President Woll dwelt on the far-reaching effect which the hampering of the labor press would have on the manifold business relationships involved in the printing industry, primarily directing attention to the more than a third of a million of workers in the printing trades alone. He then advanced to the foundation of the paper and machinery features of the proposition, viz., from the ore in the mine, from which the machinery was made, to the forest tree from which the pulp is ground. The tonnage of the transportation service of the country would at once be doubly interfered with, first in a reduced demand for material with which to make the paper and, secondly, the corresponding decrease in the weight of the finished product of the publications. In many features Mr. Woll made prominent the ideas which the “Postal Riders and Raiders” is promoting, including the educational features of the immense volume of printing which comes from the printing press in all sections of the country. The commission adjourned, subject to the call of Justice Hughes. However, it is understood that it will be called together in time to prepare its report to President Taft and to Congress when the session opens in December, 1911. FOOTNOTES [6] Mr. Hitchcock, it should be noted, is careful in giving the higher per cent. of rate which the third and fourth classes show above the second class rate. Beyond the bare statement that the expense of handling second class matter “is less” than for other classes, he says nothing of cost of carriage and handling. His own figures show (see preceding paragraph), that the cost of carriage and handling first-class matter is 422 per cent. higher than his own absurd cost-figure of 9 cents a pound (cost) for carriage and handling second-class and _4600 per cent. higher than the present second class rate_. [7] Mr. Suter must certainly have been wind-jamming a little. “Every man, woman and child” pays at a maximum rate of 2 cents an ounce or fraction thereof. That is at the rate of 32 cents a pound. Mr. Hitchcock’s figures assert, that it costs “47 cents a pound” to carry and handle the letters for “every man, woman and child”--that is, presuming they all write letters. The letter writers, it appears then, pay only 2 cents for a service which costs nearly 3 cents. CHAPTER X. POSTAL DEFICITS. Now, let us look into and over that postoffice “deficit,” to the origin of which the memory of man scarcely runneth back, and which Mr. Hitchcock, by some strenuous effort on _right_ lines readily converted into a surplus--a $6,000,000 deficit into some hundreds of thousands of dollars surplus. The returns are not all in yet. At any rate the Postmaster General has not announced them loud enough for The Man on the Ladder to hear, or he was in his physician’s hands when the announcement was made.