Postmaster-General Meyer said in his report for 1908: “The charge for carrying second-class mail matter was intentionally fixed below cost for the purpose of encouraging the dissemination of information of educational value to the people, _and the benefit of the cheap rate of postage is passed on to the subscriber in a lower subscription price than would otherwise be possible_.”
The Hon. Charles Emory Smith truly declared: “Our free institutions rest on popular intelligence, and it has from the beginning been our fixed and enlightened policy to foster and promote the general diffusion of public information. Congress has wisely framed the postal laws with this just and liberal conception.
“It has uniformly sought to encourage intercommunication and the exchange of intelligence. As facilities have cheapened, it has gradually lowered all postage rates. It has never aimed to make the postal service a source of profit, but simply to make it pay its own way and to give the people the benefit of all possible advancement.
“In harmony with this sound and judicious policy, it has deliberately established a low rate of postage for genuine newspapers and periodicals, with the express design of encouraging and aiding the distribution of the recognized means and agencies of public information.
“It is not a matter of favor, but of approved judgment. _It is not for the publishers, but for the people._”
The testimony of Senator Bristow is that, “I am glad we have got a one-cent rate of postage for the legitimate newspapers and magazines of the country, and I would rather decrease it than raise it. _The beneficiaries are the poor people themselves_, who now get daily papers at from $2 to $4 a year, when they used to pay from $10 to $12. They now get magazines from $1 to $1.50, when they used to pay $4 to $6 per year for magazines of no higher grade.” …
And I would remind the Commission that there are millions of laboring men and women who cannot afford to add to their living expenses the cost of any but the very cheapest reading matter, and many not even that. After buying food and clothing and providing shelter there is scarcely anything left in the home for cultivating the intellect and informing the mind.