OCR Text |
Show The Newspapers And Government Ownership The Country newspapers of the United States have had for many years a splendid opportunity to observe ob-serve the workings of government competition with private business. The federal government prints envelopes en-velopes in large and small quantities quan-tities with return addresses, at prices made possible only by it& tremendous purchasing power, which no newspaper can possibly meet. As a result, each year newspaper plants lose hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth cf business whicn would normally come to them were it not for price-cutting competition on the part of the government which they help support with their taxes. A California publisher tells how the postmaster of his town wanted the post ofSce raised to a higher class so he would receive a larger salary. To do this he went around to all the merchants and sold them a year's supply of stamped envelopes envel-opes with their return addresses printed in the corner. In the words of the publisher, "This did not raise the efficiency of the local post office, the government lost money by paying more salary, and the local printer lost on not receiving receiv-ing these printing orders." It is no wonder that a great ma-pority ma-pority of the country newspapers of the nation, having felt the bite of government competition, are irrevocably ir-revocably opposed to "politically-owned" "politically-owned" and operated industries. |