Selected Articles on the Parcels Post

by Unknown

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.