Population and Extension of Rural Service
Relative to the provision in the act making appropriations for the rural service for the fiscal year 1917, “that rural mail delivery shall be extended so as to serve as nearly as practicable the entire rural population of the United States,” it should be stated that rural delivery service covered, at the end of the fiscal year 1916, 1,037,259 miles of roads, while star-route service was operated upon 139,634 miles.
It is estimated that there are 2,199,646 miles of public roads in the United States, so that there remain 1,022,753 miles or roads on which no mail service is in operation.
At the end of the fiscal year 1916 an estimated population of 26,307,686 was served by rural routes, 520,000 by star routes, and approximately 10,000,000 by fourth-class post offices. The total rural population in the United States is placed at 43,991,722. It will be seen, therefore, that while 83 per cent of the rural population is receiving convenient mail service, 47 per cent of the rural road mileage is uncovered.
Speeding Up the Rural Service by Motor Vehicle
This is a time of intense activity. Action is demanded everywhere and “get there” is the cry of the day. Brevity and speed are in close fellowship in the business world and competition spurs on towards the greatest possible endeavor in any direction where advantage lies. Expedients no longer serve. Only that which is best and in the highest degree efficient, can hope to survive. The introduction of the motor car in transforming conditions and producing wonderful changes is characteristic of this pushing age. Time is money. The motor has demonstrated its value, and dominates the field of all far-reaching enterprise. Business men recognize its tremendous possibilities and advantageous help in saving time and abridging distance. It spells efficiency in commercial life and men strain a point to bring themselves up alongside their pushing and wideawake neighbors in availing themselves of this great modern aid to the completest equipment. The farmer realizing what it can accomplish in his peculiar domain, has hastened to supply himself with what will contribute to his profit, and he finds in this great adjunct to energetic industrial life the means of increasing his business and enlarging his vision of opportunity and desire.
Motor vehicle service is of course an innovation upon the 24-mile horse-drawn route, and as any innovation upon old-established custom may expect to meet objection in the administration of public affairs, especially when such an innovation contemplates a readjustment of routes and a possible reduction of carriers, objection was raised in some quarters, but the desire to secure all the benefit which the parcel post could give by the opportunity afforded by zone extension, was a determining factor in the case, and the Postmaster General, availing himself of the power vested in him by act of Congress, ordered its establishment, due regard being had to the limitations and conditions under which it could be operated. Experience has justified the wisdom of such action. Motor vehicles were accordingly introduced into the rural service in 1915 to meet this demand for greater expedition in service and the transportation of increased amounts of parcel post and mail matter on extended routes and principally from the larger cities. These routes must, however, be 50 miles in length and the compensation is fixed at not more than $1,800 per annum, the carriers to furnish and maintain their own motor vehicles. On June 30, 1916, 500 of such routes were in operation with a total length of 26,878 miles, averaging 53.756 miles per route, with an annual cost of $877,824, or an average of $1,755.65 per route. These motor routes superseded horse-drawn vehicle service formerly costing $1,093,106 a year, or an annual saving of $515,282. Motor routes are of especial benefit in sections where railroad facilities are lacking. The greater distance covered by motor routes makes it possible for a much larger number of persons in given localities to communicate with one another on the same day, eliminating the necessity for taking the mail to postoffices for redispatch and in some instances transshipment over one or more railroads. Better facilities are also afforded for the transportation of products of the farm. Indianapolis, Ind., is a conspicuous example of the efficiency of this service in reducing postage; a 20-pound package mailed on a rural route from one office in Marion County addressed to a patron of a rural route on another, which would have cost 24 cents, can now be carried for 15 cents, and a 50-pound package from one point to another, the cost of which would have been 54 cents will now cost but 30 cents.
Village Delivery
In furtherance of the desire of the Government to do everything in its power to oblige and accommodate the people of the country and enlarge every privilege which could advance their interests or provide for their comfort, the question of the extension of village delivery, for which there has been considerable demand, but which has heretofore received little encouragement, was taken up with a view of securing such action from Congress as would allow further extensions to be made, the original appropriation being too limited for the purpose.
Between the very great facilities afforded the dwellers in the cities and the almost equally great accommodation shown to those in the rural sections, village delivery was but imperfectly considered and the benefits and advantages which a more direct attention to these needs could have secured, was allowed to remain in abeyance, or at least not given the attention it deserved.