NP, SW 3/25A/1863

From the Southern Watchman (Athens, Ga.)
 
March 25, 1863
 
Post Office Department
Richmond, March 4, 1863
 
Campbell Wallace, Esq.
President E. T. & Ga R. R. Co.
Knoxville, Ten.
 
Dear Sir,
   Your letter of the 10th of February ulto., was received by due course of mail, and I have been prevented from answering it sooner by a pressure of business. I can but thank you for the generous and patriotic expression of your views recommending a reduction of the mail pay to railroads to a uniform rate of fifty dollars per mile, during the war, as a means of enabling the Post office Department to keep up the mail service. At a Convention of the officers and representatives of the railroad companies, which was held at Montgomery soon after the organization of our government, they cheerfully and patriotically met the views of the Department by consenting to a reduction of the rates of mail pay.
   But this consent was coupled with a resolution which requires a considerable increase of expenditure by the Department for the payment of messenger service, which had before that time been paid by the railroad companies. And, on the whole the reduction of the cost of railroad service has not been as much as was at the time expected.
   As bearing on your proposition, I would mention that at the railroad convention recently held at Augusta, the proceedings of which I have not yet seen, I have been informed a resolution was adopted for the appointment of a Committee to urge upon Congress the propriety of increasing the rates of mail pay to railroad companies. If I am correctly informed as to this it would indicate that they would not probably consent to the reduction you so patriotically propose.
   I have for some time past been endeavoring to accommodate the views of the officers many lines of railroad, I may say of nearly all, by agreeing with the arrangement of schedules at a rate of speed of about fifteen miles per hour, instead of the present schedules. This, they represent to me, is made necessary on account of the difficulty of keeping up the motive power and rolling stock of the several roads as from the difficulty of getting iron to repair the roads. If this slower rate of speed shall be adopted, I am advised it will be beneficial to the roads b y facilitating transportation. And for this and the decreased speed in the transmission of the mails, which is the special advantage derived from conveying them by railroad, they may possibly consent to some reduction of present rates of pay. If our railroads would consent to the rates of mail pay received by those of other countries, it would greatly relieve the Department, and would possibly enable it to pay its won expenses without a reduction of the mail facilities of the country. And when the current amount of transportation gives them full employment, as at present, and especially if slow schedules should be agreed on, so as to favor transportation, and while the messenger service is paid for by the Department, I can see no good reason why they might not agree to a reduction of mail pay.
   A reduction of the railroad pay for transportation of the mails to a maximum of rate of one hundred dollars per mile would produce a saving to the Department of one hundred and seventy-five thousand three hundred and ten dollars (175,310). And a reduction to a maximum of fifty dollars per mile would produce a savings of four hundred and eighteen thousand four hundred and ninety-five dollars ($418,495). A reduction of the expenses of the Department by an amount equal so this latter sum, if it can be made, would enable the Department to meet its future liabilities, it is believed, without further additional aid from the Treasury and without the necessity of further reductions of the service.
   While I do not regard it as probable that the railroads would consent to this latter reduction, I should have hopes that they might consent to deductions to a maximum of seven-five dollars per mile with the twenty-five per cent. allowance for night service when performed, upon the arrangement of such slower schedules as will accommodate their freight and travel. I will call the attention of the Committees on Post Offices and Post-roads, of the two houses of Congress to your recommendation, that they may give it such consideration as its importance requires.
   In answer to that portion of your letter in which you suggest that I withdraw my recommendation for an increase of the postage on newspapers, and for the repeal of the law authoring the sending of newspaper exchanges through the mail free of postage, I would say without any feeling of hostility to newspapers, or on account of a want of appreciation of their general usefulness, or the special and great service they have rendered our country in the struggle through which we are passing, I agree with you in the belief that the history of the does not furnish evidence that the press has ever before been more free as a general thing, from personality or licentiousness, in times of either peace or war that it has been in the Confederate States for the last two years, and that no Government was ever more nobly and patriotically sustained by the press than ours. But the same just need of praise may with equal propriety be bestowed on those who compose our gallant and faithful armies, and those who, unable to go to the tented field, both men and women, have voluntarily contributed so much, and to the amount untold thousands freely and without price, to sustain them; yet it it not proposed to give these any special immunities, or to foster their industry at the expense of other pursuits. And these recommendations were made because their adoption would add to the revenues of the Department, and so far aid in securing postal facilities to the country, without inflicting a wrong on any, and because it is contrary to the principles of our Government and the genius of our institutions to foster or promote any part of it, or any of its citizens at the expense of others. He who eats must pay for his food; he who wears must pay for his raiment; and he who reads ought to pay for his books and papers. The State Governments may, if they think proper, make provision for the education of the people, but the Confederate Government has no such power.
   But independently of the question of policy and power so far as the publishers of papers are concerned, they are not at all agreed as to the propriety or justice of authorizing transmission of exchanges through the mails free of postage. Soon after the organization of our Government, and preparatory to my first recommendations of the subject, from personal interviews and from correspondence, I ascertained that in the main costly daily papers were opposed to it, while the smaller papers, less frequently issued, generally favored it.
   This, as it was explained to me arose from the fact that the publishers of dailies, when applied to for an exchange with less costly papers, found it to be rather injudicious to refuse such exchanges, while to make them was to submit to a tax equal the difference in the value of the papers in each case. And while there is no compulsion to make free exchanges the above is an illustration of the practical operation of the law in the class of cases referred to.
   You no doubt observed to that, even at the increased rate of postage on newspapers which I recommend, one newspaper weighing three ounces would be sent from Richmond to Knoxville for one cent, while correspondents would have to pay sixty cents for three ounces weight of single letters between the same points. I only recommended such an increase of postage on newspapers as I hoped Congress would adopt, and not what my own convictions of justice and propriety induced me to think would be really right and proper. So that, while appreciating the high motives which prompted your views, I am led to a different conclusion from yours on this subject.
   With much respect, your ob't servant,
John H. Reagan
Post Master General
{the above includes many errors probably made by the printer}

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