Rensselaer Union, Volume 5, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 February 1873 — A Pledge Fulfilled. [ARTICLE]

A Pledge Fulfilled.

The Philadelphia Convention, representing the Republican party of the nation, declared in its tenth resolution that “the franking privilege ought to be abolished, and the way prepared for a speedy reduction in the rates of postage.” This was equivalent to a pledge that, if the people m the then pending election should continue the Government in Republican hands, the franking privilege should be swept from the statute book of the United States. Congress last week fulfilled the pledge by passing a law, to go into effect on the first of next July, that removes every shade Of the franking power from every department and official of the General Government, without making any provision for the payment of postage rates on the large amount of official correspondence necessarily incidental to the public service. Justice would seem to require that some such provision, within well-defined limits, should be made; and, as we have no doubt, experience will speedily reveal its necessity. The incumbents of the several departments at Washington ought not to bear the burden of this correspondence in respect to purely Government business, especially with their present rate of salaries. It is the enormous abuse of the privilege which has deservedly rendered it so unpopular; and this explains the sweeping measure which has just been adopted by Congress, as perhaps the only remedy sufficiently radical to strike a death-blow at the evil. The privilege was originally intended simply to cover official business; yet usage for a long series of years has made it far (more a convenience for personal ends and running political campaigns at the public expense. Tonsupon tons of matter have been parried by the mail every year under this privilege that had no place there, except by the grossest abuse of the privilege itself, greatly increasing the cost of the service and rendering but little if any benefit to the public. The managers of political parties made Washington a great central depot, from which they flooded thecountry with speeches, pampb lets and documents for the purpose of carrying elections, and by the use of some Congressman’s name, they charged the cost of this enormous mail transportation to the Treasury of the United States. Such a system, though it had become a usage, was not less a fraud upon the people, and hardly consistent with a nice sense of honor on the part of those who allowed their names to be thus used. Happily for the country, this abuse of a privilege after the Ist of next July” will exist no longer. The privilege itself will then be dead. This change will have the effect of increasing the receipts arising from the mail service, since a large amount of matter that previously skulked under the franking privilege, will yield a revenue to the Government; and this fact furnishes an argument for reducing the rates of postage.—W. K Independent.