| Confederate States of America |
| Postoffice Department |
| Richmond, Va., March 4, 1863 |
| |
| Campbell Wallace, Esq. |
| Pres't E. Tenn. & Ga. R. R. Co. |
| Knoxville, Tenn. |
| |
| Dear Sir, |
| Your letter of the 10th
February, ult., was received by due course of mail, and I have been
prevented from answering it sooner by a pressure of business. I can but
thank you for the generous and patriotic expression of your views
recommending a reduction of the mail pay to railroads to a uniform rule
of fifty dollars per mile, during the war, as a means of enabling the
Postoffice Department to keep up the mail service. At a convention of
the officers and representatives of the railroad companies, which was
held at Montgomery soon after the organization of our Government, they
cheerfully and patriotically met the views of the Department by
consenting to a reduction of the rates of mail pay. |
| But this consent was coupled
with a resolution which required a considerable increase of expenditure
by the Department for the payment of messenger service, which had before
that time been paid by the railroad companies. And, on the whole, the
reduction of the cost of railroad service has not been reduced as much
as was at the time expected. As bearing on your proposition, I would
mention that at the railroad convention recently held at Augusta, the
proceedings of which I have not yet seen, I have been informed a
resolution was adopted for the appointment of a committee to urge upon
Congress the propriety of increasing the rates of mail pay to railroad
companies. If I am correctly informed as to this, it would indicate that
they would not probably consent to the reduction you so patriotically
propose. |
| I have for some time past been
endeavoring to accommodate the views of the officers of many lines of
railroad, I may say of nearly all, by agreeing with them to the
arrangement of schedules at a rate of speed of about fifteen miles per
hour, instead of the present schedules. This they represent to me as
made necessary on account of the difficulty of keeping up the motive
power and rolling stock of the several roads as well as from the
difficulty of getting iron to repair the roads. If this slower rate of
speed shall be adopted, I am advised it will be beneficial to the roads
by facilitating transportation. And for this and the decreased speed in
the transmission of the mails, which is the special advantage derived
from conveying them by railroad, they may possibly consent to some
reduction of present rates of pay. If our railroads would consent to the
rates of mail pay received by those of other countries, it would greatly
relieve the Department, and possibly enable it to pay its own expenses
without further reduction of the mail facilities of the country. And
when the current amount of transportation gives them full employment, as
at present, and especially if slow schedules should be agreed on, so as
to favor transportation, and while messenger service is paid for by the
Department, I can see no good reason why they might not agree to a
reduction of mail pay. |
| A reduction of the railroad
pay for transportation of the mails to a maximum rate of one hundred
dollars per mile would produce a saving to the Department of one hundred
and seventy-five thousand, three hundred and ten dollars (175,310.00).
And a reduction to a maximum of fifty dollars per mile would produce a
saving of four hundred and eighteen thousand, four hundred and
ninety-five dollars (418,495.00). A reduction of the expenses of the
Department by an amount equal to this latter sum, if it can be made,
would enable the Department to meet its future liabilities, it is
believed, without further additional aid from the Treasury and without
the necessity of future reductions of the service. |
| While I do not regard it as
probable that the railroads would consent to this latter reduction, I
should have hopes that they might consent to deductions to a maximum of
seventy-five dollars per mile, with the twenty-five per cent. allowed
for night service when performed, upon the arrangement of such slower
schedule as will accommodate their freight and travel. I will call the
attention of the committee on postoffices and postroads, of the two
houses of Congress to your recommendation, that they may give it such
consideration as its importance requires. In answer to that portion of
your letter in which you suggest that I withdraw my recommendation for
an increase of the postage on newspapers, and for the repeal of the law
authorizing the sending of newspaper exchanges through the mails free of
postage, I would say that these recommendations were not made on account
of any hostility to newspapers or on account of a want of appreciation
of their general usefulness, or the special and great service they have
rendered our country in the struggle through which we are passing. I
agree with you in the belief that the history of the world does not
furnish evidence that the press has ever before been more free, as a
general thing, from personality or licentiousness, in times of either
peace or war than it has been in the Confederate States for the last two
years, and that no government was ever more nobly and patriotically
sustainded by the press than ours. But the same just meed of praise may
with equal propriety be bestowed on those who compose our gallant and
faithful armies, and those who, unable to go to the tented field, both
men and women, have voluntarily contributed so much, and to the amount
of untold thousands freely and without price, to sustain them; yet it is
not proposed to give these any special immunities, or to foster their
industry at the expense of other pursuits. And these recommendations
were made because their adoption would add to the revenues of the
department, and so far aid in securing postal facilities to the country,
without inflicting a wrong on any, and because it is contrary to the
principles of our government and the genius of our institutions to
foster or promote any part of it, or any of its citizens at the expense
of others. He who eats must pay for his food; and he who reads ought to
pay for his books and papers. The State governments may, if they think
proper, make provision for the education of the people, but the
Confederate government has no such power. |
| But independently of the
questions of policy and power, so far as the publishers of papers are
concerned, they are not at all agreed as to the propriety or justice of
authorizing the transportation of exchanges through the mails free of
postage. Soon after the organization of our Government, and preparatory
to my first recommendations on the subject, from personal interviews and
correspondence, I ascertained that, in the main, the costly daily papers
were opposed to it, while the smaller papers, less frequently issued,
generally favored it. This, as it was explained to me, arose from the
fact that the publishers of dailies, when applied to for an exchange
with less costly papers, found it to be regarded as rather injudicious
to refuse such exchanges, while to make them was to submit to a tax
equal to the difference in the value of the papers in each case. And
while there is no compulsion to make free exchanges, the above is an
illustration of the practical operation of the law in the class of cases
referred to. |
| You, no doubt, observed too
that, even at the increased rate of postage on newspapers which I
recommend, one newspaper, weighing three ounces, would be sent from
Richmond to Knoxville for one cent, while correspondents would have to
pay sixty cents for three ounces weight of single letters between the
same points. I only recommended such an increase of postage on
newspapers as I hoped Congress would adopt, and not what my own
convictions of justice and propriety induced me to think would be really
right and proper. So that, while appreciating the high motives which
prompted your views, I am led to a different conclusion from yours on
the subject. |
| With much respect, |
| Your obedient servant, |
| John H. Reagan, |
| Postmaster General |
|