All the opponents of the parcels post at the hearing, mostly retailers in heavy-weight goods, were very insistent to impress upon the minds of the committee the great injury that is being done their business by the big catalogue houses, who, they claimed, are underselling them and are doing a very large and increasing percentage of the business that belongs to and should go to the retail dealer. But is it correct to charge to the parcels post this great loss of trade which has occurred while we have no parcels post and that has been brought about by conditions that can claim no assistance from a parcels post? Is it reasonable to say that a parcels post would produce such conditions when no such conditions do exist as above noted where the parcels post has been in operation for many years?
Hampton’s. 26: 261-4. February, 1911.
Let Us Have a Parcels Post.
There would be some shadow of excuse for refusing to accept so great a convenience as the parcels post if, in accepting it, we would destroy a large investment in the business of the express companies. But, in fact, we would not destroy any legitimate values in these companies. They own practically nothing on which they would lose a dollar. Most of their money is not in the business of transporting freight, but in banking and investment enterprises. These would not be interfered with. Their tangible property actually used in transportation would be required, and would undoubtedly be taken over at good figures by the government, when it established a parcels post business. Their investments in stocks, bonds and banking business would be undisturbed. The express companies would lose nothing except their graft—the privilege of charging outrageous rates for the service they render. In morals and equity that ought to be ended as soon as possible.
The truth is that it is not the political and financial influences of the express companies which keeps Congress from giving this nation a parcels post. It is the pathetic and benighted ignorance of a considerable section of our own people, who have been led to believe that the parcels post would injure them. It is well-nigh impossible to believe that there can still be millions of intelligent Americans who doubt that national prosperity must be promoted by every increase of the facilities and cheapening of the cost of transportation. Yet there is such a section of the American public. Misguided and ignorant, it has permitted itself to become the chief bulwark of protection to the express companies’ graft. It persists in believing, in the face of nearly a century of world experience to the contrary, that there is danger in too easy, too cheap and too universal transportation!
Unwise Opposition of the Small Merchant
Reference, of course, is had to the fears which the merchants of the country towns entertain as to the effect of the parcels post upon their business. The country merchant has come to accept on this point the sophistical, disingenuous and dishonest arguments of the express lobby, skillfully put out through agencies whose real purpose is concealed.
The argument that cheap transportation of parcels will injure the country towns is exactly as reasonable as the contention that London and New York, Hamburg and Liverpool, Seattle and Sidney, must be injured by the railways and steam-ships which, bringing all parts of the world into close and easy communication, would make it impossible for great and dominating centers of population, commerce and industry to exist. Everybody can see how absurd such an argument would be. The best possible transportation facilities constitute the first requisite to making a great city. Commercial centers are prosperous and important, in proportion as they have adequate, efficient and cheap transportation. This is as true of the country town with a single railroad line as it is of a continent’s metropolis with half a hundred great railroad systems pouring their tonnage into its terminals and with the ships of all the seven seas unloading their cargoes at its wharves.
It is an axiom that good, ample and cheap transportation actually makes commerce. The country town which has no railroad always wants one. The hamlet which has no post-office is forever riding the neck of its congressman until it gets one. Great cities vote millions to build artificial harbors, to provide wharfage, and to increase every possible facility for cheap and rapid transportation.