Under its general power to establish post-offices and postroads, the Federal Government has built up a vast and complicated system. We began in 1789 with 75 post-offices, or one for every 50,000 persons in round numbers, and at the close of the nineteenth century there were more than 70,000 post-offices,' or one for about every 1000 inhabitants. The postal charges in 1792 ranged from six cents for a single sheet transmitted thirty miles to twenty-five cents for the same carried more than 450 miles. To-day an ordinary letter may be sent from Maine to Manila for two cents.2 Not being a profit-making but a public service agency, its expenses often exceed its income.

The post-office not only carries letters, papers, post-cards, and parcels limited in size; it transmits money also.3 The registry service was established by Congress in 1855; and it is now possible for anyone, by the payment of ten cents in addition to the regular postage, to secure the registration of a letter at every point in its journey, a return receipt from the person to whom it is sent, and an insurance up to a certain amount routine practically guaranteeing delivery. In 1864, Congress established the money order system, by which payment to the addressee at the other end of the line is absolutely guaranteed and practically every possibility of loss obviated.

a

In order to encourage the establishment of newspapers and their circulation among the people, Congress at the very foundation of the Government made especially low rates for the transmission of printed matter. For a long time a bulk rate of one cent a pound was charged for periodicals entered at the postoffice as second-class matter, a rate which, it was claimed, was far below the actual cost of the service rendered and responsible for the large deficits which frequently occurred in postal finances. An agitation therefore arose in favor of an increase in the postal rates on newspapers and periodicals, but naturally it was vigorously opposed by publishers. It was alleged that the cost of transportation was excessively high on account of the unbusinesslike contracts which the Government made with the railways. The contest over increased rates for newspapers and periodicals culminated in 1917 in an amendment to the War Revenue

1 Post-offices are graded into classes on a basis of receipts. This number has been reduced to about 50,000 by the rural free delivery system.

2 The one-cent post-card was introduced in 1872. 3 For the postal savings system, see above, p. 381.

Act raising the second-class mail charges. This law contained three significant provisions: (1) it increased the rates on secondclass publications by a gradual process until by 1921 they ranged from two to ten cents per pound; (2) it based the carriage of second-class mail on the zone system prevailing in the parcel-post division, varying the rate according to the zone; (3) it laid a special postage rate on periodicals on the basis of the advertising carried when the advertisements exceed five per cent of the paper. Special rates are fixed for religious and educational publications not conducted for profit.

Although Congress early provided for sending books and small parcels by post, it imposed high rates on such mail matter and narrowly restricted its scope. As the business of the country increased, there came a demand for a special system for carrying parcels by mail at low rates. This reform was resisted by the express companies for obvious reasons and by country merchants who feared the competition of the great department stores of the cities. It was not until August, 1912, that Congress was induced to establish a parcel-post system of the modern type. The scheme was immediately successful and it has been steadily extended and improved from year to year.

While widening the range of the matter carried at low rates the post-office has brought its services to the very doors of the citizens in nearly every part of the country. In the old days, every person had to go to the post-office to get his mail. In 1863 a free delivery was instituted in cities of 50,000 inhabitants. Since then the figure has been reduced to cover cities of about 10,000. In 1885, the "special delivery" of mail was started. Twelve years later rural free delivery was initiated with an outlay of about $14,000 for the first year a sum which grew to $34,000,000 annually within a decade. More than 400,000 miles are now covered by the service. In 1914, the usefulness of this enterprise was increased by instructing rural mail carriers to obtain from farmers lists of commodities which they are prepared to furnish consumers in the cities; such lists are available to prospective buyers at the city post-offices. Thus a direct channel has been cut between producer and consumer. Goods may be sent cheaply from country to town and from town to country.

The incidental effects of the rural delivery system, especially

since the appearance of the automobile, have been momentous; in addition to relieving the tedium of the country life and rendering prompt service to farmers along the routes, it is a powerful factor in bringing about the improvement of country roads. The Post-Office Department insists that the routes used for rural delivery shall be kept in good condition during all seasons of the year; under this pressure, coupled with federal aid in the form of subsidies, states and counties are steadily at work building modern highways.1

The Post-Office Department is a vast business concern charged with the supervision of an army of employees, some stationed in Washington and others scattered throughout the United States in the thousands of post-offices and on the railway trains and other vehicles for mail transmission. The direction of affairs is vested in the Postmaster-General, who appoints departmental employees under the civil service rules, manages postal finances, and hears appeals from subordinates. The PostmasterGeneral has four assistants, each of whom is responsible for one of the great branches of the postal service. The administration of the post-office is greatly hampered by the fact that Congress controls rates and locates buildings, under the pressure of "politics," often with slight regard for economy or efficiency; but by recent reforms 2 it has been emancipated from the worst features of the spoils system in the selection of post

masters.

The postal authorities possess the power to exclude from the mails the letters and papers of persons and corporations practicing fraud and deception, and also the power to prohibit the use of the mails for matter tending to encourage crime and immorality. When any person attempts, by fraudulent methods, to procure money or property through the mails, the postal authorities simply withdraw the privileges of the mails absolutely. This is done by instructing the postmaster at the place where the fraud is practiced to stamp on all letters addressed to the guilty person or concern the word "fraudulent"; and return them to the writers if there is a return address, or to the Dead Letter Office. The Post-Office Department employs inspectors to conduct investigations into the misuse of the mails, and make reports to the Postmaster-General. These reports are the principal evi

dence upon which "fraud orders" are based. In practice the postal authorities serve notice on persons charged with abusing mail privileges, and inform them of the nature of the accusation. If the accused wishes to make defense, he must go to Washington and present his case. It has been uniformly held by the courts that the decision of the Postmaster-General on questions of fact in fraud order cases is not subject to judicial review. The Court, however, will review the question as to whether a particular scheme is fraudulent.

The exercise of this large power has been severely criticized by many champions of individual liberty, who hold that it is not the business of the Government to act as the paternal guardian of the citizens, protecting them from their own folly against the machinations of patent medicine fakirs and "get-richquick" swindlers; or guiding them as to literature proper for them to read. On the other hand, it is asked, with a good deal of plausibility, whether the Government should permit the use of the mails by fraudulent concerns, and thus become a party to the deception of innocent persons.2

Under the provisions of the Espionage and Sedition laws enacted during the World War 3 the postal authorities were empowered to close the mails to newspapers suspected of "seditious" tendencies; the mail of any person whom the postal agents "distrusted" was opened and read. A strict censorship of the mails was created under a censorship board. Frequent and sweeping orders excluding newspapers and magazines from the mails were issued by the Post-Office Department and sustained by the decisions of the courts.4

1 Readings, p. 204.

* For example, several years ago a company in New York began to advertise fountain pens at $2.50 apiece, and promised at the same time to employ every purchaser of a pen at $8 a week in letter-writing. "It was an endless chain scheme, growing constantly wider. All revenues were derived from the sale of the pens. This inverted financial pyramid was not thought stable by the post-office people, and the concern was put out of business by a fraud order in October, 1902, after having secured 19,000 patrons." Reinsch, Readings, p. 392.

Above, p. 108.

'See Milwaukee Social Democratic Publishing Co. v. Burleson, 255 U. S. 106, decided in 1921.

CHAPTER XIX

CONSERVATION AND ADMINISTRATION OF

NATURAL RESOURCES

Never in the history of the world has any nation, not even Rome when her dominion extended from Scotland to Arabia, possessed a more magnificent heritage of fertile soil, virgin forest, and mineral treasure than the United States of America. At the beginning of our career as an independent republic, the Government held a vast domain of unsettled lands in the territories beyond the Alleghenies and the Appalachians; from time to time great additions have been made by purchase and conquest. In the course of a century it has owned an estate of no less than 2,825,000 square miles an empire more than ten times the size of Germany, more than twenty times the area of Great Britain and Ireland.1

No government in the world has been more lavish in disposing of its legacy, and no people more prodigal in the consumption of its material endowment. It took the people of eastern China more than three thousand years to strip forests and verdure from the mountains and hills and to transform great garden spots into barren wastes incapable of sustaining human life. Between 1860 and the present day the Federal Government has given away or sold more than 700,000,000 acres of land and we are now cutting every year three times as much timber as nature is producing. All over the earth there are immense areas which afford melancholy proof that reckless abuse of natural resources inevitably transforms fertile lands into arid wastes. What will be the state of affairs in America when the population reaches 300,000,000? Can we enlarge and develop on a national scale.

1 In addition to the lands already granted to private persons, there were large public domains in most of the territorial additions to the United States. Inasmuch as Texas had organized an inde pendent government and had won recognition as an independent commonwealth before admission to the Union, it had already made provision for the public lands and was allowed to retain them. The acquisition of Hawaii, Porto Rico, and the Philippine Islands in 1898 brought very little additional public land to the Federal Government, as most of it had already been granted away to private per

sons.