(Extract from the People’s Party Paper, March, 1893, Mr. Watson’s paper, commenting upon the passage of the first appropriation for the R. F. D.)
The annual appropriations for the free delivery of mails was, until the present administration, confined to cities of over 10,000 inhabitants. At the suggestion of Mr. Wanamaker, an experiment was made in smaller towns enjoying daily mails, but as yet no country neighborhoods had obtained the privilege.
On Friday, February 17, 1893, when the annual appropriation was pending, Mr. Watson proposed an amendment as follows:
For free delivery service, including existing experimental free delivery offices, $11,254,900, of which the sum of $10,000 shall be applied, under the direction of the Postmaster-General, to experimental free delivery in rural communities other than towns and villages.
Mr. Watson urged that the paragraph proposed to be amended “provides for the expenditure of $11,254,943 for free delivery service. The amendment reduced the amount of that expenditure and simply directed that the Postmaster-General should apply $10,000 of the appropriation to experimental free delivery in rural communities.” The following discussion followed:
Mr. Watson—“Mr. Chairman, the present law provides for an experimental free delivery in rural communities; but as I understand it—and the chairman of the committee, the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Henderson), makes the same statement to the House—the law has been construed to mean cities, towns and villages, and there are now in operation experimental free deliveries in certain towns and villages.
“The law expressly provides for ‘rural communities,’ and it seems to me where the general laws make such provision there is no hardship in taking a small amount from this appropriation, only $10,000, and appropriating it for experimental free delivery in absolutely rural communities, that is to say, in the country pure and simple, among the farmers, in those neighborhoods where they do not get their mail more than once in every two weeks, and where these deserving people have settled in communities one hundred years old and do not receive a newspaper that is not two weeks behind the times.
“The amendment proposes not to increase the appropriation; it actually diminishes it by a nominal amount, but takes $10,000 of it to be provided for experimental free delivery in absolutely rural communities, instead of towns and villages, which the authorities construe to mean ‘rural communities.’ In other words, I think that part of the money ought to be spent in the country, where the law provides it shall be spent, and having made this statement, if we can have another division, and the committee is against my amendment, I will yield to its will.”
Mr. Henderson, of North Carolina—“Mr. Chairman, the only law on the subject at all is in the very language used in this appropriation bill:
“‘For free delivery service, including existing experimental free delivery offices.’