At the close of business June 30, 1916, there were 42,927 rural routes in operation, 42,766 carriers covering 1,083,070 miles and serving 5,719,062 families, representing a total population of 26,307,686, and at the cost of $51,715,616. Aggregate daily travel by rural carriers, 1,063,305 miles. Average length of rural routes, 24.96 miles. The first complete county service was in Carroll County, Maryland. Available reports show that between the years 1905 and 1909, delivery of mail on rural routes increased 87 per cent. In 1913, 2,745,319,372 pieces of mail were delivered; in 1915, 3,193,326,480; 1916, 3,022,755,601. Cost of delivery per patron: 1915, $2.060; 1916, $1.966. Average annual pay of carriers was $1,162.50, including motor vehicle service. For horse-drawn routes the average was $1,155.48.
Rural Delivery Defined
The doubts, uncertainties and the delicate questions involved in the early days of rural delivery when the subject was viewed with concern, cautiously tested as an experiment and its extension in various directions regarded as perhaps outside the bounds of original intent and therefore to be approached with considerable reserve, is well illustrated when petitions from Utah and other mining sections of the West for the establishment of such service to supply isolated communities devoted exclusively to mining, raised the question in the administration of Postmaster General Charles Emory Smith as to the proper definition of rural free delivery. It was held by the First Assistant Postmaster General that the term “rural” meant communities not included in cities or incorporated villages, and that it did not necessarily imply that the persons so situated should be engaged in farming pursuits.
The Struggle for Rural Free Delivery
The aim and purpose of rural delivery was to place the rural resident on something like equal grounds with the dweller in the cities so far as mail facilities were concerned, not exactly so, for conditions were dissimilar, but to such reasonable extent as circumstances would permit. For years there had been a growing discontent among farmers and the people in the smaller towns and villages because of the postal advantages afforded to the cities, and the more populous communities. They felt themselves deprived of opportunities and benefits which others enjoyed and could not understand why the accident of location should make such a difference. Postal service was intended for all the people, not a part, not merely for those who had chosen to live in cities but for those outside as well. This desire to share at least in the benefits so freely accorded to others became at length so outspoken and insistent that recognition could no longer be denied and the matter was finally introduced into Congress and an attempt made to secure legislation upon the subject.
The magnified difficulties of such a proposition as rural delivery contemplated had long deterred action, and when the attempt was finally made, the question was viewed with such caution and approached with such hesitation and the apprehension of an unknown and indeterminate expense so bound up with possible failure of real benefit in proportion to cost, that postal authorities hesitated to take the initial step. Even when a sum of money was appropriated the task seemed too great for successful accomplishment, and it was only when further delay was vigorously opposed that the step was taken. Congress voted $40,000 to make the experiment and with that to begin with active measures were taken and the rest is postal history.
The Advantages of Rural Delivery
The question has frequently been asked to what extent and in what way has rural delivery service benefited the country sections of the United States. Many magazine articles have been written to show the general advantages it affords in rendering rural conditions more tolerable and enduring the inconveniences to which such life is subject. In one particular at least, it has been of immense advantage and that alone has secured it great public favor. It has given the farmer his daily paper. This great educator of our modern civilization, an almost indispensable necessity of our times, was practically denied the rural resident before the advent of this service, but now the avenues of communication are so far-reaching and the service so well conducted, that publishers of daily papers have not only been able to greatly extend their circulation in every direction, but actually to bring the morning newspaper to the farmer’s door at an hour which places him on an equal footing with his city neighbor in all the advantages which early news can give, but which is of special advantage to the farmer who has something to sell and is thus directed to the best market for his purpose.
The combined opportunity which both publisher and subscriber now enjoy in country sections reached by rural delivery and the use made of it is forcibly illustrated in a recent statement published in a South Dakota paper. A rural carrier stated that when he started service some years ago there were but three farmers on his two routes who took daily papers. There are now something like 200 dailies taken by patrons on these routes, some farmers subscribing for two or three.