Stamp Slash

Publishers and mail-order men applauded the House last week for passing, 220 to 0, a measure calculated to save them some $13,585,000 per annum in postage stamps. It was the long-awaited Griest bill, named for the Pennsylvanian chairman of the House Post Office Committee. It provided for a lowering of postal rates on second, third and fourth class matter. On the advertising sections of their magazines, for example, publishers would save from .25-c- to 2-c- per pound, according to zone, when they mail their publications out to subscribers. On postcards, which are used as much for placing orders as for "dropping a line," the rate was cut in half, back to one cent. Also, mail-order men would acquire the privilege of issuing C. O. D. return mail--cards and envelopes upon which the U. S. collects only when they are used; less wasteful--and more enticing--than the "use-the-enclosed-stamped-envelope" system.

The Griest Bill, much hoped-for by publishers and mail-order men, went to the Senate. By some citizens it was viewed with alarm because it would increase the Post Office Department's chronic deficit from $28,000,000 (1928) to $41,000,000 in 1929.