Postal Riders and Raiders

by W. H. Gantz

Postmaster Generals and our railroad and express company raiders know all that. So, also, do our Senators and Congressmen know that. Even alleged “farmer” Congressmen know it.

Our public servants know even more than that. They know that under the International Postal Union agreements our government has entered into, our postal service today handles these foreign countries’ parcels, of either United States or of foreign origin, weighing up to eleven pounds. They also know our own postal service now won’t permit our own people to send by mail, packages weighing more than four pounds. They also know that for carrying a four-pound parcel by his own mail service the American must pay 64 cents if the parcel is for delivery in any of the foreign countries covered by Postal Union agreement,[17] but if sent by some one in any of those countries for delivery in this, the sender may make up a parcel weighing as much as eleven pounds and for its delivery will have to pay only 48 cents.

I say that our mail carriers and public officials know these things. The facts as stated must be known of the Postal Union agreements. On request, the Postoffice Department does not hesitate to give this information to anyone. The following is a paragraph taken from a department communication. It was sent in response to a request made by Mr. Alfred L. Sewell, who wrote a most informative communication that appeared in the Chicago Daily News of date November 6, 1911. I take the quotation from Mr. Sewell’s article.

Mailable merchandise may be sent by parcels post to Bahamas, Barbadoes, Brazil, Bermuda, Bolivia, Danish West Indies (St. Croix, St. John, St. Thomas), Colombia, Ecuador, British Guiana, Costa Rica, Guatemala, British Honduras, Republic of Honduras, Haiti, Jamaica (including Turk islands and Caracas), Leeward Islands, Windward Islands, Mexico, Newfoundland, Nicaragua, Peru, Salvador, Trinidad, Tobago, Uruguay, Venezuela, in the western hemisphere, and to Australia, Japan and Hongkong in the east, and to Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden in Europe. The postage rate is uniform at 12 cents a pound, or fraction of a pound. A parcel must not weigh more than eleven pounds, nor measure more than three feet and six inches in length, or six feet in length and girth combined.

Then why prattle about a “test” as to the desirability and practicability of a good, cheap parcels post service in this country; one that will serve our own people?

Especially why prattle about such a parcels post service on a few selected rural routes? It is not only foolishly silly, but it looks suggestively wrong—as if there was some ulterior motive back of any suggestion of such a test. “Why?”

Well, if such test is made under regulations suggested by the Postmaster General, the only parcels that service, or “test” service, is designed to carry, are such as originate on a selected rural route and are for delivery on the same route or on a route immediately connected with it. That is, as I understand Mr. Hitchcock’s recommended regulations, any farmer or villager along the selected “test” rural route may send a package (weight and rate of carriage yet to be decided upon) to any other farmer or villager on the same route or connected route, or to a resident of the town or city at which such route originates or starts.

If such a farce can be seriously thought of as a “test” of what use and economic value a nation-wide parcels post service would be to our people, even to the people residing on the test routes, it will take some graduate of a foolery school or foreman in a joke foundry to so think of it.

Let’s see. A farmer may send a jar of butter, box of eggs, crate of fruit or vegetables, etc., to the village storekeeper and get his pay for the consignment, “in trade” usually. By writing the storekeeper an order, postal card or letter, the farmer may get on the next round of the carrier what he desires. That is, he will get what he has asked for if the storekeeper has it in stock. The farmer, or the farmer’s wife, may do the same thing in the event that the consignment of their products, presuming that the “regulations” will permit the carrier to handle perishable goods, goes no farther away than the county seat or other town or city from which the rural route starts. They can also send such parcels to any railroad station on the route for shipment to any more distant point. In such case, however, the farmer must pay an express carriage charge from the local railroad station to the destination of his shipment.