The inquiry showed that the business methods of the service in several offices _were antiquated and that, as a consequence, there was much duplication of work_. Instructions from the department directing improvements, as for example the proper consolidation of mail matter and the conservation of equipment, received _only perfunctory attention_. There had been a lack of co-operation also in carrying into effect certain reforms which I had indicated, and it was made evident by the inquiry that _no proper spirit of co-ordination with the department existed in the railway mail service_. CHAPTER II. THE UNCONSTITUTIONAL RIDER. We will now give our consideration to Postmaster General Hitchcock and the “rider.” I may say some plain, blunt things of him. If so, it is because I believe Mr. Hitchcock’s official action and statements touching the recent legislative move were a deliberate, calculated attempt to ruin some of the greatest periodicals the world has ever known, yes, _the_ greatest periodicals the world has ever known. Not only was it that, but the method and time of presentation in the session, as well as the questionable secretiveness of that official in preparing and advancing the measure, supply reasonably valid grounds for the charge frequently made that this attempt at “snap” legislation was but a step in a conspiracy to throttle the periodical press, to place a muzzle on the most effective means of education which our people have had during the past two decades. Nationally we have far departed from the mudsill principles of the democratic polity which our founders in their best judgment had framed for us and bespattered the forest paths of the country with their blood to _maintain_ for us--the forest paths not alone of the Atlantic states but also of those vast acquisitions in the West, known in history as the Northwest Territory and the Louisiana purchases, out of which the fathers carved so many imperial states. So far indeed have we departed from those principles, regained from tyranny and maintained for us by the founders and builders of this governmental polity, that their original _intent_ has been lost sight of by many of our people. As a result of the struggle for subsistence on the one hand and _corrupt political practice_ on the other, we are traveling rapidly toward the old, old way. As the kilted Scots put it, quoting Bulwer Lytton, we are rapidly reaching that view of life which leads men, in the heat of a justified anger, to say “Happy is the man whose father went to the devil;” meaning thereby that our sons _can be happy_ if we manage to steal and loot enough from the government, or from our fellow citizens through _governmental favor and protection_, to build for those sons stone fronts on “Easy street” and leave a bank balance and “vested interests” sufficient to maintain them.