Oh, that is easy. Bonuses and subsidies are popular fashions in federal legislative society. Likewise they appear to be popular in postoffice circles. They are seasonable the year around and are cut to fit any figure. They don’t stand the wash very well, but--well, don’t wash them. The raiders and their official valets always keep them brushed up and vacuum cleaned. Just pay for them is all the people have to do. I recall a serviceable subsidized fast mail gown which was handed to a railroad between Kansas City, Mo., and Newton, Kan., some years since. It was neatly boxed and delivered by the handlers of postoffice appropriations. It was worth $25,000 a year to the road that got it. “Of what use was it to the people?” None whatever. The fast train it was made to drape was put on the line named for the sole service and benefit of two Kansas City newspapers. It swished those papers (their midnight editions), into Western Kansas, Oklahoma and Northern Texas ahead of the appearance of local morning issues. I recall another “fast mail” bonus. It was $190,000 and went to the Southern Railway for a fast train out of New York for New Orleans. It left New York about 4 a. m. and _carried little or no mail for delivery north of Charlotte, N. C._ It arrived in New Orleans, if I remember rightly, along about 2 a. m. the next day--_too late for delivery of any mail before the opening of the day’s business_--9 or 10 o’clock in the morning. But the regular mail train, as was shown in the debate in the Senate, left New York at about 2. a. m. and arrived in New Orleans about 4:30 a. m.--two hours after the so-called “fast mail”--in ample time for deliveries when the business of the city opened. Fine business that, is it not? Well, yes, for the _Southern Railway_. The reader, however, should be able to recognize it as a regular 60 H. P., six-cylinder, rubber-tired “_deficit_” producer. Especially will he so recognize it if he thinks of it in connection with this other fact: That same year, the Southern Railway was paid, in addition to the $190,000 “fast mail” subsidy mentioned, _over one million dollars at the regular weight rates for hauling the mails_! There are numerous others of equal beauty and effectiveness in design. As previously stated, however, subsidies and bonuses are all carefully designed and cut to fit any figure. All we wise, “easy” people need do is to make a little noise for a “fast mail” service and Congress will hand it out. The railroad raiders can easily justify their demands for subsidies for a fast mail service with people who have given little or no study to this mail-carrying question. Our Postoffice Department furnishes the raiders about all the argument that is needed. One of the raiders has been quoted as saying: “We could carry the mails at one-half cent per ton mile, if the Postoffice Department would allow us to handle it in our own way.”