Chapter XXIV: Section 181: of its Revised Statutes so that even a yokel, as well as (2)

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_.

The _mail order houses_ “will knock your business silly!”

Now, of course, it must be admitted that, in this day of super-heated service of _self_, a man’s _personal_ interests must receive his _first_ consideration. But I cannot for the life of me see why these “Western merchants and travelers” take the talk handed them by “traffic” cappers, express company agents and _space muddlers_--take it in such large _slugs_--and apparently overlook the fact that these talking and writing bubblers _are serving special interests_. Can you understand it, Mr. “Storekeeper” of Rubenville? Or you, Mr. “Merchant” of Swelltown? Or you Mr. “Shipper” of Cornshock or Feedersville?

Mr. Benson in his March article in Pearson’s, says something anent the great hue and cry which the raiders, aided in this particular case by merchandise jobbers and some of the larger department store retailers, are trying to raise among country merchants and rural residents about what a great “menace and danger” the mail order houses would be if a cheap, serviceable parcels post was put into operation. I hope my readers will carefully peruse what he has said. Here it is in part only:

The railroads, in fighting the parcels post through the country
merchants, are playing the old game. The old game is to work
upon the fears of a minority, create what appears to be a
difference of opinion among the people, and thus give Congress
an opportunity to say that as sentiment seems to be divided,
it would perhaps be better to do nothing until the public can
thrash the matter out and discover what it wants. In the present
instance we see great firms like Marshall Field & Company
combined in an organization to spread among country merchants
fear of a parcels post. Such an association was recently formed
in Chicago with a membership of 300.…

There is only one country merchant, perhaps, to every 500 country
customers, and the country customers are all in favor of a
parcels post. All other things being equal, Congress always moves
in the direction of the greatest number of votes. But in this
matter, as in many others, things are not equal. Great financial
interests and a few country merchants are regarded by Congress as
a majority.…

“At any rate, I cannot forget that while Marshall Field & Company cry out against a parcels post, because it would build up the mail order houses, that they themselves do a large mail order business.

“This action on their part may seem like patriotism of the highest sort--but it isn’t. The mail order houses don’t care a rap about a parcels post. They are not against it, but they are not for it. My authority for this statement is Mr. Julius Rosenwald, President of Sears, Roebuck & Company of Chicago, the largest mail order house in the world. I approached him upon the subject, believing that he would grow enthusiastic, but he didn’t. He said he had never signed a petition for a parcels post, or otherwise interested himself in the matter, and never should do so. He didn’t tell me why, but I found out why and will tell you.

“The minimum freight rates of the railroads literally drive country customers into the mail order houses. A farmer’s wife, we will say, has a present need for two or three articles that she can buy from a mail order house for less than her local merchant can afford to sell them to her. But the articles weigh only fifteen pounds, the express charge would annihilate her saving, and the minimum freight rate, for which she might as well have 100 pounds shipped to her, is just as high as the express rate. But she still wants the two or three articles and she wants to buy them from the mail order house. So what does this thrifty woman do? First, she increases her order by putting down a few articles that she will need perhaps three months later. Then she canvasses her neighbors for orders until she gets enough to make 100 pounds, and divides the freight charges pro rata. The result is that the mail order house gets an order for 100 pounds of goods instead of an order for the fifteen pounds that would have been bought if a parcels post like the English or the German had enabled the farmer’s wife to order only what she first meant to buy. Incidentally, the country merchant in her vicinity is not helped thereby.

“If you have any doubt about the truth of this statement, send a petition for a parcels post to Mr. Julius Rosenwald, President of Sears, Roebuck & Company, Chicago, and see how quickly he will not sign it. You will not be able to get him to lift a finger to help you. He is sending out fifty-eight loaded freight cars each day, comparatively little express matter, doing a business of $63,000,000 a year, and is quite satisfied with such transportation facilities as exist.

“But don’t blame the mail order men because they don’t help you. Help yourself. First, help yourself by getting it clearly in your mind who in this matter is the chief offender. Your government is the chief offender. So far as postal matters are concerned, your government is protecting the interests that are robbing you. Your government goes even to the extent of submitting to robbery at the hands of the interests that rob you. I refer to the continuing scandal of exorbitant mail contracts.”…

Now, I desire to talk somewhat directly to the rural and village storekeeper and of storekeeping.

The manufacturer, wholesaler or jobber always sells the retail merchant--_the quantity buyer_--_cheaper_ than they will sell in broken lots to the consumer. They will always sell to _you_ cheaper than they will sell to your customer, will they not?

You have an “edge” of 20 to 40 per cent., have you not? But to hold that “edge” now, you must order in quantities which _anticipate_ the demands of your custom, must you not? You must “stock up,” must you not? If you miss your guess, and _underbuy_ the demands of your trade, you must, later, “sort up,” must you not? If you sort-up, you do it at “broken-lot” rates and pay _excessive carriage charges_ for delivery to your place of business, do you not? If, on the other hand, you _overbuy_ the demands of your trade, your shelves are soon full of “shelf-worns,” are they not? These shelf-worns you must unload, must you not? To do that, you offer “bargains,” do you not? Unloading “bargains” _loses your “edge”_--your _profits_--does it not?

But still another point in your present _and compelled_ method of business. Your customer is _never_ so well pleased with your _sacrifice_ “bargains” as he or she is with the _fresh, up-to-date article_, which you sell at a _profit_. Is that not so?

Now, let us see how a _cheap_ parcels post would “knock your business silly.” Let’s put the rate, say at 5 cents for parcels up to one pound, 8 cents to two pounds, 10 cents to three pounds, 12 cents to four pounds, and so shading up in weight to twenty-five pounds, _at one cent a pound_. I present this scale of weights and prices merely to illustrate. I have given them no particular thought or consideration--that is, I do not present them as a _recommended_ basis for a parcels carriage system. I believe, however, that the government can carry and _deliver_ parcels at about the rates named _and not create any larger “deficits”_ than the postal service now shows.

That aside, let us see how you, Mr. _Retail_ Country Merchant, would come out in the deal:

_First_: You would not have to “stock up” beyond the _known_ demands of your customers. Your “shelf-capital,” then, would need not, necessarily, be more than _half_ what is now is.

_Second_: You could serve your customers fresh goods of latest pattern and at _less_ cost, and still serve them _at a profit_, instead of working off shelf-worn “bargains” on them at a _loss_.

_Third_: Mrs. Lucy Smith sees a Sereno Payne _imported_ glove, advertised by an “eastern merchant” or some distant “mail order house.” It is the “very latest” and guaranteed to be the very best “kid” ever built--from a _premature_ calf. Or Uncle Joe wants a mop rag-holder for Martha. It, too, is advertised by some distant manufacturer, merchant or mail-order bogey man. Say the advertised price of each is $1.00. Each, of course, weighs _less than one pound_.

Now, if Mrs. Smith or Uncle Joe orders _direct_, the article costs them, postage added at our hypothetical rate, $1.05. Of course, they will have inquired of you before they ordered--to see if you have it in stock--will they not? Well, you haven’t it in stock--and you can’t work off on them “something just as good.” Mrs. Smith just _must_ have those particular gloves, and no other mop-holder will satisfy Uncle Joe. Now what do you do?

Do you tear off a yard or two of tirade about mail order houses that are “knocking your business silly” and about manufacturers who are “flooding the country with fake goods?” If you do, you ought to quit business and go put your head in pickle or take the “cure.” But you won’t tirade. No sir, nary tirade from you! You will be onto your job in a minute. And why?

Well, first, you know that you can get those gloves or that mop-holder for 20 _to_ 40 _per cent less_ than the rate advertised for Mrs. Smith and Uncle Joe. You can have either sent by mail and deliver it to Mrs. Smith or Uncle Joe at the _advertised_ rate, pay the parcels charge yourself and still make 10 to 20 cents on the deal. If the gloves or the mop-holder strikes you as a probable “seller,” you can order a half dozen or a dozen pairs of the gloves, or three or four mop-holders, and _still keep your parcel inside the one or two pound rate_.

One other point in closing:

Well, it may be of no use--of _no_ service value to the reader who asks the question. He may be a man who has reached his limit of endurance--who has given up all hope of improving or correcting _legalized_ injustices which _rob him to enrich others_. If so, he has my sympathy. Or he may be a man who has “set into the game” and lost, or one who is _hired_ as a capper, steerer or “look out” for its operators. I cannot say. If the former, he still has my sympathy; if the latter, my contempt.

I am fully convinced that the outrages permitted by the municipal, state and national governments of this country in rendering public service to its people have _discouraged thousands_ of its _best citizens_--best in _manhood_ I mean, of course. The beneficiaries of the outrages I speak of are, usually, rated as “best” at the bank, in the society columns and _in court proceedings_. Even our divorce court records give the latter _conspicuous precedence_.

“Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,
Where wealth accumulates and men decay.”

No truer thought as to the politics and policy of _government_ was ever written than that. When wealth accumulates by _legalizing_ the spoliation and exploitation of the great body of a nation’s people for the benefit of a few, _the decay of its manhood is all the more rapid_. When any considerable body of a nation’s citizens begins to ask, “What is the use?”--that nation has reached the danger line--has started down the decline.

Now, I undertake to say that no observing man of average intelligence can be found in this country today who will not give it as his _honest opinion_--unless, of course, he is _hired_ to say otherwise--that not only thousands but _millions_ of our people--of its industrial, productive manhood and womanhood--are asking, “What is the use” of arguing and struggling against the oppressive conditions which the _laws and our administrative and judicial officers force upon us_? What is the use of “knocking” the men who get the “graft,” the rake-off or the loot?

“Their big bunch of money,” says one writer, “makes so much _noise_, no one hears our knocks.” “Everybody is out for the stuff,” says another. “It is _their_ representatives not ours who make the laws and it is _their_ judges not ours who adjudicate them.” “Industry, thrift, brains and even _honesty_ have ceased to count anywhere, save on _their_ payrolls. _Money alone counts._”

“Stop knocking, my son,” has become _common_ in paternal counsel. “Sit into the game and _get money_. Of course, ‘get it honestly if you _can_, but _get it_.’”

“And if I fail,” asks the boy.

“Well, my son, unless you are careful to salt away in some place secure from assessors and raiders as well as from thieves, the chips _I have raked in_, your best course is to _get on the payroll of the gamesters_.”

A recent reading says, in effect, that there are dropped into the life of every man moments in which “he has the chance to act the hypocrite or to act the scoundrel.” But when _aided and abetted_ by the law, such “chances” are not merely for the _moment_. They extend through days and years, and those so aided and abetted usually take _both_ chances--_act both the hypocrite and the scoundrel, and to the time limit of their protected opportunity_.

But that is neither all nor the _worst_ of it.

This _legalized_ hypocrisy and scoundrelism is now _widely_ known to the honest, productive citizenship of the country, _and it is daily becoming better known_. What is the result? Simply this:

The law and government administrators are, in permitting such injustices, not only _creating class distinction_ by the enrichment of a few of our citizens and holding the millions to the subsistence level--_hundreds of thousands of them to the “bread-line”_--not only that, but legalized and _protected_ injustice is _dignifying hypocrisy and scoundrelism_. It is sapping the _moral foundations_ of a worthy manhood as well as _robbing_ it of its material wealth and earnings.

But what has this sermonizing to do with the parcels post question, some one asks? It has this to do with it!

_Of the numerous array of law enriched hypocrites and scoundrels in this country, nowhere can be found more of them to the lineal or square rod than can be counted in the ranks of the favored beneficiaries of existing postal laws and regulations--in the ranks of the opponents to cheapening and bettering the parcels carriage service._

FOOTNOTES

[17] By latest Postal Union agreements, 12 cents a pound, instead of 16 cents a pound (maximum limit 4 pounds) for United States delivery.

[18] Postoffices, 1910.

Transcriber’s Note

List of changes made to the original text:

Page 9, “poloi” changed to “polloi” (the _hoi polloi_) (we’ll ignore the wrongness of using “the” as well as “hoi”; our author is an expert on postage, not Greek)

Page 51, “controvening” changed to “contravening” (contravening the constitutional rights)

Page 57, “be” changed to “he” (but he showed no hesitancy)

Page 73, “neswpapers” changed to “newspapers” (indeed newspapers in general)

Page 85, “Posmaster” changed to “Postmaster” (what our Postmaster General is after)

Page 89, “italization” changed to “italicization” (my italicization of certain of its phrasings)

Page 91, “Massacheusetts” changed to “Massachusetts” (hulling beans in Massachusetts)

Page 123, “naratives” changed to “narratives” (historical narratives about the civil war)

Page 123, “evidenee” changed to “evidence” (shall be made to appear by evidence)

Page 125, “bureauocracy” changed to “bureaucracy” (Next to a bureaucracy)

Page 150, “perparatory” changed to “preparatory” (the names and locations of preparatory schools)

Page 183, “wastful” changed to “wasteful” (the loose, wasteful methods)

Page 199, “bagagge” changed to “baggage” (transports them in the baggage cars)

Page 208, “hubub” changed to “hubbub” (not going to raise any noisy hubbub)

Page 213, “dominition” changed to “domination” (independent of party domination)

Page 213, “presistently” changed to “persistently” (which the government persistently refuses)

Page 214, “tonnaged” changed to “tonnage” (his estimated tonnage of franked and penalty matter)

Page 225, “unsurps” changed to “usurps” (in such practice usurps the function)

Page 232, “accunt” changed to “account” (Expenditures on account of previous years)

Page 236, unnecessarily duplicated word “has” deleted (has, so far as I have seen, [has] shown)

Page 250, “uniformely” changed to “uniformly” (uniformly, if not entirely, support)

Page 251, “franchiess” changed to “franchises” (private enterprise under franchises from the government)

Page 259, “reveneus” changed to “revenues” (this raid of the express companies on postal revenues)

Page 261, “accure” changed to “accrue” (the surplus shall accrue)

Page 264, “remembeerd” changed to “remembered” (When it is remembered)

Page 269, “testimnoy” changed to “testimony” (the testimony of numerous other railroad representatives)

Page 277, “befudling” changed to “befuddling” (a lot of befuddling, alleged data)

Page 280, “dominent” changed to “dominant” (the dominant factors involved)

Page 287, “abitrary” changed to “arbitrary” (unjust regulations and arbitrary impositions)

Page 296, “corruscations” changed to “coruscations” (with rhetorical coruscations)

Page 307, “doue” changed to “done” (shipping is done by railroad employes.)

Page 312, “throught” changed to “thought” (when thought reached the conclusion)

Page 345, “af” changed to “of” (the possibility of collecting a higher rate)

Page 345, “approbrium” changed to “opprobrium” (there is no opprobrium in the word)

Page 354, “mecrhants” changed to “merchants” (one-night-stand city merchants)

Page 359, “spoilation” changed to “spoliation” (the spoliation and exploitation)

End of Project Gutenberg's Postal Riders and Raiders, by W. H. Gantz