THE CABINET: 2-cent/20 Stamps?

2½¢ Stamps?

Because President Hoover was troubled by the Post Office Department’s annual deficit, which must be met out of general taxation, Postmaster General Brown began last year a survey of the postal business to find ways & means of increasing postal revenue (TIME, Dec. 9). Last week “General” Brown concluded that only by upping the first class postage rate from 2¢ per oz. to 2½¢ could his department be put on a paying basis. Not since 1919 when the 3¢ war rate was abolished have U. S. citizens paid more than 2¢ per letter. The Postmaster General prepared to recommend to Congress legislation for this rate increase.

Third Assistant Postmaster General Frederic A. Tilton, able statistician and business surveyor, explained that last year’s postal deficit was $85,000,000, of which $35,000,000 was for the free han-dling of governmental mail (including matter franked by Congress), ocean and air subsidies. A ½¢ increase in the first-class rate, said he, would wipe out the “real deficit” of $50,000,000 and show a $10,000,000 profit. Declared Postman Tilton: “We have canvassed the whole situation and the revenue is not in the other classes.* In other classes there is competition. The railroads, for instance, carry newspapers as freight. . . . The increase in first-class postage is the only so-lution.”

That Postmaster General Brown was not ready to accept any old expedient to increase postal revenue became clear last week when he turned down a proposition from direct-mail advertisers who wanted him to handle their circulars without putting them to the expense of addressing. They wanted to dump into any post office great bundles of circulars for which they would pay the usual rates. Each letter carrier would have been given a bundle with orders to leave one circular at each stop on his route. Overburdened postmen would have stooped even lower under this enormous new load. Declared Postmaster General Brown, rejecting the proposal: “There is no provision of law authorizing the acceptance of unaddressed matter. . . . [It] would place upon the Postal Service the responsibility of selecting the particular individuals to whom the matter is to be delivered, a function clearly the duty of the sender . . . and would undoubtedly lead to complaints of all kinds from senders concerning nondelivery, duplication, etc. The plan would subject the patrons of the Postal Service to an avalanche of advertising matter of all de-scriptions and the mails would be flooded.”

*Second class, newspapers and periodicals: third class, advertising matter; fourth class, merchandise (parcel post).