It is sometimes asked why the Post Office Department cannot be managed as if it were in the hands of a private corporation. Many reasons might be given, but a few will serve to explain the difference and perhaps enlighten the public who may expect more than the Department can perform. In the first place, the service is throughout closely controlled by Congress through its committee on Post Offices and Post Roads, and no important variations in the system or the methods of administration can be initiated without their concurrence, and even if any particular or significant change is proposed by such committee, it is not always possible to obtain full congressional consent. Differences between the administrative heads of the Department and Congress as to the necessity or advantage of certain plans or methods, are not uncommon, especially when any proposed changes antagonize existing usage or clash with party policy or expediency. When proposed changes invade the domain where private enterprise has interests more or less valuable already established, influence may be brought to bear to counteract the reforms proposed, based on honest grounds of dissent as to the real benefit or practical advantage to be gained by the adoption of such measures. Unless it can then be shown that public interests would be benefited by the changes proposed, the Department might have difficulty to overcome this opposition. In the next place, corporate control moves within narrower limits and exercises its power in more direct fashion. In theory a corporation is composed of its stockholders, a majority of whom nominate the board of directors. This board in turn appoints the permanent officials and they exercise full control in operation. Wide powers are given to these men and the policies advanced for extending influence and gaining profit are generally adopted. It is quite different dealing with Congress. New policies are not always accepted, sometimes rejected or ignored. It therefore follows that private concerns, having a freer hand and no complicated management to contend with, can institute experiments and try methods, and if well conceived, obtain results which a more restricted authority could only perhaps with difficulty secure. A striking contrast between public and private control is seen in the appropriation system by which the Departments are governed. Aside from the difficulty often experienced in securing additional help when required, which would be readily given in great private concerns because of expected advantages to follow, Department needs are sometimes left unsupplied and the dispatch of business hindered by delay in this respect, or in the installation of mechanical appliances so generally used now, and which have in recent years to a very large extent, taken the place of human agencies in the business world.