice affairs, and needs than these.
 On Feb 9, 1911, the Senate Postoffice committee under the leadership of senators Penrose and Carter reported favoraby to the senate for action the Post office Appropriation Bill containing provision put in without allowing public hearing open sideration, under political pressure from the White House, that increases the postage rate magazines and periodicals to such an extent that it practically absorbs all the profits of the publishing business of the country and makes the further production of popular priced magazines impossible It imposes a tax that is confiscatory Notwithstanding within the year Senator Boise Penrose said referring to the Carter-Weeks bill:
 These some of the big features of the bill. The whole intent is to systematize and to modernze the entire postal system It is idle to take up such questions apportionng the cost of carrying second class mail matter the proper compensation of rail- roads for transporting the mails until we shall have established business methods in postofce affairs by reorganization of the whole postal system.
 "The commission unanimously recommended the passage of the projected bill. Personally I have been very much interested in all the details, and of course, am heartily in favor of the changes to be made"
 Senator Carter said last March:
 But must forego further pursuit of details The bill was cordially approved by Postmaster General Meyer and his assistants, and likewise has the ap- proval of Postmaster General Hitchcock It failed of passage during the last congress owing to lack of hut havn in troduced the bill, which is designated Senate Bill No. 62S7 At the second session of the Sixty first Congress the committee Posofices and Post roads will favorably report the bill to the Senate and 1t should be enacted into law before the of this session l believe not only that it will increase ef- hcency but that after the expense of installation is absorbed it will result in such economy in the ad- ministration of the department and service as will ere long wipe out the deficiencies. In operating under it the department will be able with almost un- errng certainty to determine the actual cost of each service performed, thereby reaching a sound basis for legislation such is neither available nor obtain able under the present system
 T deeply sympathize with the earnest desire of the department officials to get rid of the deficiency they fated to encounter each year, but submit this as the first real movement toward that end which must begin with the substitution of a modern up-todate business organization for the existing an- tiquated system which rests upon a few sections of law enacted in 1885, suppmented by statutory frag- ments added from time to time since that year." John Wanamaker recently said:
 With MT. Htchcocks suggestion, however there will be general agreement. The magazines are supported not by the price paid for the magazine by readers but by the advertisers. In sense maga- zines are private concerns, but they have public function to perform. To tax the advertisements is to tax the quality of the educational matter contained in the pages; for the advertisements enable the pub fishers to pay high prices for literature and educat- iona articles. The price paid for magazine does not pay for the printing and the paper If Mr Hitchcock should become part of the presidential plan it would mean that the public would suffer in the loss of much educational material that the pub fishers then would be unable to buy"
 We urge every friend of honest politics, econom1- ical government and free press to telegraph or write immediate protest to their senators and