Page:American Historical Review, Volume 12.djvu/84

74 JK F. Mc Caleb Representatives of the various railroads were called together, and they agreed to cut by one-half the pay they were then receiving for carrying the mails ; the rates of postage on letters, packages, and newspapers were raised (letter postage was five cents for one-half ounce) ; unnecessary mail-routes were discontinued; the number of trips on some routes was cut down ; the weight of the mails was re- duced through the abolition of the franking privileges; long routes were shortened so as to induce competition ; and where there were duplicate routes one was dropped, and in many cases cross-routes were found unnecessary and abandoned. The administration of the department was from the first most successful — indeed, it may be said to have been conspicuously suc- cessful. It was self-sustaining at every stage of the war, and each year there was a net income of receipts over expenditures. To have organized so intricate an establishment and carried it on sat- isfactorily for four years amid the raging of the bloodiest war- storm of the century is to have achieved an unusual triumph. That Judge Reagan did; and, as an administrative officer, when the chronicle of the Confederacy shall have been written, his name will stand high on the scroll. Walter Fl.wius jMcCaleb.