The Sauk Centre herald. (Sauk Centre, Stearns County, Minn.) 1886-current, 1917-05-24
POSTAL RATES AND COUNTRY
PUBLISHERS

L
PUBLISHERS
The publishers of the United States
and, we are sorry to say, number of
country publishers joined in the de-
mand, have succeeded in having the
increase of seco14d class postage rates
stricken from the war revenue bill.
1t has been our hobby and we have
harped on the question until we have
become as hoarse as a crow in cawing
time, that the money of the country
should pay the expense of the govern
ment and not the citizens or the peo-
pie. In other words, a man who has
and owns million dollars that he has
been shrewd enough to accumulate,
fortunate enough to inherit, or keen
enough to appropriate from the earn
ings of others, should pay a million
times as much into the Golfers of the
government to maintain the govern
mental expenses as the man who only
owns one dollar and yet be of more &C
tual value to the government than the
millionaire.
You cannot measure mans worth
to the state or nation by the amount
OF his moneyed possessions. Abra-
ham Lincoln was undoubtedly the
greatest man-asset that the nation
ever possessed, yet he died practically
bankrupt in money matters and if
his wife had not been granted pen
sion would have suffered want. The
men who have made the nation great,
who have made Minnesota great, who
have bettered the world, uplifted hui
mainly, and rescued mankind from
savagery were not men of wealth. The
worlds greatest reformer, the great
fountain head Of civilization and en-
ightment Prince of Peace chad
no place to lay his head"
Notwithstanding all this, even in
this Republic of men, mammon, to
large extent, has ursurped the rights
of manhood.
In all the multitudinous legislative
enactments of both state and national
affairs there are thousand and one
acts protecting the rights of property
to everyone protecting the rights of
men. The millions of law volumes that
lay upon the shelves of our public il
braries and in countless law offices
are devoted to property rights and not
manhood rights; the innumerable deci-
sions of our higher courts that form
precedent for judicial procedure are
decisions relating to the rights of the
owners of things instead of the pro-
ducers Of things.
Of all the legislation that fills the
volumes OF state and national statute
books there is none so palpably partial
to money and so manifestly unfavor-
able to men as our postal laws, and
every change that has been made
during the last quarter of a century
has increased rather than diminished
this partiality, and by a curious irony
OF fate those who have been most re-
sponslble for this increase of wealth
Partially have been lauded to the
skies as the friends and benefactors of
men OF moderate means, the farmers.
the working men and the country pub
fishers.
Postage on first class matter was
reduced from three cents per half
ounce to two cents for one ounce
and it was heralded as a great
universal boon because it re-
duced the cost of sending let
tiers to everybody who sent letters, the
average man, even if he only sent one
letter a month, felt good because he
saved cent on each letter he mailed.
The average farmer and working
man sends, according to government
statistics, about one letter week, and
ne saves 81 cents a year by the reduc-
ed postage. The average wealthy
business man sends out SO letters
day and he saves so cents day. Some
OF the Wall street brokers, that every
body in public life make political cap
1tal by cussing, send out as high as
1000 day and they save $4,000 a
day.
1t works the same in second class
matter: The Herald pays out approx
imately $500 month in postage.
Ninety per cent of this is within a
thousand mile zone. G'ne cost to the
government for this distribution is
about $500; in othe words every
time the Herald pays $500 into the
treasury for postage, Uncle Sam
makes clean profit of $500, and the
Herald is not exactly in the million
aire class Of publications either, al
though the character of it's editorial
entitle it to that position, and it's
stock is not much above par.
On the other hand take the Curtis