It appears that a _conspiracy_--yes, I mean just that--a conspiracy has been entered into between our Chief Executive, a coterie of Senators, possibly a Congressman or two and a numerous gang of corporate and vested interests, cappers and beneficiaries, to penalize various independent weekly and monthly periodicals. Penalize is what I said. But that word is by no means strong enough. The intent of the conspirators was--and _is--to put certain periodicals out of business and to establish a press censorship in the person of the Postmaster General as will enable him to put any periodical out of existence which does not print what it is told to publish_. It would seem that when the Postoffice appropriation bill left the House, where all revenue measures must originate, it was a fairly clean bill, carrying some $258,000,000 of the people’s money _for the legitimate service of the people_. Of course it carried many service excesses, just as it has carried in each of the past thirty or forty years, and several of those _looting_ excesses so conspicuous in every one of the immediately past fifteen years. But otherwise, it may be stated, the House approval carried this bill to the Senate in its usual normal cleanliness. It was referred to the Senate Committee on Postoffices and Postroads, the members of which, _after conference with the President_, annexed to it an alleged _revenue-producing_ “rider.” This rider I will later on discuss for the information of my readers. Here I desire only to call the reader’s attention to the fact that under the Constitution of the United States the United States Senate has no more right or authority to originate legislation for producing federal revenues than has the Hamilton Club of Chicago or the Golf Club at Possum Run, Kentucky. But the conspirators--I still use the milder term, though I feel like telling the truth, which could be expressed only by some term that would class their action as that of _assassinating education_ in this country. These conspirators, I say, did not hesitate to exceed and violate their constitutional obligations and prerogatives. They added a revenue-producing “rider” to House resolution 31,539. The rider was to raise certain kinds of second-class matter from a one-cent per pound rate to a four-cent per pound rate. Not only that, but they managed to induce Postmaster General Hitchcock to push into the Senate several _ulterior motive_ reports and letters to boost the outlawry to successful passage. But, more of this later.