Without regard to any of the many serious objections to this system of trading, based on social and economic reasons, there is no possible ground upon which a subsidy for the encouragement of this mail trade should be given out of the United States Treasury and at the expense of the people at large.
Effect of a Subsidy
And when the effect of that subsidy would be to break down long established commercial customs, and divert the trade from institutions now successfully and satisfactorily conducting it, there is no more justification for such a mail trade subsidy than there would be for the government to carry some new brand of flour cheaper than the old established brands—in order to enable the manufacturer of the new brand to introduce and sell the product of his mills.
The growth of the mail trade, under its present limitations, has been stupendous, and multitudes of retail and country merchants have been injured, and many driven to the wall by it. But its future growth would sweep over the country with an irresistible force and wipe out of existence many thousands of now prosperous retail and general merchandise stores, if a subsidy were granted to the mail trade in the form of the proposed extensions of the parcels post.
There are many manufacturers who are doing business along the regularly established lines, selling goods to the jobber or the retailer, who are not now seeking or advocating any change in the channels of trade, but those manufacturers would change their system and enter the field of the mail trade if the advantages advocated by others were gained for it. If the avalanche of mail shipments that would follow the inauguration of such a mail trade system were ever once started no one could foresee the end or define the limits of the evils it would ultimately accomplish.
Independent. 70: 72-3. January 12, 1911.
Objections to the Parcels Post. Allan W. Clark.
There are probably a hundred really national organizations of dealers, and several thousand state and local organizations—generally affiliated with some of these national bodies. These embrace practically every line of retail merchandising and the ramifications of various interests among them. The individual, due paying membership in some of these larger organizations, like the National Association of Retail Grocers, the National Retail Hardware Association and the National Association of Retail Druggists, is from 50,000 to more than 100,000 each. I have never heard of any association of retail dealers that is not on record against the extension of the domestic parcels post in any form, especially the R. F. D. “entering wedge,” except the organized department stores in one or two cities (such as “The Merchants’ Association of New York”), who want this practical government subsidy for the benefit of their mail order departments and for cheaper local and suburban delivery.
I have mentioned only retailers’ organizations, whose resolutions on this subject, during the convention season, crowd the pages of all the trade journals. Nevertheless, practically all the organizations of wholesalers and manufacturers, besides many local commercial and civic associations, are opposed to the parcels post, and like the retailers, have been fighting it for years. Conspicuous among these is the Chicago Chamber of Commerce, the leading members of which, thru the “American League of Associations,” are pushing a national campaign “to assist the retail merchant and to co-operate with other associations in the protection and development of home trade, and (the italic emphasis is theirs), specifically, this organization is now opposing the proposed parcels post legislation.”