No truer thought as to the politics and policy of government was ever written than that. When wealth accumulates by legalizing the spoliation and exploitation of the great body of a nation’s people for the benefit of a few, the decay of its manhood is all the more rapid. When any considerable body of a nation’s citizens begins to ask, “What is the use?”—that nation has reached the danger line—has started down the decline.
Now, I undertake to say that no observing man of average intelligence can be found in this country today who will not give it as his honest opinion—unless, of course, he is hired to say otherwise—that not only thousands but millions of our people—of its industrial, productive manhood and womanhood—are asking, “What is the use” of arguing and struggling against the oppressive conditions which the laws and our administrative and judicial officers force upon us? What is the use of “knocking” the men who get the “graft,” the rake-off or the loot?
“Their big bunch of money,” says one writer, “makes so much noise, no one hears our knocks.” “Everybody is out for the stuff,” says another. “It is their representatives not ours who make the laws and it is their judges not ours who adjudicate them.” “Industry, thrift, brains and even honesty have ceased to count anywhere, save on their payrolls. Money alone counts.”
“Stop knocking, my son,” has become common in paternal counsel. “Sit into the game and get money. Of course, ‘get it honestly if you can, but get it.’”
“And if I fail,” asks the boy.
“Well, my son, unless you are careful to salt away in some place secure from assessors and raiders as well as from thieves, the chips I have raked in, your best course is to get on the payroll of the gamesters.”
A recent reading says, in effect, that there are dropped into the life of every man moments in which “he has the chance to act the hypocrite or to act the scoundrel.” But when aided and abetted by the law, such “chances” are not merely for the moment. They extend through days and years, and those so aided and abetted usually take both chances—act both the hypocrite and the scoundrel, and to the time limit of their protected opportunity.
But that is neither all nor the worst of it.
This legalized hypocrisy and scoundrelism is now widely known to the honest, productive citizenship of the country, and it is daily becoming better known. What is the result? Simply this:
The law and government administrators are, in permitting such injustices, not only creating class distinction by the enrichment of a few of our citizens and holding the millions to the subsistence level—hundreds of thousands of them to the “bread-line”—not only that, but legalized and protected injustice is dignifying hypocrisy and scoundrelism. It is sapping the moral foundations of a worthy manhood as well as robbing it of its material wealth and earnings.
But what has this sermonizing to do with the parcels post question, some one asks? It has this to do with it!
Of the numerous array of law enriched hypocrites and scoundrels in this country, nowhere can be found more of them to the lineal or square rod than can be counted in the ranks of the favored beneficiaries of existing postal laws and regulations—in the ranks of the opponents to cheapening and bettering the parcels carriage service.
FOOTNOTES
[17] By latest Postal Union agreements, 12 cents a pound, instead of 16 cents a pound (maximum limit 4 pounds) for United States delivery.
[18] Postoffices, 1910.
Transcriber’s Note
List of changes made to the original text:
Page 9, “poloi” changed to “polloi” (the hoi polloi) (we’ll ignore the wrongness of using “the” as well as “hoi”; our author is an expert on postage, not Greek)
Page 51, “controvening” changed to “contravening” (contravening the constitutional rights)
Page 57, “be” changed to “he” (but he showed no hesitancy)
Page 73, “neswpapers” changed to “newspapers” (indeed newspapers in general)
Page 85, “Posmaster” changed to “Postmaster” (what our Postmaster General is after)
Page 89, “italization” changed to “italicization” (my italicization of certain of its phrasings)
Page 91, “Massacheusetts” changed to “Massachusetts” (hulling beans in Massachusetts)
Page 123, “naratives” changed to “narratives” (historical narratives about the civil war)
Page 123, “evidenee” changed to “evidence” (shall be made to appear by evidence)
Page 125, “bureauocracy” changed to “bureaucracy” (Next to a bureaucracy)
Page 150, “perparatory” changed to “preparatory” (the names and locations of preparatory schools)
Page 183, “wastful” changed to “wasteful” (the loose, wasteful methods)
Page 199, “bagagge” changed to “baggage” (transports them in the baggage cars)
Page 208, “hubub” changed to “hubbub” (not going to raise any noisy hubbub)
Page 213, “dominition” changed to “domination” (independent of party domination)
Page 213, “presistently” changed to “persistently” (which the government persistently refuses)
Page 214, “tonnaged” changed to “tonnage” (his estimated tonnage of franked and penalty matter)
Page 225, “unsurps” changed to “usurps” (in such practice usurps the function)
Page 232, “accunt” changed to “account” (Expenditures on account of previous years)
Page 236, unnecessarily duplicated word “has” deleted (has, so far as I have seen, [has] shown)
Page 250, “uniformely” changed to “uniformly” (uniformly, if not entirely, support)
Page 251, “franchiess” changed to “franchises” (private enterprise under franchises from the government)
Page 259, “reveneus” changed to “revenues” (this raid of the express companies on postal revenues)
Page 261, “accure” changed to “accrue” (the surplus shall accrue)
Page 264, “remembeerd” changed to “remembered” (When it is remembered)
Page 269, “testimnoy” changed to “testimony” (the testimony of numerous other railroad representatives)
Page 277, “befudling” changed to “befuddling” (a lot of befuddling, alleged data)
Page 280, “dominent” changed to “dominant” (the dominant factors involved)
Page 287, “abitrary” changed to “arbitrary” (unjust regulations and arbitrary impositions)
Page 296, “corruscations” changed to “coruscations” (with rhetorical coruscations)
Page 307, “doue” changed to “done” (shipping is done by railroad employes.)
Page 312, “throught” changed to “thought” (when thought reached the conclusion)
Page 345, “af” changed to “of” (the possibility of collecting a higher rate)
Page 345, “approbrium” changed to “opprobrium” (there is no opprobrium in the word)
Page 354, “mecrhants” changed to “merchants” (one-night-stand city merchants)
Page 359, “spoilation” changed to “spoliation” (the spoliation and exploitation)