Duke University Libraries 
 
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 D03212477Q 
 
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 COMMUNICATION PROM POSTMASTER GENERAL. 
 
 Confederate States of America, ) 
 
 Postoffice Department, > 
 
 Richmond, Va., March 6, 1863. ) 
 
 Sir : Herewith I enclose you a copy of a correspondence between 
 Campbell Wallace Esq., President East Tennessee and Georgia Rail- 
 road Company, and myself in relation to mail pay on railroads, and 
 other subjects. 
 
 Very respectfully, 
 
 Your obedient servant, 
 
 JOHN H. REAGAN, 
 
 Postmaster General. 
 Hon. W. P. Ckilton, 
 
 Chairman Com. on Postoffices and Postroads, Ho. Reps. Conf. Cong. 
 
Confederate States of America, ^ 
 
 Postqjfice Department, > 
 
 Richmond, Vs., March 1, 18G3. ) 
 
 Dear Sir: Your letter of the 1<ith February, ult., was received by 
 due course of mail, and I have been prevented from answering it 
 
 sooner by a pressure of business. J can but thank you for the gene- 
 rous and patriotic expression of your views recommending a reduction 
 of the mail pay to railroads to a uniform rule of fifty dollars per 
 mile, during the Avar, as a means of enabling the Postoffice Depart- 
 ment to keep up the mail service. At a convention of the officers 
 and representatives of the railroad companies, which was held at 
 Montgomery soon after the organization of our Government, they 
 cheerfully and patrotically met the views of the Department by con- 
 senting to a reduction of the rates of mail pay. 
 
 But this consent was coupled with a resolution which required a 
 'considerable increase of expenditure by the Department for the pay- 
 ment of messenger service, which had before that time been paid by 
 the railroad companies. And, on the whole, the reduction of the 
 cost of railroad service has not been reduced as much as was at the 
 time expected. As bearing on your proposition, I would mention 
 that at the railroad convention recently held at Augusta, the proceed- 
 ings of which I have not yet seen, I have been informed a resolu- 
 tion was adopted for the appointment of a committee to urge upon 
 Congress the propriety of increasing the rates of mail pay to railroad 
 companies. If I am correctly informed as to this, it would indicate 
 that they would not probably consent to the reduction you so patrioti- 
 cally propose. 
 
 I have for some time past been endeavoring to accommodate the 
 views of the officers of many lines of railroad, I may say of nearly 
 all, by agreeing with them to the arrangement of schedules at a rate 
 of speed of about, fifteen miles per hour, instead of the present 
 schedules. This they represent to me as made necessary on account 
 of the difficulty of keeping up the motive power and rolling stock of 
 the several roads as well as from the difficulty of getting iron to repair 
 tli? roads. If this slower rate of speed shall be adopted, I am advised 
 it will be beneficial to the roads by facilitating transportation. And 
 for this and the decreased speed in the transmission of the mails, 
 which is the special advantage derived from conveying them by 
 railroad, they may possibly consent to some reduction of present 
 rates of pay. If our railroads would consent to the rates of 
 mail pay received by those of other countries, it would greatly 
 relieve the Department, and possibly enable it to pay its own 
 
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 expenses without a further reduction of the mail facilities of the 
 country. And when the current amount of transportation gives 
 them full employment, as at present, and especially if slow schedules 
 should be agreed on, so as to favor transportation, and while mes- 
 enger service is paid for by the Department, I can see no good 
 reason why they might not agree to a reduction of mail par. 
 
 A reduction of the railroad pay for transportation of the mails to 
 a maximum rate of one hundred dollars per mile would produce a 
 saving to the Department of one hundred and seventy-five thousand, 
 three hundred and ten dollars (175.310 00.) And a reduction to a 
 maximum of fifty dollars per mile would produce a saving of four 
 hundred and eighteen thousand, four hundred and ninety-five dollars 
 (418, 49-5 00.) A reduction of the expenses of the Department by an 
 amount equal to this latter sum, if it can be made, would enable the 
 Depirtment to meet its future liabilities, it is believed, without fur- 
 ther additional aid from the Treasury and without the necessity of 
 future reductions of the service. 
 
 While I do not regard it as probable that the railroads would con- 
 sent to this latter reduction, I should have hopes that they might 
 consent to deductions to a maximum of seventy-five dollars per mile, 
 with the twertty-five per cent, allowed for night service when per- 
 formed, upou the arrangement of such slower schedule as will accom- 
 modate their freight and travel. I will call the attention of the com- 
 mittee on postoffices and postroads, of the two houses of Congress to 
 your recommendation, that they may give it such consideration as its 
 importance requires. In answer to that portion of your letter in 
 which you suggest that I withdraw my recommendation for an increase 
 of the postage on newspapers, and for the repeal of the law author- 
 izing the sending of newspaper exchanges through the mails free of 
 postage, I would say that these recommendations were not made on 
 account of any hostility to newspapers or on account of a want of 
 appreciation of their general usefulness, or the special and great 
 service they have rendered our country in the struggle through which 
 we are passing. I agree with you in the belief that the history of 
 the world does not furnish evidence that the press has ever before been 
 more free, as a general thing, from personality or licentiousness, in 
 times of either peace or war than it has been in the Confederate 
 States for the last two years, and that no government was ever more 
 nobly and patriotically sustainded by the press than ours. But the 
 same just meed of praise may with equal propriety be bestowed on 
 those who compose our gallant and faithful armies, and those who, 
 unable to go to the tented field, both men and women, have volun- 
 tarily contributed so much, and to the amount of untold thousands 
 freely and without price, to sustain them ; yet it is not proposed to 
 give these any special immunities, or to foster their industry at the 
 expense of other pursuits. And these recommendations were made 
 because their adoption would add to the revenues of the department, 
 and so far aid in securing postal facilities to the country, without 
 inflicting a wrong on any, and because it is contrary to the principles 
 of our government and the genius of our institutions to foster or 
 
promote any part of it. or any of its citizens at the expense of others. 
 He -who eats must pay for his food ; ami ho who reads ought to pay 
 for his books and papers. The State governments may, if they think 
 proper, make provision for the education of the people, but the Con- 
 federate government has no such power. 
 
 "Hut independently*of the questions of policy and power, so far as 
 the publishers of papers are concerned, they arc not at all agreed as 
 to the propriety or justice of authorizing the transportation of ex- 
 changes through the mails free of postage. Soon after the organisa- 
 tion of our Government, and preparatory to my first recommendations 
 on the subject, from personal interviews and correspondence, I ascer- 
 tained that, in the main, the costly daily papers were opposed to it, 
 while the smaller papers, less frequently issued, generally favored it. 
 This, as it was explained to me, arose from the fact that the publishers 
 of dailies, when applied to for an exchange with less costly papers, 
 found it to be regarded as rather injudicious to refuse such exchanges, 
 while to make them was to submit to a tax equal to the difference in 
 the value of the papers in each case. And while there is no compul- 
 sion to make free exchanges, the above is an illustration of the prac- 
 tical operation of the law in the class of cases referred to. 
 
 You, no doubt, observed too that, even at the increased rate of pos- 
 tage on newspapers which I recommend, one newspaper, weighing 
 three ounces, would be sent from Richmond to Knoxville for one cent, 
 while correspondents would have to pay sixty cents for three ounces 
 weight of single letters between the same points. I only recom- 
 mended such an increase of postage on newspapers as I hoped Con- 
 gress would adopt, and not what my own convictions of justice and 
 propriety induced me to think would be really right and proper. So 
 that, while appreciating the high motives which prompted your views, 
 I am led to a different conclusion from yours on the subject. 
 With much respect, 
 
 Your obedient servant, 
 (Signed,) JOHN H. REAGAN, 
 
 Postmaster General. 
 
 Campbell Wallace, Esq , 
 
 Preset E. Term, and Ga. R. R. Co., Knoxville, Term. 
 
 Offick East Tknn. and Ga. Railkoad, ) 
 Knoxville, February 10th, 1863. $ 
 
 Hon. Jno. II. Reagan, Postmaster General C. S. A. y 
 
 Richmond, Va. : 
 
 Dear Sir : In view of the difficulties in the way of Congress making 
 appropriations out of the Confederate Treasury for the support of the 
 Postoffice Department after March, and aware of the great reduction 
 of mail facilities that must take place after that time in order to make 
 that department self sustaining, as required by the Constitution, I sug- 
 
gest that it would be proper for Congress to limit the price to be paid 
 the railroad companies for carrying the mails to fifty dollars per mile, 
 commencing the first of April, and to continue until the end of the 
 war, and no longer. 
 
 I am satisfied that the railroad companies of the Confederate States 
 would cheerfully acquiesce in such a law rather than the people should 
 be restricted in their postal facilities. I would make the rate uniform, 
 giving to all the roads the fifty dollars per mile, as it is not so much 
 the weight of the mails carried that enters into the cost of the trans- 
 portation, as it is the preparation for the work, and that expense is 
 about the same per mile to the second and third class roads as it is to 
 the first. For instance, this company, under your classification, are 
 receiving one hundred and fifty dollars per mile, while some other 
 roads, carrying lighter mails, but at an equal expense, receive only 
 one-third of that sum. 
 
 I do not wish to be understood as intimating that the price now 
 paid first class roads for mail service is too much. On the contrary, 
 my experience in many years of railroad management has been that 
 often I would gbdly have given up the mail contracts rather than 
 adopt schedules which were necessary for mail facilities, when I knew 
 that such schedules would lose the company in local travel five dollars 
 for every one received from the government for carrying the mail. 
 But our government is now in its infacy, this is the day of our trial, 
 and from many years' intercourse with the gentlemen who control the 
 railways in the Confederate States, I do not feel that I am hazarding 
 much when I say that you will find them, without exception, acquies- 
 cing in such a law, not grudgingly, but cheerfully. 
 
 The result to the finances of the Postoffice Department, while not 
 bearing heavily on the roads, would, according to the figures in your 
 report, be a saving of not less than a half million of dollars per an- 
 num on your present contracts, which saving will be much greater 
 when the Confederate States will have reclaimed her railroads and 
 extended her mail facilities in territory now overrun by the Federals. 
 
 In this connection I would respectfully suggest, that you withdraw 
 your recommendation to increase the rate of newspaper postage and 
 the suggestion to tax printing establishments with postage on their 
 exchanges. I cannot well conceive of any one thing that would be 
 more disastrous to the prosperity of our young Republic than any 
 action of Congress lessening the facilities for furnishing the people 
 with information, or transmitting the operations of those engaged in 
 preparing, in suitable form, that information for the people. The 
 press has been everything to us in this crisis and should not, in my 
 opinion, be placed alongside with the ordinary industrial pursuits of 
 the country. Its mission is to elevate man; its work is with the in- 
 tellect; and in proportion as you foster a virtuous free press, you 
 build up a virtuous free people and make them strong to defend that 
 freedom. The history of the world does not furnish evidence that 
 ever before has the press been more free from personality and a ten- 
 dency to licentiousness, in times of either peace or war, than it has 
 been in the Confederate States for the last two years, and never be- 
 
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 fore has a Government been more ably and patriotically sustained by 
 the press. Give the newspaper publishers, then, every needed facility 
 for cheap transportation. They have not advanced their prices in 
 'proportion to their increased expenditures. Newspapers, to circulate 
 freely ami widely, must be cheap — cheap in price, cheap in postage. 
 Like Bait, the consumption is in proportion to the cost. Cheap salt 
 creates a large consumption, and hogs, horses, cattle, sheep and ba- 
 con, always give unmistakable evidence of the advantages of cheap 
 salt. £o with the mind — the man. (Jive communities the advantage 
 of cheap books, cheap newspapers, cheap mail facilities, ami you will 
 always reap a rich reward in good morals and a highly cultivated peo- 
 ple, willing to sacrifice all else than the right to govern themselves; 
 and herein lies the strength and power and success of the Confederate 
 States in this unnatural and terrible war. 
 Truly, your friend, 
 
 (Signed,) C. WALLACE, 
 
 President. 
 
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