CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. (REDUCTION OF POSTAGE.) 



191 



upon this point, there is no reason why we 

 should not have special mail facilities by fast 

 trciins. That subject, which was discussed 

 here yesterday, points what I am saying upon 

 this matter. The speed of mails should be in- 

 creased. We should carry mails as fast as pas- 

 sengers are carried in this country, and we 

 should not stand here higgling and debating 

 whether we will spend $185,000 in a year to 

 increase the speed of mails, to make it possible 

 to send a letter to Chicago or St. Louis and get 

 an answer a day quicker than we should other- 

 wise. What the people want in these matters 

 is to be well served, served as well as it is pos- 

 sible that they shall be served, no matter what 

 the expense is. Take the matter of box-rents. 

 The whole subject of box-rents needs read- 

 justing. They need to be cheapened. We 

 want better offices, better box accommoda- 

 tions, better service at offices. 



" But, Mr. President, there is another thing 

 that we want still more. We want the free 

 delivery of the mails extended, and largely ex- 

 tended." There are in the United States, ac- 

 cording to the census, 246 cities of over 10,000 

 inhabitants. In those cities very nearly one 

 quarter of the population of the United States 

 resides. There is no reason why the Govern- 

 ment should not deliver in every one of those 

 cities of the United States, without the addi- 

 tional charge of one cent upon each drop-let- 

 ter, the letters received in those cities, at the 

 doors of the individuals to whom they are ad- 

 dressed. Oh, but, Senators say, that will cost 

 money. Indeed, it will cost money, but I de- 

 sire that the Post-Office revenues shall not be 

 reduced until a convenience like that shall be 

 extended just as far as it is practicable to ex- 

 tend it. 



" I find by the Postmaster-General's report 

 that only 112 cities now have free delivery. The 

 law only makes it obligatory upon the Post- 

 master-General to give a free delivery of letters 

 in cities of 30,000 inhabitants, and makes it 

 discretionary with him to allow it in cities 

 where the population is 20,000, or the gross 

 revenues are $20,000. I think that that law 

 should be repealed. I fm,i by the Postmaster- 

 General's report, desirous as he has been and 

 desirous as Congress has been that there should 

 be no deficiency in the Post-Office Department 

 any longer, that this free-delivery system has 

 been extended to but three cities in the United 

 States during the past fiscal year. 



"Take my own State. From recollection, I 

 say that there are something over fifteen towns 

 and cities having a population compact, I think, 

 within a mile or two of the post-office to the 

 farthest delivery, ranging in population from 

 five to twenty-five thousand inhabitants. I 

 think it much better to spend the surplus rev- 

 enues of the Post-Office Department in seeing 

 that within such towns and cities as those let- 

 ters are delivered at the doors of those to whom 

 they are addressed without extra charge for 

 the service, rather than that postage should be 



reduced. I believe that the people think so 

 too. I do not believe that the people are 

 clamoring at the doors of Congress to reduce 

 postage from three cents to two cents until 

 these improvements have been adopted. In 

 Great Britain more than 90 per cent, of the 

 letters are delivered to the individuals at their 

 residences or places of business, and I think, 

 without extra charge. It is a principle of the 

 English system that the delivery of letters 

 shall be universal. 



" More than 90 per cent, of the letters going 

 through the British Post-Office are delivered 

 at the doors of the persons to whom they are 

 addressed. In the early history of the postal 

 system in England it was the law that it should 

 be so done. As far back as 1794 there are 

 cases in the reports where actions were brought 

 against postmasters for not delivering letters 

 wherever they were addressed, and it was de- 

 cided to be the law of England that they should 

 be so delivered. It was the law in this coun- 

 try during the Confederate Congress. Letter- 

 carriers were always appointed in this country 

 at the discretion of the postmaster to deliver let- 

 ters without additional charge, until this free-de- 

 livery system, as it is called, came into vogue. 

 It should be one of the fundamental principles 

 of a well-regulated postal system that every 

 letter should be delivered to the individual 

 addressed, where it is possible and practicable 

 that it should be done. It would be an im- 

 provement which the people would hail with 

 joy, ten times the joy that they will hail the 

 reduction of postage, but it never will be done 

 until the Post-Office is not only self-sustaining 

 but earns a surplus revenue. I can not, with 

 the pressure of time that there is upon the 

 Senate, stop to dwell upon these things; I can 

 merely outline them ; I can merely call the 

 attention of Senators to what I believe to be 

 the real desire of the people upon this ques- 

 tion, and I will, when I close, propose an 

 amendment to change the existing law with 

 reference to the free delivery of letters. 



"But there is another subject to which I de- 

 sire to allude, a subject in which there is 

 already a great interest, a growing interest, an 

 interest that will grow and make a voice that 

 will have to be heard and heeded in the halls 

 of legislation, and that is the question of the 

 transmission of messages by electricity, by the 

 telegraph. The telegraph to-day is the rich 

 man's mail. The time is coming, and it is 

 hastening rapidly, when the people of this 

 country will demand that it shall be no longer 

 the rich man's mail, but that it shall be brought 

 within the reach and ability of every individ- 

 ual in this land. I can not understand how it 

 is that a Government like ours, that professes 

 to be in advance of the world, that boasts of 

 its progressive spirit and tendencies, that boasts 

 of its invention, that boasts of the utilization 

 of the arts and sciences in its borders, should 

 fall back on the slow railroad and steamboat 

 for the transmission of its messages, and allow 



