Community Civics and Rural Life

by Arthur William Dunn

POST-OFFICES AND POST-ROADS

Congress was given power by the Constitution "to establish post- offices and post-roads." There had been a postal service in the colonies before the Revolution. During the Revolution Benjamin Franklin was made Postmaster General, and he made the service as effective as it could well be made under the conditions that existed in those times. The plan that he devised was continued after the Constitution was adopted. In those days mails were sent from New York to Boston and to Philadelphia two or three times a week. They were carried on horseback or by stage and by boat. Sometimes a month was consumed by a trip that can now be made in a half-day. Postage cost from six cents to twenty-five cents for each letter, according to the distance it was carried, and had to be paid in cash in advance. Postage stamps were not introduced until 1847. Often mail was allowed to accumulate until there was enough to pay for the trip. The isolation of a remote rural community can well be imagined where the difficulties of communication were so great, and where the scarcity of money made postage an important item.

RURAL MAIL ROUTES

In 1918 there were 54,345 post-offices in the United States managed by the Post-Office Department at Washington, besides nearly 600 in the Philippines managed by the war Department, and a few in the Panama Canal Zone. Of the 3030 counties in the United States, 3008 had rural mail routes aggregating more than a million miles in extent, serving more than 6 million families, and costing for operation more than 53 million dollars. This cost, however amounts to only about $1.90 for each person served, or a little more than one cent for each piece of mail handled. The aim is to make the postal service pay for itself, and in 1918 the receipts exceeded the expenditures by more than 60 million dollars.

SPECIAL SERVICES OF THE POST-OFFICE DEPARTMENT

The Post-Office Department not only provides for the transportation of ordinary mail, but through its post-offices it sells money orders for the transmission of money safely through the mails; it operates the parcel post by which merchandise may be transported, including farm produce of many kinds; it administers the postal savings system. One of the interesting divisions of the Post-Office Department is the Division of Dead Letters, to which is returned all mail that fails to reach its destination. In 1918 there were returned to the Dead-Letter Division 14,451,953 pieces of mail. In these "dead letters" there were drafts, checks, money orders, and loose money, amounting to $4,194,839.68. The failure of this mail to reach its proper destination is due in very large measure to carelessness in addressing and to failure to place on the envelope or package a return address. A great deal of loss and inconvenience could be avoided, and much labor and expense saved for the postal service, if every one would see that every piece of mail sent out is properly addressed and stamped, and has a return address in the upper left-hand corner.

TRANSPORTATION OF THE MAILS

The efficiency of the postal service depends very largely upon the means of transportation, from steamship and railway lines down to the country roads. Nothing else, perhaps, has stimulated the improvement of roads so much as the rural mail service. It is the power granted by the Constitution to Congress to establish POST- roads that enables the Federal government to aid the states in road improvement. The development of fast mail trains and the introduction of motor-truck service have been important steps in the improvement of the postal service in city and country. The latest development is the transportation of mail by airplane. An aerial mail route between Washington, D. C., and New York City was established May 15, 1918, and a round trip daily is now made over this route, regardless of weather conditions. The flying time from Washington to New York, with a stop at Philadelphia, averages two hours and thirty minutes, or one half the time of the fastest trains. The Post-Office Department is planning an extensive airplane mail service from the Atlantic to the Pacific, with various side lines; also to the West Indies, Panama, and South America. The routes are partially worked out, and trial trips have been made in some cases, as between New York and Chicago.

THE TELEGRAPH

We need only mention the important part played by the telegraph, the submarine cable, and RADIO-COMMUNICATION, in binding together our nation and the world as a whole. Without them the modern newspaper, with its daily news from every corner of the globe, would be impossible, our cooperation in the great World War would have been extremely difficult, and the President probably would not have left the United States to participate in the peace negotiations at Paris. Although the first telegraph line in the United States was owned and operated by the government as a part of the postal service, the telegraph service of the country has since been in the hands of private corporations; except that during the war the Post-Office Department took over the management of the telegraph and the telephone, as the Railroad Administration took over the transportation lines.