Postal Riders and Raiders. W. H. Gantz
by express for the average mail haul, furnish valid grounds for doubt as to the good faith of his intent, to suspicion an ulterior motive back of his action and writings. To this I do not hesitate to say that his 1910 report, I mean his own personally signed section of it, is offensively bureaucratic. Mr. Hitchcock, it appears from his own recommendations, would have his bureau or department bigger than Congress. He wants powers and authority centered in it which Congress should not delegate, which Congress has no rightful powers nor authority to delegate.
Now, do not misapprehend me. Maybe Mr. Hitchcock has not done all this on his own initiative. He may have acted wholly on a long-distance or a central direction from the main stem. I shall, however, proceed to support my accusation that Mr. Hitchcock evidences in his 1910 report a desire—a tendency, if not a desire—to make the Postmaster General not only a censor of periodical literature (as indicated in the wording of that “rider” amendment printed on a previous page), but to have delegated to him powers over the mail service which not only contravene the basic principles of a democratic form of government, but which, also, tend to establish a bureaucracy that, if carried to its full flower, will, necessarily abrogate our form of government itself.
Here let us note Mr. Hitchcock’s recommended legislation. In the report before me he makes thirty-six recommendations. In each of these which grants added powers or authority touching any matter, the wording of the suggested legislation gives such added powers and authority to the Postmaster General. In certain minor matters, especially such as relate only to departmental methods of handling its service accounts, etc., such grant of power is entirely proper. Among Mr. Hitchcock’s recommendations are several of such character, and, so far as I have studied them, they appear sound, and consequently their passage by Congress and their application to the department would, in my judgment, effect material savings or betterments in the service.
In a number of other instances, however, Mr. Hitchcock asks legislation that will grant him (or any succeeding head of the federal Postoffice Department), powers and authority which should be granted to no bureau or departmental division of our government service. I mean that the acquirement of such legislative powers and authority by bureaus (cabinet service divisions), is inimical to the basic principles of our government; in fact, it is a stealthy move to establish in this country the bureaucratic form of government which has proved a curse in every existing monarchical government, causing their peoples to rebel against them, or constantly a condition of unrest under the system—a condition which indicates either enforced submission to governmental wrongs and impositions or a dwarfed and submerged manhood, “begging for leave to live” and devoting most of its thought to a few questions, such as: “Why did I arrive? What am I here for? I work, why does the government take most of my earnings? Why does the government and its bureau heads live, live in luxury, while I and my wife and children merely exist—barely subsist? Why are hundreds of millions taken every year from people who need it to secure the common comforts of life, and given, unearned, to those who need it not at all?”
It would require pages even to print the inquiries which the victims of bureaucratic governments ask themselves daily, ask themselves daily so long as they exist above the level of the clod, above the level which Edward Markham so forcefully and eloquently depicts in his “Man with the Hoe.”
The point I desire to emphasize is that when the great body of people in any country—its “citizens”—begin to ask themselves such questions, their patriotism begins to dry-rot and die, and when the patriotism of a nation’s people begins to die, that nation is on the farther slope of its existence; it has started on the decline, more or less sharp, which ends in rebellion, dissolution, extinction. This is the uniform lesson of history. He who reads it not so reads either not carefully or not comprehendingly.
To a few of my readers the foregoing may appear to be a digression from my subject. It is not intended as such. It is intended to call the reader’s attention to some powers and authority Mr. Hitchcock seeks in his recommended legislation, legislation which should not be enacted. Let us look at a few of those recommendations. If space permitted, I would take pleasure in commenting on several more of them.
On page 10 of his report, Mr. Hitchcock repeats a recommendation of his 1909 report. He repeats it “earnestly.” He also expresses the opinion that “as soon as the postal savings system is thoroughly organized, the Postoffice Department should be prepared to establish throughout the country a general parcels post.” As a “preliminary step” to such establishment of a parcels post Mr. Hitchcock seeks authority from Congress to initiate a “limited parcels post service on rural routes.” On page 26 of his report, Mr. Hitchcock suggests the substantials of the legislation he believes necessary to enable him to establish his contemplated “limited parcels post service on rural routes,” as an experimental test.
As evidence that he wants the power and authority to make this “experiment” on his own lines and judgment and pursuant of his own purposes I shall here quote the form of his advised legislation. To anyone who has made study of parcels post service it is needless to say that among the civilized nations of the earth the United States is so far in arrears in such service as to be generally recognized as an international joke. It is quite needless to say to such that Mr. Hitchcock’s prattle of a “limited” parcels post and of trying it on certain selected rural routes (with no privileges of service beyond the geographical limits of such routes), as an “experiment,” is more than a mere joke.
Informed people know that any such restricted test of a parcels post service is no test at all. Informed men also know that our Federal Postoffice Department needs make no “experiments” on the parcels post service, “limited” or other. Every other civilized nation, and even provinces such as Canada, Australia, New Zealand and others, have made the “experiments,” likewise the successful demonstrations. The experiments of these other nations and provinces, as well as the results of them, are ours for the asking. Not alone that, but informed men know, and know positively, that our Federal Postoffice Department is in possession of—or was in possession of—all this information gathered from the experiences and trials and tests of a parcels post service in these other countries.
So, I repeat that Mr. Hitchcock’s talk about making an experimental test of the general value of a parcels post service by putting it in operation on a few selected rural routes is a joke, or else it is an evasion in order to delay the installation of a service which every citizen wants, save, of course, the few individuals who now own and control our railroads, which individuals also own, to a controlling extent at least, our express companies.
But I must quote Mr. Hitchcock’s advised legislation in order to show the reader that Mr. Hitchcock desires that the resulting powers and authority center in him, or in his successors:
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