Yes, maybe he did. But if he did, then much of the “student discipline” and of the “study habit,” which graduates of Harvard are presumed to have acquired, must have lapsed in the shuffle of the cards from which recent years have dealt his hands. I say this respectfully as well as candidly. I cannot think of it as possible for a man of Mr. Hitchcock’s known intellectual gauge to read--_studiously read_--the facts as presented in the testimony before that 1906-7 commission, or so read even the 63-page official report signed by five of the commissioners (Representative Gardner being ill at the time the report was submitted)--I cannot, I say, think it possible for any man of Mr. Hitchcock’s admitted intelligence to read that testimony, collated data and report, and then proceed to talk or write so wide of _known facts_ as does he in parts of his 1909 and 1910 reports and in his letters to Senator Penrose, printed in previous pages. It may be--yes, it is most probable--that the commission did not dig out _all_ the facts. But admitting that, the further admission must be made by any fair-minded man that most of the facts it _did dig out_ appear to be the very facts which Postmaster General Hitchcock _ignored_--ignored with the self-centered nonchalance of a “short story” cowboy when “busting” a broncho before an audience. I shall now present a few statements from the report of that commission, first quoting some of the arguments presented by publishers who appeared at its hearings personally or by representatives, or who presented their views in writing on the various phases of the questions under consideration. The quotations made, the reader must understand to be the commission’s summary of what the publishers testified to, criticised or recommended, and not the full testimony or reports as made by the publishers. I have taken the liberty to italicize certain phrases and sentences in these quotations, my purpose being, of course, to bring the points so italicized more particularly to the reader’s notice: