That, with the falling away in _paid_ second-class matter, will provide him a “deficit” which should make him jubilant--should furnish wadding for his embrasured guns for two or three years in his attack on those recalcitrant periodicals which attend to their _own business_ in a clean, truthful way and expect nothing of a Postmaster General other than that he attend strictly and efficiently to his business, to the business of the Postoffice Department--to the business of collecting, transporting and distributing the federal mails.
I have probably discussed Mr. Hitchcock, his faults and his excellencies sufficiently. I will therefore, pass to another phase of our general subject.
First, however, I must introduce a few paragraphs here in summary of the work done by the Hughes Commission at its August session in New York City. The commission comprised Associate Justice Hughes, President Lowell of Harvard University, and H. A. Wheeler, President of the Chicago Association of Commerce. That this triumvirate of gentlemen will act disinterestedly and fairly, so far as their knowledge and the evidence relating to postal affairs extends, there is here no question.
That they have not and will not dig up and uncover facts and data relating to the haulage and handling of second-class mail matter, beyond that already known to and on file with government officials, is equally certain. No finer trinity of men could well have been selected by President Taft, but the fact is none of the three has had any opportunity to make a study of the federal mail service, second-class or other. Or if they have had such opportunity, the press of official and private business in other lines and directions preventing, in large extent, their study of postal service costs and affairs. No doubt, these three gentlemen will do the very best and fairest they can--or know how to do--with the evidence presented to them. Still, I am of the opinion that they will discover little which has not already been discovered--which, as Congressman Moon said on the floor of the House last March (1911), “has already been discovered and filed for departmental and official reference.” Each of them is a man of high academic training but neither of them, so far as The Man on the Ladder has been able to learn, had made, as previously stated, any qualifying study of federal postal affairs. So the best we have a right to expect from them is that they will tell the story, draped in new or different verbiage, told by predecessor commissions on second-class postal rates, costs of haulage and handling the same, etc.