But it failed
in the closing hours of the session to reach a vote. So this measure
fell.[IG]
Another effort was made in the Sixtieth Congress. In his message at the
beginning of this Congress (December 2, 1907) President Roosevelt
recommended an amendment to the act of March 3, 1891, "which shall
authorize the postmaster-general in his discretion to enter into
contracts for the transportation of mails to the Republics of South
America, to Asia, the Philippines, and Australia at a rate not to exceed
four dollars a mile for steamships of sixteen-knots speed or upward,
subject to the restrictions and obligations" of that act. In other
words, to give the same subsidy to steamers in these services as allowed
to the twenty-knot American mail transatlantic line, instead of two
dollars a mile.[IH] A bill to this effect was introduced in the Senate
December 4[II]; on February 3, 1908, was reported back from the
committee on commerce so amended as to provide the four-dollar-a-mile
subsidy to American sixteen-knot steamers on routes of four thousand
miles or more to South America, the Philippines, Japan, China, and
Australasia; was debated at length; further amended; and finally,
passed, March 20.
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