were annually fattening on immense sums of public money gathered in
by various fraudulent methods. One of these--and is well worth
adverting to, for it exists to a greater degree than ever before--was
the robbery of the people in the transportation of mails. By a
fraudulent official construction, in 1873, of the postal laws, the
railroads without cessation have cheated huge sums in falsifying the
weight of mail carried, and since that time have charged ten times as
much for mail carrying as have the express companies (the profits of
which are very great) for equal haulage. But these are simply two
phases of the postal plunder. In addition to the regular mail
payments, the Government has long paid to the railroad companies an
extra allowance of $6,250 a year for the rent of each postal car
used, although official investigation has proved that the whole cost
of constructing such a car averages but from $2,500 to $5,000. In
rent alone, five millions a year have been paid for cars worth, all
told, about four millions. From official estimates it would clearly
seem that the railroads have long cheated the people out of at least
$20,000,000 a year in excess rates--a total of perhaps half a billion
dollars since 1873. The Vanderbilt family have been among the chief
beneficiaries of this continuous looting. [Footnote: Postmaster
General Vilas, Annual Report for 1887:56. In a debate in the United
States Senate on February 11, 1905, Senator Pettigrew quoted
Postmaster General Wanamaker as saying that "the railroad companies
see to it that the representatives in Congress in both branches take
care of the interests of the railway people, and that it is
practically impossible to procure legislation in the way of reducing
expenses."] Occasionally the postal officials have made pretences at
stopping the plunder, but with no real effect.