Congressional Record. 46: 1941-7. February 3, 1911.
Star Routes and Rural Parcels Post.
F. W. Mondell.
I do not want to put the entire blame for the hidden, circuitous, and indirect opposition to parcels post upon the express companies. There is another class of people who are opposed to parcels post who do not directly show their hands. They are the firms and corporations who send out a very large letter mail, upon which they pay 2 cents for every half ounce. The average citizen who only writes an occasional letter does not realize how heavy the burden 2-cent letter postage is to people who send out great numbers of letters.
There are many large concerns, like the mail-order houses for instance, promoters, jobbers, and dealers in special extensively advertised lines, whose actual letter postage amounts to many thousands of dollars a year. Such people naturally oppose any change in the postal service which might increase the postal deficit, even temporarily, because of their anxiety to have the letter rate reduced. The yearly income of the Post Office Department from letter postage is about $132,000,000, and it is said that some mail-order houses pay several hundred thousand dollars a year for letter postage. A reduction of that by half would be well worth working for.
It would not be fair in the discussion of this subject to overlook the fact that there are arguments against the establishment of a general parcels post which are advanced in perfect good faith and which are entitled to serious consideration. Those local merchants who have some misgivings about the matter are entitled to have their views carefully considered, but as I have indicated, it is my opinion that in the main their fears are not well founded, and arise largely from the fact that they have not had an opportunity to give the matter their personal consideration, and therefore have been inclined to accept the arguments of interested parties. There are also a considerable number of people who are honestly opposed to the parcels post in the belief that it is an unwarranted extension of government activities into a field which ought to be satisfactorily covered by private enterprise, and who still hope that the express service may be so cheapened and improved as to very largely satisfy the demand for a parcels post. There are also those who feel that owing to the vast area of our country it would be difficult to adopt a system of parcels post which would be generally satisfactory and at the same time self-supporting.
The argument is also made that the handling of a large amount of merchandise by the postal service would make delivery difficult where city delivery is provided, and delay the transmission of letters by the loading of the mails with merchandise.
These arguments do present problems which must have serious consideration. They are none of them, however, in my opinion, problems which are insurmountable, but a consideration of them, as well as of that character of powerful opposition exerted indirectly to which I have referred, leads thinking people to the conclusion that the outlook for the establishment of a general parcels post in the country in the near future is far from promising. With this as with all progressive legislation, little progress will be made until the people as a whole become thoroughly interested in the subject, quite generally make up their minds what they want, and in no uncertain tone make their wants known.
So long as only those who are opposed to the extension of the parcels post are generally heard from by members of Congress, there is not much likelihood of definite action being taken, and the probability is that in any event a general parcels post in this country can only be secured through the medium of a modest and limited and more or less experimental beginning in the way of a local or rural parcels post.
Local Parcels Post
President Taft in his last annual message recommended a parcels post limited to rural free-delivery lines. This recommendation was made on the ground of economy, to meet the opposition aroused by the argument that a general system would create a great deficit in the postal revenues, for a time at least. The local system would also have the virtue that it would furnish an object lesson in a partial and limited way, which might be valuable in determining the propriety of further extending the system. There is, furthermore, an argument for rural parcels post which does not apply in the same degree to a general parcels post, and that is that while the dwellers in cities and towns have ready access to stores and opportunities of express service, the dwellers in rural communities do not have these advantages, and therefore a rural parcels post which would enable them to have articles delivered on local routes or to local post offices would be of great benefit and advantage to them. As we do not have many rural free-delivery routes in our sparsely settled intermountain country, I am of the opinion that a rural parcels post, if established, should also operate over the star routes which supply our country offices and our people in boxes en route, and therefore the bill which I introduced provides for such a service.
Such a rural parcels post as is thus proposed would unquestionably be helpful in building up the trade of the merchants in the small cities and towns and of very great value and advantage to the people who get their mail at the country post offices and along country routes. This being true, I supposed I would avoid much of the storm of opposition which those who have advocated a general parcels post have heretofore encountered. Much to my surprise, however, the onslaught against this very modest proposition, intended to help the local merchant and the people of the country, has been even more terrific than the outburst against the general proposition; all of which makes one fact as clear as the noonday sun, and that is that the opponents of a parcels post realize that the local parcels post, if it works well and is generally satisfactory, will be the entering wedge for the general parcels post. It also illuminates quite as clearly another fact, and that is that the opponents of parcels post believe that the rural parcels post will work well and be generally satisfactory. Another important fact emphasized by this opposition is that the opponents of parcels post believe that the agitation for a local parcels post is much more dangerous than the agitation for the general parcels post, because it is more likely to be successful. The gentlemen who have been spending their money so liberally in opposition to the local or rural parcels post have thus made clear three important facts:
First. They believe that there is a strong probability of a local parcels post being established.
Second. They believe that such a system will work to the satisfaction of the people.
Third. They believe that, the local system having proven satisfactory, it would lead to the establishment of a general system.
In this condition of affairs it would seem that it is the duty of the friends of a parcels-post system to get behind the President’s suggestion of a local parcels post enlarged so as to include star routes and country offices.
Some one is spending a lot of money to defeat the rural parcels post. One way they are doing it is by sending out petitions by the tens of thousands, which they ask the local merchants to sign and send to their Congressman. I have received hundreds of these petitions. They have various sorts of headings printed in various kinds of type, but they are nearly all alike.
After having in the first paragraph drawn a dreadful picture of the awful disaster and destruction which the rural parcels post will bring to the farmers and to the country towns, in whose behalf they weep and wail—a destruction compared with which the devastation of Sodom and Gomorrah would be as the passing of a summer zephyr—they tell us how all these direful calamities are to come, as follows:
In every town catalogue agents of mail-order concerns would establish themselves. They would need no stores, pay no rent, employ no clerks, require no credit and give none, and carry no stock. Their whole time would be devoted to soliciting orders from catalogues. The merchandise would be shipped to them by express or freight from the retail mail-order houses in the large cities. When received it would be deposited in the local post office and the packages delivered by the rural carriers.
The only trouble with this lovely piece of sophistry is they fail to explain to us why the very game they describe can not be worked just as well now as it could after a rural parcels post had been established. There is nothing in the world to prevent just the sort of a plan, which is thus held up to our horror and execration, from being carried out now, except that it would not pay. The mail carriers on rural and star lines not only have the authority, but they would be very glad to have the opportunity of delivering packages along their routes which solicitors for catalogue houses might deliver to them. And, furthermore, they can now, no doubt would be glad to, take packages of any size; whereas a rural parcels post only provides for packages up to 11 pounds. So, when you come to analyze it, this “local-solicitor-of-the-mail-order-trust” bugaboo is found to be just another one of the strawmen, the poor miserable scarecrows, that the express companies are trying to terrify us with.
The mail-order houses claim they can sell cheaper than the local merchants because they do not have any local expense. The moment they are called upon to pay for the services of a local agent their expenses are greater than those of the local merchant. I think this disposes of the “local-agent bogy.” He is the most transparent of all the scarecrows the express companies have raised.