Among the vast amount of informative data on the subject of transporting and handling second-class mail matter, its cost to the government, etc., there are pages upon pages of testimony by publishers the commission invited to appear before it in person or by representative. Some of that testimony, so newspapers reported during the hearings in both New York and Washington, is supported or re-enforced by the jurats of the publishers testifying. Some of those publishers stated in their testimony that the sample copies they had distributed had, by reason of the correspondence and mail business resulting, amply compensated the government for carrying and handling such sample copies. Several _specific and detailed_ statements were made by the publishers. Again: The publishers furnished voluminous testimony--both in their own statements and in the correspondence of business men who had patronized the columns of their publications--in proof of the fact that (1) the advertising pages of their publications were as generally read, if not more read, than were the body pages, and (2) that the sales of stamps by the government for the correspondence and business resulting from the advertisements printed yielded far more postal revenue than did any other character of second-class matter the mail service handled. Now, the questions. When this Penrose-Overstreet Commission sent out its invitations most of them went to publishers and associations of publishers. At any rate so it would appear from statements in the commission’s report. _Did the commission believe the publishers invited were liars?_ If so, why did it invite them? After hearing their verbal testimony and looking over their written statements, _did the commission conclude that those publishers were liars_? If so, why did it spend the people’s money to collate, digest and file the testimony of liars for the information of Mr. Cortelyou, the then Postmaster General, Mr. Meyer and Mr. Hitchcock, his successor, and other Postmaster Generals who will follow Mr. Hitchcock? Again--If those commissioners of 1906-7 concluded, either before or after hearing them, that the publishers were or are _liars_, why may not, or should not, those publishers conclude (after reading their report) that the commissioners are liars? FOOTNOTES [2] Covers are included in the total for pages given. [3] One cover page included in count for periodicals carrying cover with no advertising matter on title page of same. [4] Three pages of cover are counted as advertising. [5] The weight of supplements to Sunday Editions of newspapers (when mentioned as supplements in list), is included in the gross weight of the issue as given. CHAPTER VI. THE PUBLISHERS SPEAK.