Postal Riders and Raiders. W. H. Gantz
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W. H. Gantz
Postal Riders and Raiders
Published by Good Press, 2019
EAN 4064066135522
Table of Contents
CHAPTER I. MAL-ADMINISTRATION RUN RIOT.
CHAPTER II. THE UNCONSTITUTIONAL RIDER.
DEFICITS AFFECTED BY SECOND-CLASS TONNAGE.
ATTEMPT TO BREACH THE CONSTITUTION.
CHAPTER III. SOME PUBLIC-BUBBLING FIGURES.
CHAPTER IV. BUREAUCRATIC POWERS SOUGHT.
CHAPTER V. THE PENROSE-OVERSTREET COMMISSION.
CHAPTER VI. THE PUBLISHERS SPEAK.
CHAPTER VII. POSTAL REVENUES FROM ADVERTISING.
CHAPTER VIII. WHO ARE AFFECTED.
CHAPTER IX. MR. HITCHCOCK STILL AFTER THE MAGAZINES.
HEARINGS BEFORE THE HUGHES POSTAL COMMISSION.
NO CREDIT ALLOWED FOR SERVICES RENDERED OTHER DEPARTMENTS.
EXPRESS COMPANIES CONDUCTING A CRIMINAL TRAFFIC.
CHAPTER XI. LATEST OFFICIAL STYLES IN POSTAL CONVERSATION.
AN EXECUTIVE OVERSIGHT—POSSIBLY.
CHAPTER XII. RAILWAY AND EXPRESS RAIDERS.
SOME LITTLE RED SCHOOL HOUSE FIGURING.
CHAPTER XIII. RAIDERS MASKED BY CIVIL SERVICE.
CHAPTER XIV. PARCELS POST RAIDERS.
FOREWORD TO THE READER.
The mud-sills of this book are hewn from the presupposition that the person who reads it has not only the essentially necessary equipment to do his own thinking, but also a more or less practiced habit of doing it. It is upon such foundation the superstructure of this volume was built. It is written in the hope of promoting, or provoking, thought on certain subjects, along certain lines—not to create or school thinkers. So, if the reader lacks the necessary cranial furnishing to do his own thinking, or, if having that, he has a cultivated habit of letting other people do his hard thinking and an ingrown desire to let them continue doing so, such reader may as well stop at this period. In fact, he would better do so. The man who has his thinking done by proxy is possibly as happy and comfortable on a siding as he would be anywhere—as he is capable of being. I have no desire to disturb his state or condition of static felicity. Besides, such a man might “run wild” or otherwise interfere with the traffic if switched onto the main line.
Emerson has somewheres said, “Beware when God turns a thinker loose in the world.” Of course Emerson cautioned about constructive and fighting thinkers, not thinkers who think they know because somebody told them so, or who think they have thought till they know all about some unknowable thing—the ratio of the diameter to the circumference of the circle, how to construct two hills without a valley between, to build a bunghole bigger than the barrel, and the like.
There are thinkers and thinkers. Emerson had the distinction between them clearly in mind no doubt when he wrote that quoted warning. So, also, has the thinking reader. It is for him this volume is planned; to him its arguments and statements of fact are intended to appeal. Its chapters have been hurriedly written—some of them written under conditions of physical distress. The attempts at humor may be attempts only; the irony may be misplaced or misapplied; the spade-is-a-spade style may be blunt, harsh or even coarse to the point of offensiveness. Still, if its reading provokes or otherwise induces thought, the purpose of its writing, at least in some degree, will have been attained. It is not asked that the reader agree with the conclusions of the text. If he read the