The Postal Department’s Deficit
By Editor
We commend as worth reading and consideration the article, "The Post-Office, and Obstructive Monopoly," by Don C. Seitz, in the World's Work for February. The Postal Department is set forth as "the only corporation in the world that does 224 million dollars worth of business in a year and loses money." Worse than all, it is endeavoring to lay that deficit to the door of the second-class publications it carries, the very things which make business for it. There is at this writing a bill before the Senate to increase the postage on advertising pages of magazines to four cents a pound, instead of one cent a pound now paid. It is claimed that the cause of the deficit is the carrying of so much second-class matter, and President Taft has spoken of these publishing interests as being "subsidized." But Wilmer Atkinson has shown that the deficit decreased as the publications increased. One advertiser has shown that one page of advertising in a magazine brought the Government, largely through letter postage, on which there is an immense profit, more than $864. The proposed law is class legislation, un-American, and short-sighted.