There are no communities which need improvement of transportation so much as the country towns which have been misled into opposing the parcels post. The country merchant has been made to believe that the parcels post would take his business away from him and give it to the mail-order house in the great city. It would do nothing of the kind. On the contrary, it would give the country merchant the one facility which he does not now have: it would place him on a parity with the merchant in a great city.
Quick, cheap transportation would enable him to buy better and cheaper. He could sell many articles from catalogues instead of having to carry them in stock. He could create a mail-order business of his own in his surrounding territory. The local merchant who conducts his business well has nothing to fear from the mail-order house. Farmers and citizens prefer dealing with the home man, and the parcels post will give him many advantages that will enable him to increase his trade to proportions which are now impossible.
Of course, this does not apply to the country merchant who buys his goods badly or at high prices, and who gives long credits and sells at long prices. Parcels post or not, his day is doomed. More alert men, with better business ideas, will soon occupy his place. The alert, hustling merchant will use the parcels post so effectively that the old sleepy head’s day will end just that much sooner.
The proof of the pudding is in the eating. Every enlightened country except the United States has a parcels post. No country would think of abandoning it, any more than it would think of disestablishing its letter postal service. In the experience of all the world the argument about injuring the country town is sweepingly and completely refuted. The small town would gain vastly more than the large town by this tremendous increase and improvement of its transportation facilities. The whole public would benefit, for precisely the same reason that it benefits by having fast steamships instead of sailing vessels, limited passenger trains instead of stage coaches, two-cent letter postage instead of five-cent.
Part Played by the Express Companies
The people who oppose the parcels post are the innocent and unwitting dupes of the express monopoly. This is the one point in the parcels post argument that cannot be too constantly emphasized. When the dupes are brought to understand their true interests, Congress will not dare stand for a single session as the protector of express graft.
Small wonder that the express companies are fighting with every resource against the parcels post. They constitute one of the greatest groups of financial power in the country. They are united firmly. Most of the companies are large stock-holders in the others. Thus the United States Express Company was shown by the report of the Public Service Commission of New York, issued in 1908, to be capitalized at $10,000,000. Of this, the Adams Express Company owned nearly $1,000,000, the American Express Company exactly $1,000,000, and the Southern Express Company, $70,000. How tremendously profitable the business of the United States Express Company has been is shown by the fact that whereas the company claimed an investment of only $2,042,000 in real estate and equipment, it had $7,464,000 in investments, $895,000 in cash holdings, and $2,000,000 in collateral and other loans! That is to say, while this company had very little more than $2,000,000 invested in its transportation business, it had more than $10,000,000, representing surplus and undivided profit, in general investments!
It has accumulated such vast profits because it has been for many years charging unconscionable and scandalous rates for its service.
The Adams Express Company is shown by the current number of Moody’s Manual to have $12,000,000 capital. After paying large regular dividends and numerous extra dividends for many years, the company in 1907 found itself with such a tremendous surplus that it actually paid a special dividend of 200 per cent in 4-per-cent bonds! Every holder of a one-hundred-share of stock was presented with two hundred dollars’ worth of 4-per-cent bonds! The present, of course, represented in part the excessive charges which the company had been permitted to collect from the public.
But the most startling statistics of express accumulations are the financial statements of Wells Fargo and Company. For many years this company’s capital stock was $8,000,000. Its most recent statement, as published in Moody’s Manual, listed these assets: Real property, $4,100,000; equipment used in transportation, $2,044,000; stocks owned as investments, $3,211,000; bonds owned as investment, $3,750,000; loans, $17,165,000; cash on hand and in the bank, $5,459,000.