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.