Much of the opposition to this measure has come from the country store-keeper, who very naturally dreads that such largely increased facilities for delivery by mail would simply extend the already wide domain of the department store and drive him completely out of business. But this objection has been met by the plan for a special postal service for the rural routes, which would be given at a much lower rate than that prevailing throughout the general system of parcel post. This special rate as advocated by Mr. Meyer would be five cents for the first pound and two cents for each successive pound up to the limit of eleven pounds, thus enabling any one along the line of rural route to use the mails for delivery of packages at a charge of twenty-five cents for the maximum weight, as opposed to one dollar and thirty-two cents for the same weight if sent at the regular rate of twelve cents a pound,—which regular rate would necessarily have to be used by department stores unless they should go to the trouble and expense of maintaining a large system of rural agencies throughout the country.
The result of such a system in bringing about the general dissemination of business throughout the country by fostering small individual enterprises is almost beyond calculation, especially as a secondary result would be the growth of small villages and settlements throughout the thinly settled farming districts. And these two changes in the present state of affairs would go far toward solving the whole problem of the possibility of turning the tide from the city back into the country. The hardships and discomforts of many of the conditions of city life, particularly among people of limited means, and the uncertainty of the wage-earner’s means of livelihood, are now endured chiefly because of the greater disadvantages that are attached to farming in remote parts of the country or to undertaking the responsibility of working independently of any large commercial or industrial organization. For months, the Craftsman has been urging the establishment of rural settlements and the introduction of handicrafts in connection with small farms. Nothing that is likely to be done in the way of legislation to this end seems to us to make so possible a general change for the better along these lines as the postal measures recommended by the Postmaster-General, supported by the President and now recognized by Republicans and Democrats alike as a reform that will not be downed, no matter how powerful are the interests opposing it. Given the postal savings bank as an encouragement to thrift, and transportation facilities that will not only bring all necessary merchandise within reach of the farmer, but also take the products of his own industry and a great part of the output of the village workshops to the nearest market at a reasonable rate, and the rest will follow almost as a matter of course. When a man has a fund of several hundred dollars, there is hardly any question as to what he will do with it if he has a chance. The desire to own a home and a little patch of land is universal with civilized mankind and when to the possibility of gratifying this desire is added facilities that render life in the country as interesting and as much abreast of the times as life in the city, the tenement question in cities will soon cease to be the serious problem it is now.
Independent. 70: 105-7. January 12, 1911.
Parcels Post Once More.
Proportional rural population is not diminishing. We do not know what the present census will say, but we do know that from 1890 to 1900 the country gained enormously on the city in its proportion of new settlers. The old record of 65 per cent. for the city tumbled down to a little over 30 per cent., and we know of no reversal of this tendency. Back to the country has become a universal cry. Lands are rising in value steadily, and deserted farms are a myth. At least, Governor Hughes in one of his speeches said that he should like to know where they were in New York State, for he could not find them. Country churches have often died, to be sure; but they were killed seventy-five years ago, and they do not note at all any decadence of farm prosperity. They went out when railroads began to be built. Crossroads stores have not been run to any extent for half a century, any more than crossroads taverns. They do not belong to advanced stages of country life, and are not needed.
Never was country life more progressive, better organized or more lifeful and hopeful. The crossroads has been displaced by the village store, and this village store must deliver its goods. It wants the parcels post. The trolley is reaching its fingers up into the valleys and touching the farmyards with its carrying capacity. The automobile is doing even more to reach the isolated farmhouse. We might as well forbid these forces and conveniences as to deny the farmer a parcels post. The same argument lies with intense force against rural free mail delivery in every form. It destroys many post offices; it keeps the farmer at home; it dissolves hamlet life: but it aids in the great movement of distributing the blessings of a complete life all over the country.
We are quite willing to face the frightful proposition which is offered us, of a community with no business institutions except the post office and the freight depot. We have seen the tens of thousands of district schoolhouses blotted out without a qualm, for we have seen the union schools gloriously taking up the work in their place. We have seen the little stores and taverns that used to be convenient for watering horses vanish, because we find a substitute in department stores, almost invariably within reach, by aid of the trolley and automobile. We are not worried at all when we contemplate a picture involving a more substantial country home, with its isolation abolished, hidden among the hills, but visited daily by the rural free delivery carrier, even tho he shall have in his automobile a ten-pound package for the housewife.
Without parley, we believe that the American people, almost without dissent, demand a parcels post service; and that if put to popular vote, this demand would be exprest by a majority of 90 to 1 the country over. The people are growing impatient over delay, and they are expressing this impatience very loudly. We believe that the coming Congress will hardly find it possible to ignore this desire. We quite agree with one of our contemporaries who says that the next step of social and economic progress in the United States is unquestionably bringing the producer and consumer closer together by reducing the cost of carrying small parcels.