In considering any postal innovation, it is essential that not alone the operation and the revenue of the postal department be taken into consideration, but also what the effect of the innovation will be upon the industries located in various districts of the United States. Some of the bills introduced in Congress, chief among them, that introduced by Congressman Hearst during a former session, and the one by Congressman Henry of Connecticut, during the present session, have elements that mark them as undesirable and thoroughly impractical under prevailing conditions, or any possible conditions that may arise in the United States during the next quarter century. The postal department is not conducted for the purpose of profit; rather it is conducted to perform a special service, which governmental function can best perform for the people. But the department should be self-sustaining. The revenue derived for the services rendered the people should be sufficient to cover all expense of operation economically performed. Any legislation involving the performance of this service for less than cost to the government does not appeal to the economist as wise or desirable. Yet the postal department does perform certain services at a loss, although there are compensating circumstances which more than overbalance the expenditure. In the carrying of newspapers and periodicals, under the present system, there is probably a loss, but at the same time the people receive a general benefit far outweighing the cost to the government by having cheap and good literature and such information as the press of the country conveys and this at the minimum of expense. The second class rate, a subsidy granted the press, has been instrumental to a degree impossible of estimation in improving the intelligence of the people and raising the standard of citizenship.