Omaha daily bee., 1919-04-25
BURLESON PLEA
"AMAz!NC," SAYS
CHARLES J. POST
Postmaster General Arraigned
Sharply in Statement
by Publishers Advisory
Board Director.

New York, April 24.-Replying in
a statement tonight to the charge of
Postmaster General Burleson that he
is the victim OF an organized prop
aganda,' Charles Johnson Post, di-
rector of the publishers advisory
board. declared that it was not the
publishers of the country who need
ed defense. but the postmaster gen.
eral himself. He asserted that de-
moralization of the postal service
was fact which every business man
and American home was able to
judge.
The publishers advisory board
consists of the Periodical Publish
ers' association of America. the As
sociated Business Papers. ncorpora-
ted, the American Musical Editors
association. the New York Medical
Publishers association. the Agricul-
tnral Publishers association. the As
sociation of Religious press, the Al
lied Printing Trades council and the
Authors League of America.
American Ideals Menaced.
1.-THE amazing official statement
by Postmaster General Burleson i'll
his own defense. following his re-
fusal to transmit the news dispatches
of the New York World. because
such dispatch reflected upon his
iucapacity. is challenge to every
serious thinking American-even
though he rescinded-s order the
following day" said Mr.. Post. THAT
such Prussian and vicious one
mar censorship can be established
in the postoifice by Mr.. Burleson
or any one else reveals menace
to our nation and American ideals
far beyond Mr.. Burleson's point that
he thinks he has been criticised too
harshly.
whether the postal service is
good or bad is not matter of argu-
ment or of Mr.. Burleson's personal
opinion. The public knows from its
own experiences. day by day from
the camps in France to the COM
merce of Frisco, and as evidenced
, by the impartial Investigations and
the resolutions of the most reliable
business organizations of the coun-
What Mr.. Burleson calls organ
lied propaganda is the expression of
sentiment of hundreds and hundreds
OF responsible business organizations
with their many thousands of bust
ness members. chambers of COM
merce, educational institutions, la
Dor organizations, religious organ
izations and cultural organizations
that have formally condemned the
various inefficient postal methods
and principles which he champions.
How Zone Law Works.
He specifically upholds the vic
ious and un-American postal zone
law with its unfair postage increases
against distant American communi-
ties and alleges that the publishers
of the country, newspapers and per-
iodica1s. are in conspiracy to ruin
him. Those whom Postmaster Gen
eral Burleson is attacking by means
of the zone law are not publishers,
but they are the reading men and
women, the reading homes of this
nation. For, IF this postal zone law
he demands that any periodical shall
cost more in postage to an ,Amer-
lean reader because. of, and in pro-
portion to. that readers accidental
remoteness from any point of publ
cation.
And when public-spirited and rep
resentative organizations such as the
American Federation of Labor. the
Merchants Association of New
York, the General Federation OF
Women's Clubs, the National
Grange, the National Education as
ISOLATION and hundreds of others