herewith as Exhibit F of the report transmitted by me on January 23, 1911, to the Committee on Claims, House of Representatives, in relation to a bill for the relief of the Lewis Publishing Co.

ALLEGATION X.

That on March 19, 1907, 15 days after the official act had destroyed and rendered idle the company's plant and stopped its business, there was issued from the Post Office Department, a printed pamphlet, ostensibly conveying to the public and to the press of the country a statement of the alleged reasons and justification of the highhanded act of March 4, 1907; that this pamphlet was sent in large quantities to the company's patrons, as well as to the press and the public in general; and

It is charged and complained that if the official conduct of March 4, 1907, was lawful and proper, it needed no such explanation to justify it; that this pamphlet contained untrue and libelous statements concerning the company; that it greatly enlarged and intensified the damage already done to the company's business; that this pamphlet was printed and circulated in direct violation of law; that the expenditures of public money for paper, printing, circulation, etc., was unauthorized by law. The facts in connection with this complaint are that immediately after the exclusion from the second-class mail privilege of the Woman's Magazine and the Woman's Farm Journal, on the 4th day of March, 1907, the Lewis Publishing Co., and others at its instance, flooded the President, Senators, Representatives, and executive officers with thousands of inquiries relative to the official acts regarding its publications, all of which were referred to the Post Office Department, rendering it necessary, in order to answer this voluminous correspondence, to prepare and have printed a statement of the facts in the cases, the grounds of action, etc., to be used in response to the many inquiries received. The pamphlet referred to was a mere statement, in a courteous and respectful manner, of the various facts and circumstances of the cases, and it is not clear how any damage could result to the company from its publication. A copy of the pamphlet is inclosed herewith (Exhibit P), and it is respectfully suggested that a careful reading of it will disclose the fact that its purport was not to injure the Lewis Publishing Co., but merely the adoption of a convenient form of response to communications relative to the two publications.

ALLEGATION XI.

That the president, secretary, and treasurer of the Lewis Publishing Co. were in alleged true bills returned by the United States grand jury December 1, 1905 (No. 5222), May 4, 1906 (No. 5257), and July 6, 1907 (No. 5316), indicted for alleged conspiracy to defraud the Government of postage on copies of the Woman's Magazine and Woman's Farm Journal; that those indictments alleged the form of the statute limited the number of subscribers' and other copies the company might send in the mails at publishers' rates of a cent a pound; that the limit had been exceeded; and that the form of the statute required on the excess the rate of 1 cent for each 4 ounces or fraction thereof, prepaid by stamps affixed; and that this rate was not as required by the form of the statute, prepaid on the excess, but that the excess was mailed fraudulently at the publishers' rate of a cent a pound; and

It is charged and complained that all three of these indictments were fraudulent; that neither the law nor any postal regulation limited the number of copies which the company might mail at the publishers' rate of a cent a pound; that neither the law nor the postal regulation required the payment of the nonpublishers' rate of 1 cent for each 4 ounces or fraction thereof upon any copies whatsoever sent by the publisher from the office of publication; that the indictments were fraudulent for the further reason that there was actually no excess of copies mailed over the alleged limits at the cent-a-pound rate, even if such limits were, as a matter of truth, in the form of the statute; that the alleged evidence of the excess mailings was manufactured and false; that these indictments were without probable cause and not in good faith,

but for the ulterior purpose of intimidation; that it was the purpose by means of them to railroad the officers of the company into the penitentiary on executive-made law and false evidence; that the publication of said indictments in the newspapers and in official documents, issued from the department at Washington, stigmatizing the officers of the company as charged with fraud against the Government, greatly added to the damage and injury already done to the company's public faith and credit.

The matters of which complaint is made in Allegation XI are official acts without the province of the Post Office Department and over which it exercises no control, being within the jurisdiction of the Department of Justice and of the United States attorney for the eastern district of Missouri. While the facts in the case will undoubtedly speak for themselves, and are believed to be sufficient to warrant the action taken, nevertheless, it is thought that the consideration due by one coordinate department to another forbids the making of a statement by the Post Office Department of a matter involving the official acts of the Department of Justice.

ALLEGATION XII.

That in July and in November, 1907, three civil suits (Nos. 5474, 5515, and 5516) were instituted in the name of the United States to collect alleged back postage from the company on copies of its Woman's Magazine and Woman's Farm Journal at the nonpublishers' rate of 1 cent for each 4 ounces or fraction thereof, it being alleged that the mailing of said copies at the publishers' rate of a cent a pound was unlawful, etc.; and

It is charged and complained that these civil suits were spurious and, like the indictments, misrepresented the form of the statute; that they were without probable cause; that on their face they were absurd and never intended to be tried; that they were not in good faith, but for the ulterior purpose of intimidation and overwhelming the company in its distress, and to emphasize and intensify in the public mind the false impression that the company was lawless and conducting an illegitimate business; and that all public money spent for services of preparation, filing, and otherwise in this connection was unauthorized by law.

While the civil suits referred to, as well as the criminal actions previously mentioned, were not instituted during my incumbency as Postmaster General, nevertheless, in the year 1910, I caused a complete inquiry to be made into them, including the ground of action, and came to the conclusion that they should be prosecuted to a final determination, and so informed the Department of Justice, in response to which an earnest effort was made to bring the suits to trial, counsel having gone to the city of St. Louis on one occasion for that purpose, and also addressed a number of communications (Exhibits Q-1 to Q-22) to the defendants' counsel urging that the suits be tried. The department is now, and has at all times been, ready to try these suits, but the defendants have repeatedly refused to permit them to go to trial, and are at this time refusing on the alleged ground of a necessity of first having a Supreme Court determination of one of the technical questions involved. It is believed that the suits are well founded, that they were brought in good faith, and that their determination will disclose the fact that from the Lewis Publishing Co. is due the Post Office Department many thousands of dollars of unpaid postage on its two publications. Furthermore, these cases should be tried. in order to decide the issue upon which the Lewis Publishing Co. demands the return of the sum of $29,500 for postage collected on excess copies of their publications, transmitted through the mails during the years 1906 and 1907, the question involved being the competency of the Post Office Department to demand the transient

second-class postage rate from publishers having the second-class mail privilege, the department urging, and the publishers denying, the possession of such power.

ALLEGATION XIII.

That on April 20, 1907, sixteen days after the closing of the mails altogether to the company's magazines and creating thereby substantial grounds for complaint and dissatisfaction among its hundreds of thousands of subscribers, patrons, advertisers, and others, because of the forced defaults on the part of the company, there was sent from the post office at St. Louis by post-office inspectors an alleged official inquiry, addressed to all or a great part of the subscribers, readers, advertisers, and patrons of the company, a communication naively asking whether their transactions with the company were satisfactory; that those communications artfully invited complaint of dissatisfaction and furnished a free penalty envelope for the return thereof to the inspectors; and

It is charged and complained that the sending of such communications was not required in the orderly administration of the mail-classification laws; that it was not done in good faith; that it was for the ulterior purpose of furthering the objects and purposes of the whole official campaign of ruin herein complained of, and for the purpose of emphasizing and intensifying the public impression, assiduously cultivated for years, that the company was conducting a lawless business; and that all public funds spent for printing, paper, and otherwise in this connection was unauthorized by any law.

The matters here complained of are of the same nature as those embodied in Allegation VIII, being the right of inquiry by correspondence on the part of the Post Office Department, through its proper officers, in relation to matters of which the persons questioned are supposed to have knowledge, and the answer made therein is applicable to the case described in this paragraph of the complaint.

ALLEGATION XIV.

That since the establishment of the Woman's National Daily, in November, 1906, the company's business in connection with that paper has been subjected to substantially the same sort of treatment as that in the case of its magazines; that it has been harassed and annoyed by continuous investigations, during which it was deprived of the use of its records for considerable periods of time to the hindrance of its business, and which, when returned to the company, were in such a topsy-turvy state that its whole business was thrown into confusion for months of time, which it required to restore them to such order that business could be transacted properly; that there has been similar frequent official circularization of the subscribers, readers, and patrons of the Woman's National Daily, now National Weekly, as in the case of the magazines; that these inquiries were of an intimidating, threatening, and annoying character to the patrons of the company; and that unlawful and prohibitive nonpublishers' rates have been assessed against hundreds of thousands of outgoing copies, which it was the right of the company to mail at publishers' rates; and

It is charged and complained generally in connection with the company's entire publishing business that for the most part of five or six years it has been subjected to a substantially continuous course of alleged official investigations, which were not in good faith, which were not required or necessary in the proper administration of the mail classification laws; that for a great part of the time its offices and plant have been practically in the possession of postal officials, ransacking its books, papers, and records and throwing them into confusion, to the embarrassment and distress of the company in transacting its business; that its subscribers, patrons, and advertisers everywhere have been harassed, annoyed, and irritated by a substantially continuous course of alleged official inquiries, which were not required or necessary to the proper administration of the classification laws, but which in reality have undermined the company's business; that by the processes enumerated and otherwise the company has been forced into the position of defaulting upon its subscription contracts, advertising contracts, and otherwise; that by the processes enumerated and others, which will be shown during the course of investigation, the company's business has been wantonly ruined; the one remaining remnant is the Woman's National Weekly; that the company has suffered the loss of millions; that no publishing company in the United States ever before or since has been subjected to such a course of despotic, lawless,

and malicious treatment at the hands of public officials of the Post Office Department or any other department of the Government; that the same was accomplished by disregarding the orderly course of procedure in the administration of the mail classification laws and by the taking of this one publishing company's case alone out of the experienced hands in which all other cases of the entire country were placed and by the putting of this one case into the hands of inexperienced persons, conspiring together and with others for the ulterior purpose of ruining the company's business, by direct and indirect methods and by abuses of authority and power, in an alleged administration of the mail classification laws; that the administration of the mail classification laws did not then require and do not now require or authorize the doing of any of the things complained of; that all these matters were unauthorized or unlawful or unwarranted, and public money spent for services and expenses of every kind and nature in that connection was without warrant of law.

The transactions of the Post Office Department with the Lewis Publishing Co. with respect to the Woman's National Weekly have been conducted according to the ordinary procedure in dealing with the question of admission of second-class publications, and all holdings and inquiries have been in line with the usual course and with due consideration for the rights of the publishers. There has been no denial of any rights or privileges conferred by the postal laws and regulations except for nonconformity with the requirements of the law, and then only when, after repeated and urgent requests, the publishing company has failed to comply with the demands of the law and regulations.

In so far as the matters complained of in AllegatioAIV relate to the Woman's National Weekly, in the matte of an application for reentry on change of frequency of issue led March 21, 1911, I again refer the committee to the response to Senate resolution No. 10, printed as Senate Document No 26, a copy of which is herewith transmitted (Exhibit A); to the letters addressed to E. G. Lewis, president of the Lewis Publishing Co., dated July 5, 1911, and July 11. 1911, and the response of Mr. Lewis to the former letter, dated July 8, 1911 (Exhibits R-1 to R-3); and to the tabulated statement (Exhibit S) showing the per cent of the 9,777 persons at 59 post offices in various parts of the country to whom copies of the Woman's National Weekly are sent as to subscribers, but who, according to the statements of such persons, are not subscribers in fact.

CONCLUSION.

The foregoing is such a presentation of the matters involved in the inquiry before your committee as appears to be warranted by the records of this department, together with such deductions therefrom as seem to be reasonable, and I now have the honor to refer you to the several exhibits and documents sent herewith in order that the facts stated and conclusions reached may be subject to your verification. In the preparation of this answer I have been governed solely by a desire to present the matters in question in the most accurate manner of which the situation is capable, a task which I have found exceedingly difficult because of the long period over which the complaints extend and the numerous matters involved. If there is another document, record, or file having any bearing on the subject of your inquiry in the possession of this department, or elsewhere at ny command, I shall be pleased to undertake to supply it to you upon your request.

Very respectfully,

FRANK H. HITCHCOCK,
Postmaster General.

EXHIBIT A.

[Senate Document No. 26.]

THE WOMAN'S NATIONAL WEEKLY.

The Woman's National Weekly is a newspaper published at St. Louis, Mo., by the Lewis Publishing Co., a corporation incorporated under the laws of South Dakota, and doing business at St. Louis, Mo., E. G. Lewis being its president. This publication is the successor of the, Woman's National Daily, which was originally admitted to the second-class mail privilege on December 6, 1906, as a daily newspaper. Paragraph 1, section 441, Postal Laws and Regulations, provides that— "Where an application has been made as herein before provided for entry of a publication as second-class matter, the postmaster will require a deposit of money sufficient to cover postage at the third-class rate-1 cent for each 2 ounces or fraction thereofon all copies offered for mailing pending consideration of such application, and he will issue to the publisher * * * a permit conditionally accepting the publication for mailing in the manner in which second-class matter is mailed pending its classification. Such deposit * * * shall be held in trust until the decision as to the admissibility of the publication as second-class matter is received by the postmaster. If the publication is admitted as second-class matter, the excess of the deposits over the second-class rates of postage shall be refunded. If the publication is held to be third-class matter, the entire deposits should be converted into ordinary postage stamps, affixed to a sheet or sheets of paper, canceled, and sent by registered mail to the Third Assistant Postmaster General *

*

*

The requirements of the foregoing regulation were fully complied with by the publishers at the time of making their original application for the admission of the Woman's National Daily, and the publication was accordingly admitted to the second-classmail privilege.

With the issue of the Woman's National Daily of July 14, 1910, the frequency of issue of the publication was cha tember 1 to July 1, and twice a week during the enged from daily, except Sundays, to daily except Sundays and legal holidays, from Sep months of July and August, on the basis of the existing subscription list, which necessitated an application for reentry, as req ired by paragraph 1, section 443, Postal Laws and Regulations of 1902, which requires that

"In case of a change of name or of the regular periods of issue of a publication entered as second-class matter, or the removal of its known on ice of publication to another post office, the postmaster shall require the publisher to pply for reentry. In such cases the requirement of a deposit to cover postage at the third-class rate on mailings of the publication pending action on the application will, on application to the Third Assistant Postmaster General, be waived, if the conditions appear to warrant that action."

The publishers' application for reentry on change of frequency of issue was made July 18, 1910, effective July 16, the application being in due form, and there being no objection on the part of the department to the publication or to its subscription list, and no inquiry being made in relation to it the deposit of third-class postage, pending the consideration of the application, was waived by the Third Assistant Postmaster General, "the conditions appearing to warrant that action," and no risk to the postal revenues thereby being incurred. The publication thus received and continued to enjoy the benefit of the second-class-mail privilege so long as it was published under the given frequency of issue, the record being closed on that basis at the time of the change of the name to the Woman's National Weekly.

On March 21, 1911, the publishers of the Woman's National Daily made application, through the postmaster at St. Louis, Mo., for reentry of their publication as a weekly, under the name of the Woman's National Weekly, and on the 22d of March made request of the department by telegraph, through the postmaster, for the waiver of the deposit of the third-class postage, demandable in certain cases under section 443, To this Postal Laws and Regulations, pending the consideration of the application. request the following reply was made:

[Telegram.j

POSTMASTER, St. Louis, Mo.:

WASHINGTON, March 22, 1911.

Telegram received. Because of existing inquiry as to subscription list, I can not waive deposit of third-class postage in case of Woman's National Weekly, pending reentry. When application is received I will give it immediate attention and decide at arliest possible date.

JAMES J. BRITT, Third Assistant.