Evening star., 1925-07-23
BACKGROUND OF EVENTS
BY PAUL Y. COLLINS.

are the spoiis taken from the malls
by private cupidity."
x X X X
Not much is said today about the
tprivate cupidity" which would under
take to carry letters in competition
with the mails of the Government, but
in recent years the competition has
been mainly in the transportation Of
second-class NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. and
periodicals.
1t is a statutory offense for a. pri-
vate individual or company to carry
letters. but a few years ago, when
publishers were paying a cent a
pound for all second-class mail, no
matter what the distance, there were
advocates of increasing the rate, and a
Post Office audit claimed that the
actual cost to the Government for all
such second-class mail was cents a
pound. Then rose the express COM
panies with an offer to carry papers.
in units not less than 10 pounds, a
distance not greater than 500 miles,
for half a cent a pound. The express
companies called at the pressroom and
hauled the mail to the trains, and at
point of destination delivered to the
news agent or subscriber-for half
of what the Post Office was charging
and for one-fourteenth of what the
Post Office auditors claimed to be the
cost of handling. The express COM
panies have not yet been classed as
eleemosynary Institutions.
When in 1874 It was proposed in
Congress to reduce the postage on let
ters from 10 or IL cents to cents,
the Postmaster General supported the
reduction. but in his report, covering
the first quarter he predicted that the
deficiency for the year would be
$1,250, 900. The actual deficiency was
only $3.50, 1897, and for the second year
there was a surplus of $213,951.
We have had cheap postage on
letters throughout the present genera
ton, and business practices today are
based upon liberal use of the mails
A comparison of the volume of mail
in 1S45 and that OF today, together
with the respective populations OF the
country. in periods so years apart, is
interesting as a study of the effect of
development of the mails under cheap
rates.
In 1874 the report of the Senate
committee was urging a reduction
from 10 to 20 cents down to an av.
erage Of Tx cents per letter, and 1t
said: ..
"It seems to the committee to be
impossible TO believe that there are
but 24.0oo,000 to 27.000,00O letters per
year forwarded to distant friends and
correspondents in the. United States,
by a population of 20, 100000 souls,
while at the same time there are 2O4,-
100000 and upward of letters passing
annually through the mails of Great
Britain and Ireland, with population
Of only 27,000,000."
The point of comparison of the COM
mittee was that in proportion with
the respective populations, there
Gh he In hn
nearly seven-ninths the mail of Great
Britain-about 150,000,000 letters in
place OF only 27,000.000--the shortage
representing what were being carried
by private parties, against the law
mail ''bootleggers." kiE
A more modern comparison may be
made between the volume of mail car
ried in the United States in 1S45 and
in 1925. Our population today is about
110, 900. .000-1ve and a, half times the
population of 1910. If our mail OF to-
day were in proportion to that of d845,
there would pass through the post
office about 143,000,00o letters in a
year.
Postmaster General New, in his re-
port to the congressional committee
this week, says there were 1,168,000,-
600 letters handled in last May alone.
That is more than eight times as
many letters per month, per capita OF
population, as were mailed in year
in. the age before cheap postage. 1t
would have been 5 per cent greater
last May, but for the decrease due to
the higher postage adopted at the last
session Of Congress.
The difference in the volume of sec
ond-class mail Of 80 years ago and to-
day would show vastly greater in.
crease than Is shown above in letters,
for this is an age of the printing press
and of general reading. The mail Is
the very life blood of our civilization.
(CopSdght. 1925. By Paul Y. CoHins.1