The falsity of that statement I shall conclusively prove to the reader later, if he will be so indulgent as to follow me. Here I shall say only this: If the government has ever lost a cent in rail or other haulage and handling of second-class mail matter, such loss has been _wholly the result of excessive payments to railroads, Star Route and ocean carriers, to political rather than business management and to permitted raiding of the postal revenues in various ways--from overmanning the official and service force to downright thievery_. I have adverted on a previous page to the stealings of the Machen-Beavers gang, exposed by the investigation of Joseph L. Bristow, and a stench still exhales from the Star Route lootings exposed some years previous. In the Star Route case, the waste--a more fitting word is thievery--the stealing was largely effected through the medium of “joker”-loaded or unnecessary contracts, the contracts running to the advantage of some thief who “stood in” with the party in power. Nor has all the Star Route grafting and stealing been stopped, though both Postmaster General Hitchcock and his recent predecessor, Mr. George B. Cortelyou, deserve great praise for having eliminated much of it, and Mr. Hitchcock’s active, continued efforts to further clean out that Augean stable must command the hearty approval of every honest citizen. But, as just stated, some of the original graft and steal still lingers. Last year I personally investigated one Star Route. It was a twenty-mile drive (round trip). The contractor was receiving $600 or more a year for the service. What he paid the villager to cover the route with his patriarchal team I do not know. The villager, however, picked up a little on the side by hauling over his drive local parcels, some merchandise and an occasional passenger. I watched his mail deliveries to the village office for ten days. On no day did the revenue to the government _exceed sixty cents, and on seven of the ten days it was below twenty cents. One day it was but ten cents._ In this connection it should also be mentioned that the village which that Star Route was presumed to serve was on a regular rural route and received fully 95% of its mail by special carrier service connecting with a trunk line station only six miles away. But to return to my objection to the manifest efforts of the Postmaster General and of recommendations in the Penrose-Overstreet report to adopt methods or secure legislation to restrain increase in both the circulation and the copy-weight of periodicals. Of course if the government really sustains a loss on the carriage and handling of second-class matter, the loss would be greater on 160 tons than on 80 tons. I, however, contend, and shall later prove, that--barring waste, payroll loafing and stealage--the government now transports and handles second-class matter at a profit.