; secondly, the proper apportionment of that cost
between the various classes of mail matter; and thirdly, what
modifications of the system of bookkeeping and accounting were
desirable.[342]

By a statute of the 2nd March 1907, Congress authorized the appointment
of a joint Commission "to make an investigation into the business system
of the Post Office and postal service." The same gentlemen who had
composed the Commission of 1906 were appointed to the new Commission,
but its labours led to no practical result.

The other recommendation of the Penrose-Overstreet Commission, viz. that
further statistics should be obtained with regard to second-class
matter, was also adopted by Congress, and the statute authorizing the
Commission on business methods also authorized the taking of statistics
of the weight, number of pieces, and average haul of all classes of mail
matter, separately, and the average load of all cars by which it was
forwarded by railway.[343] With the statistics so obtained as a
basis,[344] the department undertook the task, which, as stated by the
Commission of 1906, had previously been impossible of performance, of
calculating the actual working cost assignable respectively to the
various classes of mail matter. A Committee, which was appointed in
October 1908, and reported in November 1909, arrived at the conclusion
that the cost of dealing with second-class mail matter was about 9 cents
a pound. The whole subject was before the Committee on the Post Office
and Post Roads of the House of Representatives in January and February
1910. Many representatives of the publishing interest attended and gave
evidence, and the department's calculations were subjected to
examination and criticism.[345]

Congress and the Executive were still, however, unable to arrive at a
satisfactory conclusion on the question, and on the 4th March 1911 a
joint resolution of Congress authorized the appointment of a further
Commission on second-class mail matter, this time not a Congressional
Commission. A judge, the president of a university, and a business
gentleman were appointed to the Commission, which held sessions in New
York in the latter part of the year, and took evidence from the Post
Office department and representatives of the publishing interests. They
found that the data available were insufficient to enable them to
determine the total cost to the Post Office of the services performed in
respect of second-class mail