Statements of Car Space and all Facilities Furnished
for the Government Mails and for Express and
Passengers in all Passenger Trains on
the Chicago, Burlington and
Quincy Railroad
The present system under which the Government employs railroads tocarry the mails was established in 1873, thirty-seven years ago. Underthis system, the Post Office Department designates between what namedtowns upon each railroad in the country a so-called "mail route" shallbe established. Congress prescribes a scale of rates for payment permile of such mail route per year, based upon the average weight ofmails transported over the route daily, "with due frequency andspeed," and under "regulations" promulgated from time to time by thePost Office Department. To this is added a certain allowance for thehaulage and use of post office cars built and run exclusively for themails, based upon their length. The annual rate of expenditure to allrailroads for mail service on all routes in operation June 30, 1909,was $44,885,395.29 for weight of mail, and for post office cars$4,721,044.87, the "car pay," so-called, being nine and five-tenthsper cent of the total pay. The payment by weight is, therefore, thereal basis of the compensation to railroads. The rate itself, however,varies upon different mail routes to a degree that is neitherscientific nor entirely reasonable. The rate per ton or per hundredpounds upon a route carrying a small weight is twenty times greaterthan is paid over a route carrying the heaviest weight. The Governmentthus appropriates to its own advantage an extreme application of the[2]wholesale principle and demands a low rate for large shipments, whichprinciple it denounces as unjust discrimination if practiced in favorof private shippers by wholesale. The effect of the application ofthis principle has been to greatly reduce the average mail rate yearby year as the business increases. This constant rate reduction wasdescribed by Hon. Wm. H. Moody (now Mr. Justice Moody of the UnitedStates Supreme Court) in his separate report as a member of theWolcott Commission in the following language:
"The existing law prescribing railway mail pay automaticallylowers the rate on any given route as the volume of trafficincreases. Mr. Adams shows that by the normal effect of this lawthe rate per ton mile is $1.17, when the average daily weight ofmail is 200 pounds, and, decreasing with the increase of volume,it becomes 6.073 cents when the average daily weight is 300,000pounds."
Note.—Since 1907 the railroads have been paid at muchreduced rates. On the heavy routes the pay is now 5.54 cents per tonper mile.
Post Office Department officials have announced, as their conclusionfrom the results of the special weighing in 1907, that the averagelength of haul of all mail is 620 miles.
The bulk of the mail is now carried on the heavy routes at 5.54 centsper ton per mile, or $34.34 per ton for the average haul, that is, forone and seven-tenths cents per pound.
The railroads, therefore, recei