That is what I started to demonstrate in this chapter. But there are other raids and raiders upon the revenues of the Postoffice Department to which I must advert. I purposed in writing to this phase of our general subject, to make official prattle about postal service “deficits” look and sound foolish. I believe I have already done that, but in justice to the subject and to the postal ratepayers, at least three other raiders must have their cloaks slit. CHAPTER XI. LATEST OFFICIAL STYLES IN POSTAL CONVERSATION. The President’s message of February 22, 1912, reached me a few hours after the closing chapters of this volume had gone to the printers. With it arrived a copy of the Postmaster General’s report for the year ending June 30, 1911; also notice from a Congressman friend that he will have the Hughes Commission’s report on the way shortly. The Man on the Ladder, like Lucy, when selecting her spring bonnet, desires the “very latest creation.” It may not be essentially necessary in a discussion of Federal postal affairs, but even a hurried reading of the President’s message and the report of Postmaster General Hitchcock will furnish abundant evidence that _expressed_ official opinion is somewhat ephemeral and transitory, like the styles in ladies’ headwear. I have never had the pleasure of retaining a lady’s unanimous friendship for any appreciable length of time after giving her my honest opinion of the style of her most recently acquired bonnet, and readers who have followed me thus far in my consideration of government postal affairs will have discovered that my respect for “style” in official oratory and literature needs coaching. All that aside, however, the point is that I have persuaded my printers to “break galley” just here and permit the insertion of a chapter, having as subject the “very latest” in official postal affairs. THE PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE. In his Washington Day effort our smiling President is profusely loyal to the characteristics of his style in composition--plumage and displacement. Mr. Taft, however, should set up no claims of originality of design in Executive messages. Several of his predecessors presented the people of these United States with numerous displays of verbal plumage and trimmings. So our President had many working-models as guides in building the message upon which we shall proceed to comment.