| Office East Tenn. & Ga. Railroad |
| Knoxville, February 10th, 1863 |
| |
| Hon. Jno. H. Reagan, Postmaster General C.
S. A. |
| Richmond, Va. |
| |
| Dear Sir, |
| In view of the difficulties in
the way of Congress making appropriations out of the Confederate
Treasury for the support of the Postoffice Department after March, and
aware of the great reduction of mail facilities that must take place
after that time in order to make that department self sustaining, as
required by the Constitution, I suggest that it would be proper for
Congress to limit the price to be paid the railroad companies for
carrying the mails to fifty dollars per mile, commencing the first of
April, and to continue until the end of the war, and no longer. |
| I am satisfied that the
railroad companies of the Confederate States would cheerfully acquiesce
in such a law rather than the people should be restricted in their
postal facilities. I would make the rate uniform, giving to all
the roads the fifty dollars per mile, as it is not so much the weight
of the mails carried that enters into the cost of the transportation, as
it is the preparation for the work, and that expense is about the same
per mile to the second and third class roads as it is to the first. For
instance, this company, under your classification, are receiving one
hundred and fifty dollars per mile, while some other roads, carrying
lighter mails, but at an equal expense, receive only one-third that sum. |
| I do not wish to be understood
as intimating that the price now paid first class roads for mail service
is too much. On the contrary, my experience in many years of railroad
management has been that often I would gladly have given up the mail
contracts rather than adopt schedules which were necessary for mail
facilities, when I knew that such schedules would lose the company in
local travel five dollars for every one received from the government for
carrying the mail. But our government is now in its infacy, this is the
day of our trial, and from many years' intercourse with the gentlemen
who control the railways in the Confederate States, I do not feel that I
am hazarding much when I say that you will find them, without exception,
acquiescing in such a law, not grudgingly, but cheerfully. |
| The result to the finances of
the Postoffice Department, while not bearing heavily on the roads,
would, according to the figures in your report, be a saving of not less
than a half million of dollars per annum on your present contracts,
which saving will be much greater when the Confederate States will have
reclaimed her railroads and extended her mail facilities in territory
now overrun by the Federals. |
| In this connection I would
respectfully suggest, that you withdraw your recommendation to increase
the rate of newspaper postage and the suggestion to tax printing
establishments with postage on their exchanges. I cannot well conceive
of any one thing that would be more disastrous to the prosperity of our
young Republic than any action of Congress lessening the facilities for
furnishing the people with information, or transmitting the operations
of those engaged in preparing, in suitable form, that information for
the people. The press has been everything to us in this crisis and
should not, in my opinion, be placed alongside with the ordinary
industrial pursuits of the country. Its mission is to elevate man; its
work is with the intellect; and in proportion as you foster a virtuous
free press, you build up a virtuous free people and make them strong to
defend that freedom. The history of the world does no furnish evidence
that ever before has the press been more free from personality and a
tendency to licentiousness, in times of either peace or war, than it has
been in the Confederate States for the last two years, and never before
has a Government been more ably and patriotically sustained by the
press. Give the newspaper publishers, the, every needed facility for
cheap transportation. They have not advanced their prices in proportion
to their increased expenditures. Newspapers, to circulate freely and
widely, must be cheap -- cheap in price, cheap in postage. Like salt,
the consumption is in proportion to the cost. Cheap salt creates a large
consumption, and hogs, horses, cattle, sheep and bacon, always give
unmistakable evidence of the advantages of cheap salt. So with the mind
-- the man. Give communities the advantage of cheap books, cheap
newspapers, cheap mail facilities, and you will always reap a rich
reward in good morals and a highly cultivated people, willing to
sacrifice all else than the right to govern themselves; and herein lies
the strength and power and success of the Confederate States in this
unnatural and terrible war. |
| Truly, your friend, |
| C. Wallace, President |
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