Andrew Carnegie at Skibo Castle, Scotland, desires to send a four-pound Christmas present to some son of Norval or “blow-hole” friend in Los Angeles, California, or Mrs. John Bull, at Manchester, England, has a yearning--and the price--to send a present of corresponding weight to her daughter Margaret, who is happily, likewise _richly_, married and who lives in a beautiful suburb of San Francisco. Well, “Andy” and Mrs. John Bull can send their four-pound presents--to be more exact, _they_ can send even if the parcels weight up to _eleven_ pounds each--can have those four-pound parcels carried by rail to some steamship port, carried across the Atlantic ocean, put into _our_ mail cars, carried with _our own_ mail across the entire country and _delivered by American carriers_ to the _remotest_ suburb of Los Angeles or San Francisco for _forty-eight cents--three-fourths_ the price mother has to pay to get _her four-pound_ present to her boy at Blue Island or Elgin! That is another case--_another statement of fact_. For _many years_ the United States government has _carried_ parcels of newspapers, magazines and other periodicals, weighing up to 220 _pounds_, to any point in the country reached by its mail service, broke the package and delivered each separate piece to individual addresses in postoffice boxes or by carrier for _one cent a pound_. Yet it persists in charging mother _sixteen cents_ a pound to send her present to her boy at Elgin or Blue Island and _compels_ her to keep its weight down to _four pounds_. That is another case--_another statement of fact_. For many years, the government has carried by mail, not hundreds, but _thousands_ of tons of parcels _free_. Every United States Senator, every Congressman, every department head, every division head, every first, second, third or fourth “assistant” department or division head, every political “fence” builder, whatever his position in the government’s official service, _uses his franking privilege_. Not only that. _Most of them abuse it._ Not only that. Most of those who abuse it do not confine the abuse to franking public documents to “friends at home” and speeches--most of which were never made or were made or written by somebody else--to “my constituents.” Oh, no! That government “frank,” so it has been credibly asserted, has been used to carry easy chairs, side boards, couches and other household goods which have been “bought cheap”--_some of it too cheap to carry a price tag_--and which “can be used at home.” Typewriters, filing cases, office desks, frequently acquired by a process of _benevolent appropriation_, have reached home _without carriage charge_. That is another case--_another statement of fact_. But why continue? I could go on for a page or two with _statements of fact_, all evidencing this other _FACT_. _Mother--your mother, my mother--the great tax-paying body of our people--is wronged, is victimized, by our postal service and regulations._