Postal Riders and Raiders

by W. H. Gantz

That leaves the country merchants, the jobbers, the railroad and express company raiders and their hired opinion molders to account for. Of these, the country merchant is by far the most numerous, likewise the most deserving of consideration.

On a previous page I made it fairly clear, I think, that a good, cheap parcels post service would be of great service to him. He has the respect and the confidence of his customers. He knows the worth of goods. He can sell the goods—any line or make—at the advertised or catalogued price and still make a good profit, as I have previously shown.

The parcels carriage charge, either by mail or express, is now so high he is compelled to order in quantities to keep “laid-down-prices” low enough to meet competition. A cheap parcels post service would put him in position to meet the competition of the larger merchants of the cities. A line of samples, showing the latest patterns, makes and grades, could take the place of fully half the shelf stock he now carries, aside from the staples. He could take the order of his customer and have the goods delivered by parcels post either to his store or, if in a rural delivery district, to the home of his customer for a few cents—have it delivered as cheaply as the big city merchant, manufacturer or mail order house can have it delivered.

Do not overlook that last point, Mr. Country Merchant, when hired yappers are coaching you to oppose a good parcels post service. The government will not pay “rebates” nor allow “differentials” in its parcels carriage. You can put your packages through the mails at as low a charge as that paid by a merchant with millions of capital invested in stocks of goods.

Of all the objections now urged against a domestic parcels post in this country, the dangers lurking in the mail order house is the most industriously worked. “It would be a fine thing for the eastern merchant to have a parcels post system whereby he could supply the people throughout the country,” said a Mr. Louis M. Boswell, a few years since when speaking to the National Association of Merchants and Travelers, convened in Chicago.

And who, pray you, is or was Mr. Boswell? Why, Mr. Boswell was one of the main cogs at that time, in the Western freight traffic wheels. Mr. Boswell talked for his personal interests, and for those interests only. To make his anti-parcels post talk catch his auditors—the Western merchants—he even told the truth about the express companies.

Freight should be transported as such by railroads in freight cars, and not by the government in mail cars.… I have long regarded the express companies as unnecessary middlemen.… Millions of dollars would be saved annually to the public if the express companies were done away with, and I do not believe the revenues of the railroads would be decreased.

“And what are you on earth for,” wrote a self-serving trade journal editor in 1900, “if not to look after your own interests? A parcels post … will knock your business silly. You are the one entitled to the trade in your town and neighborhood.”

I present the above quotations as fair samples of the “argument”—its method and its source—against a domestic parcels post. Let it be noticed that these two quoted statements—as is the case with most of the other promotion talk against a parcels post—is talked or addressed to country, village, town and one-night-stand city merchants.