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George Washington protested, saying:

"It has been understood by wise politicians and enlightened patriots that giving a facility to the means of traveling for strangers and of intercourse for citizens was an object of legislative concern and a circumstance highly beneficial to any country."1

It is true that Congress at first required that each postal route should be self-supporting, but the demand for postal communication, despite the failure of revenues to meet the costs, was irresistible. So by 1797 Congress provided that a route need produce from revenues only one-third of its expenses, and in 1814 it was decreed that no limitation whatsoever was to be applied where a route was necessary to serve towns not otherwise served. Finally in 1825 the limitation was lowered so that a route would be banned only if for three successive years it failed to yield one-fourth of its expense, and all routes supplying country towns and lines connecting profitable routes were freed of revenue limitations entirely.2

When railroad construction began, the nation was as prompt as it had been in the case of the stage lines to avail itself of their advantages and to promote their growth. In the Report of Postmaster General Barry in 1834, to which I have already referred, the advent of the railroads, with their greatly increased speed, was noted and it was urged that the mail should be carried by them. In 1836 Congress seriously considered a proposition to pay the railroads a large sum in gross, the interest from which would equal the payments for carrying the mail. It was though that this measure, a form of prepayment for transporting the mails, would aid railroad construction.3 In 1841, when many of the railroads were seriously embarrassed, the Postmaster General's Report revived the proposal as a means of aiding the roads.

For a time Congress sought to limit payments to the railroads to a sum not in excess of 25 per cent more than it would cost to transport the mails by stage. But it was necessary to pay more, and in 1839 Congress increased the maximum rate of compensation to $300.00 per mile,4 far more than was paid for transportation by stage.5 Thereupon the railroads received payments

"varying from twenty-five to three hundred per cent above what had been paid for coach service on the same routes."6

The Postmaster General stated that we paid the railroads at a rate 200 per

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1Rich, History of United States Post Office to Year 1829, p. 65.
2Kelly, op. cit., pp. 43-44.
312 Register of Cong. Debates 1202-1209.
4Report of Postmaster General John M. Niles for 1840.
5Kelly, op. cit., p. 125.
6Report of Postmaster General John M. Niles for 1840.

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