Year: 1873




OUR OLD FRIEND


And so our old friend Pub. Doc. is coming
hack The House Committee on Post Offices and
Post Roads has devised a plan for the lndi-
rect revival of the franking privilege, the chief
feature of which is the unlimited free clrcuia-
tion of public documents through the mails.
Any member of Congress is to be at liberty
to frank anything that by stretch OF con-
science he can call public document, and
when the clerk has put his use upon the
wrapper, as a certificate that the signature Is
genuine the book, or speech, or letter, or re-
port, or parcel of dirty linen, or whatever it
may be, is thereupon entitled to free trans
mission. OF course the result is easily fore
seen. Anything upon which the honorable
member does not want to pay postage be-
comes for the nOnce public document. Inc
speech which he never made but asked leave
to print the newspaper which contains hat
terng sketch of his life and public services (;
the volume of "Our Leading Statesmen"
adorned with his portrait on steel fOr which
he bound himself to take five copies OF the
book at one hundred dollars piece the
business circulars of the most influential men
of the party in his district; the appeals OF the
Central Committee for voluntary contributions
from clerks toward campaign expenses; the
Agricultural A Report with the picture of his
pamesake the prize rainfall these things and
many moro will be heaped into the capacious
mail bags, and again as of old the Post Offices
will be ch0ked and the railways burdened
with tons of rubbish for which there Is no use
upon earth except to kindle fires and wipe
raz0rs.


1t is idle to pretend that the new regula-
ton, applying the franking privilege only to
public documents, is not liable to the same
abuses as the old. Under the former law the
privilege of Congressman was very strictly
limited-on the statute books. 1t covered
nothing whatever except their correspondence,
printed matter issued by authority of Con-
gress and proceedings in Congress and the
frank was required i'm all cases to be written
by the Congressman's own hand. In practice
all these restrictions were dsregarded. Every
thing was corresponds nee. Circulars, business
cards. campaign documents were franked by
the wholesale; and it is said that one member
sent several large packing cases full Of house,
hold effects all the way across the continent
a. registered letters. In busy seasons half the
franks were forged by the members clerks,
under orders from their employers. The
scandalous manner in which the law was viO-
lated in this regard at Washington just before
the last Presidential election will not soon be
forgotten. If the franking privilege IS re-
viyed all these abuses will certainly be re-
viyed with it. Then the bags were filed with
fictitious correspondence now they will be
filled with fictitious documents. 1t will be the
same matter only with a slight change of
name.


This is not all. 1t was one of the blessings
Of repeal that it checked the growing extrav-
agance of the business of public printing
Those tons of useless and ridiculous books
which no man ever read, those mountains
of vOluminous, verbose reports, and huge
piles of ancient statistics, were the direct
fruits of tho franking privilege. There was
no reason for their existence except that Con-
gressmen might fatter a constituent by send
ing him volumes that he did not want, as a
token that his representatives had not for
gotten him. When the facilities for distribut-
ing this rubbish at the public expense were
taken away the temptation for making it was
taken away too. If the reform can be allowed
to stand we shall perhaps arrive in time at the
common-sense plan of printing nothing that is
not worth its cost and the title of Pub. Doc.
applied to book will cease to be term of
OpprObrium.