“‘The fact is,’ said the same jobber gentleman, ‘that the United States Government cannot carry merchandise by parcels post without having to meet an enormous annual deficit for conducting the service.’ The fact is that the fact isn’t. What brazen effrontery to declare that the government would lose money carrying packages at a cent a pound, when the German government makes money by carrying packages at a little more than half a cent a pound! It is true that German rates are based upon distance, but it is also true that Germany, without any mail monopoly, competes with all comers and beats them out with low tariffs. The German government can compete with the German express companies because the German parcels post will accept packages up to a weight limit of 110³⁄₁₀ pounds, while our Government turns over to the express companies everything that weighs more than four pounds. “Furthermore, if the carrying of packages is such a hazardous business that our Government should not dare to attempt it, how comes it that the express companies have become rich at it? The combined capital of the express companies is a little in excess of $48,000,000. For years, the big stockholders in express companies have been apoplectic with wealth. All of this money came from somewhere. All of this money came from those who consumed products sent by express. Only a few weeks ago the Interstate Commerce Commission brought out the fact that the Adams Express Company’s business in New England yielded a profit, in 1909, of 45 per cent, upon the investment. Yet, there was nothing brought out in the proceedings to show, that the Adams Express Company was gouging New England any harder than it was the rest of the country, or that the other express companies were not doing to the rest of the country approximately what the Adams was doing to New England. If you had the Government’s equipment for handling express matter, would you feel particularly frightened at a proposition to give you a monopoly of the ‘packet’ business at an average rate almost twice that of the German Government’s average rate?” Knowing that my readers have not wearied of Mr. Benson, I shall presume to take further liberties with his articles on our subject. His handling of the point I have raised--railroad control of the express companies--is so informative and so able that I would do neither my readers nor my subject justice were I not to quote him and do it right here: