William Howard Taft

“ On the other, the pay was made dependent on the carriage of mail and no empty trips of going or returning were included in the mileage paid for, although the schedule made many of them necessary. It is impossible, therefore, save by forcing, to adapt the rate per mile of one route to the other. What has been said shows how different was the equipment needed, how variant the tonnage carried, what disparity between the hours of readiness required, and the differing methods of calculating compensation. ”

“ Provided, that for any increase or decrease in the service authorized by the Second Assistant Postmaster General, the pay of the contractors shall be increased, as the case may be, at the rate per mile of travel agreed to be paid for service under this contract, as shown by the annual rate of compensation and the annual miles of travel, based on the frequency and distances shown in the schedule of service for said route in said advertisement.'
There are two limitations in this very broad provision which deserve notice. ”

“ This does not make for justice, it promotes the possibility of official favoritism as between contractors, and results in enlarged expenditures, because it increases the prices which contractors, in view of the added risk, incorporate in their bids for government contracts. ”

“ Stage Co., 199 U.S. 414, 26 Sup. Ct. 69, 50 L. Ed. 251, and Hunt Ex'rs v. United States, 257 U.S. 125, 42 Sup. Ct. 5, 66 L. Ed. 163.
The Court of Claims, after giving the two schedules in full, sums up the contrast between them as follows:
'The service bid upon was a circuit service on seven circuits, on a mileage basis, each circuit beginning and ending at the new post office and for which the contractor was paid for every mile traveled regardless of the quantity of mail carried or whether for any part of the distance no mail was carried. ”