Mr. Shallenberger served under six Postmaster Generals and all of these held that the government was carrying second-class matter at a loss. But his opinion was that there was a substantial profit in the present rate, at the same time condemning the idea that each particular schedule should be made to pay its own way, the stimulus toward encouraging other schedule receipts not being given its proper consideration. Mr. Shallenberger gave a hint concerning hidden influences seeking to have the second-class rate increased but did not enter deeply into this phase of the subject. The controversy between Mr. Shallenberger and Second Assistant Stewart was animated and prolonged, and touched on features connected with the compensation paid railroads for hauling the mail, the express companies getting better terms than the government, this statement being made by a representative of the Postal Progress League.
The strongest point the publishing interests made was when the superintendent of the railway mail service, Chas. H. McBride, testified that a considerable part of the estimate upon which the department’s figures are based is guesswork and assumption, he admitting that if this were so the result would not be greatly different from what the officials first claimed. On the whole Superintendent McBride’s testimony was calculated to show that the Postoffice Department was desirous of making out a case against the second-class schedule, however necessary it was to twist figures and conceal facts in order to do so.
Mr. Wilmer Atkinson, publisher of Farm Journal, Philadelphia, combated the contention of the postoffice officials, as shown in their statements and tables, and declared with much emphasis that second-class matter stimulated first-class postage receipts. The statement of the cost of carrying second-class matter, placing it at nine cents a pound, is, according to him, “only a stereotyped guess that goes into the postoffice department report, each year,” experts having repeatedly stated that there is no possible way of fixing the cost of carrying second-class mail. In the opinion of Mr. Atkinson the government could better afford to carry it free than not to carry it at all. “Gumption and common sense,” declared Mr. Atkinson, “should rather be applied than indulging in worthless guessing.”