Chapter C: W. Spofford

Q. What is the plan of the rural parcels-post proposed by Postmaster-General Meyer?

A. It proposes to carry packages originating at a local office of a rural route for 5 cents for the first pound and 2 cents for each additional pound, with a limit of 11 pounds. Thus, an 11-pound package would be carried to any point on a rural route for 25 cents. It is significant that the rates are the same as those proposed by advocates of a parcels-post applicable to distances within the United States and its insular possessions. This proposal seems to be but an entering wedge for general parcels-post.

Q. Why was rural parcels-post proposed?

A. It was proposed by the Postmaster General as a special favor to country merchants.

Q. Have country merchants asked for any such special favor?

A. No. On the contrary, they are opposed to it on the following grounds:

1. They do not seek class legislation.

2. The plan would be impracticable in its operations.

3. It would discriminate between towns, favoring the town with the greatest number of rural routes, regardless of its trading advantages.

Q. Would rural parcels-post be of any benefit to the farmer?

A. No. For the following reasons:

1. The farmer can now arrange with the rural carrier for the delivery of packages over 4 pounds at rates mutually satisfactory.

2. The proposed rates would be prohibitive on groceries, machinery repairs and on the bulky merchandise most likely to be delivered under this new arrangement.

3. To secure the rural parcels-post service, the farmer would be compelled to buy his goods at the particular town where he gets his mail, when he might prefer to buy elsewhere.

Parcels Post. pp. 3-9.

F. E. French.

I have the distinguished and pleasing honor of being here today upon your invitation as a representative of the American League of Associations, which includes representative wholesalers in nearly every important city in the United States. The creation of this League has for its object the development and advancement of the general welfare and mercantile interest of retail merchants in the smaller communities. The relations of its members to all retail merchants are intimate and personal. The retailers desire to buy merchandise from the wholesaler. The wholesaler desires to sell merchandise to the retailer. In short, whatever conserves, promotes and advances the merchandising ability and success of the former, is a direct proportionate benefit to the latter. Whatever relaxes the intimacy between these interests, deprives the retailers of their truest and best facilities as merchants and money makers. The thoughtful and progressive wholesaler and retailer believe that any rural parcels post bill will unmistakably impair, curtail and finally dissolve this relationship, which in reality is a partnership between the wholesaler and the retailer. The proposed parcels post legislation will gradually eliminate the country store and the very heart and pulse of country life. Believing this to be absolutely and unmistakably true, we should stand as a unit in opposition to any extension of the parcels post system, upon rural routes, even upon an experimental basis. If the country merchants will co-operate with the wholesalers in an unyielding resistance to any congressional action that would in any way interfere with the present system of rural deliveries, the proposed legislation will be defeated.

In official words, it is contended that rural parcels post will enable local merchants to hold and increase their trade. On the contrary, the well informed wholesaler, manufacturer and retailer contend, and the entire orthodox system of trade distribution replies, that any parcels post, whether it be a general parcels post law or a rural parcels post law, although intended to be of benefit to the retailers and a boon to the rural population, would, in reality, be a great detriment to both.

Mark well how the camel enters the tent: First his head, next his neck, and last his huge and unwelcome body. First on a few routes only and in experiment only, a local parcels post; next a complete rural parcels post; and finally a general parcels post. Let us beware of the beginning lest in the end we be overcome. During the inauguration of the first and experimental stage, those interests most to be profited by this perilous innovation will remain silent, while from the experiment no safe deductions could perhaps be made which would indicate the effect of parcels post extension upon your prosperity and posterity. Finally you will discover that the currents of trade are running past your door rather than through it, and in that day your elimination becomes a certainty. In that day also every wholesaler who has so long found in the country merchants a sure and steady outlet will know even better than he knows now that rural parcels post, and, much more, the general parcels post is a dangerous blow to country life.

At the risk of telling you much that you know, let me state some of the factors of this great problem so that we may think as one man over its solution.

The mail order houses, some of the farmers, and various other people who reason narrowly, even with generous intent are sustaining the government in its purpose to go into business in behalf of a class of the American people at the expense of the whole American people, and through a bill in Congress they ask all of the people to sanction a trial of this new species of government aid in certain selected places. Our government reasons that if it is made more practicable for rural free delivery routes to become shipping lines between their own termini, everybody depending for income and outgo on such routes will profit by this enlarged service. On the contrary, the American League of Associations holds that everybody will eventually suffer.

The great problem about which we are all trying to think clearly and think together, has been summarized so effectually by a retail merchants’ paper in the central west, that I do not hesitate here to quote its protest against parcels post, endorsed by thousands of retail merchants in every section of America. The protest reads as follows:

“Parcels post is wholly unnecessary, since rural delivery carriers are authorized to carry parcels weighing over 4 pounds, and the matter of compensation is decided by carrier and merchant or by carrier and farmer. Merchants and farmers generally have not availed themselves of this service, for the very good reason that there is no need for it.

“If adopted, parcels post will be immediately seized upon as a delivery outlet by mail order houses which would ship orders by freight or express in bulk lots to local agents for deposit in the post office to be forwarded by the rural deliveries. The catalogue houses have already many of these agents selected, and they have been busily engaged in distributing catalogues for weeks past. As soon as a rural parcels delivery became effective, these agents would become active in the solicitation of business in unfair competition with home merchants, as these agents would have no taxes, no rent, no salaries, etc., to pay.

“Rural parcels post is admittedly merely an entering wedge for extension along European lines. That would mean severe demoralization of our country towns which are dependent almost wholly upon the farmer trade for existence, and which afford the farmer a good home market for every dollar’s worth of products he has to sell. If he does not buy his supplies where he sells his products, he not only demoralizes the business of his home town, but he also deprives himself of his home market. If his home market town dwindles into insignificance through the gradual loss of trade, necessitating the closing of stores and the emigration of merchants and clerks, then the income will shrink so seriously that there will be insufficient funds to provide for schools, churches, libraries, hospitals, good roads, etc.

“Every farming community and its market center are interdependent. It is impossible to injure one without injuring the other. The parcels post would injure both farmers and country merchants. We protest against it as being designed to further the formation of a mail order trust that could eventually control all important channels of distribution and thus levy upon the people any desired tribute.”

Today the people’s problem is to conserve our natural resources and keep the farmer on the farm. Will the gradual impoverishing of the village storekeeper keep the farmer on the farm? Will the decline of the social center, the decline of the schools and the decline of the church facilities keep the farmer on the farm? Will long distance shopping do more for isolated communities than the sight of real goods and the warm touch of living people? Will the picture catalogue or the hearty salesman do more to keep vital the currents between seller and buyer? Would a heavily laden parcels post messenger, running between a mail order agency and a distant farm, often through a foot or two of mud or snow, compensate for the disappearance of the mart and congress of our country’s rural life--the independent, thriving, hospitable store?

Fellow merchants, it is our duty to sustain that store, and to do it now. That store is imperiled by pending legislation, whether by the institution of a local or a general parcels post. If this new service be established by the government, even with the best of motives, we must admit that:

The postal deficit will be increased,

The country’s commercial system revolutionized,

The delivery of legitimate mail delayed,

The population of rural communities depleted, and their progress retarded.

And that the government will promote class legislation, for in seeking to favor the farmer who needs no such preferment, it will subsidize a commercial interest whose basic business principle is hostility to the best trade distribution.

Every thinking individual agrees that rural free delivery has been of great benefit, but the masses of the people do not agree that a financially unprofitable service shall be put upon its feet at the cost of the man who has been the mainstay of the farmer in season and out of season--the country storekeeper.

Why Parcels Post Is Not a Good Thing for This Country. pp. 1-5.

W. P. Bogardus.

Parcels post is a scheme in which it is proposed to utilize the post office facilities to carry merchandise. Packages under the proposed bills up to 11 pounds are to be carried in the mails for that sum varying according to weight, from 2c to 25c. It is claimed by the friends of parcels post that by adopting the measure the deficit in the Post Office Department will be wiped out, and a handsome surplus will result. Claims are easily made. But facts have more value in a discussion like this. We are cited to the results in Germany as a substantial proof that post parcels is a paying proposition. They forget to mention that in Germany there are 340 people to the mile and an average haul of mail of but 41 miles, while in this country the average haul of mail is 540 miles and there are less than 23 people to the mile, and they ignore the difference of conditions in the two countries.

But let us look at the report from the German budget. For the year ending March 31st, 1910, the income, in round numbers, from the Post Office Department was $168,000,000 and that included the revenue from the telegraph business. The expenditures were $148,000,000. This on the face shows a surplus of $20,000,000, but in the statement of expenditures there is no account taken of the cost for transportation, on the ground that the government owns the railroads. In this country it costs 20 per cent. to transport the mails. That is, one-fifth of the cost of the Post Office Department is for transporting the mails. Now add 20 per cent to the expenditures and you have $177,600,000, or a deficit of $9,000,000. In England, the friends of parcel post claim that there is a surplus of $24,000,000 in the Post Office Department. But that includes the receipts from the telegraph messages. In England the average charge for packages is 9.8c per pound. In this country it is proposed to send parcels post packages over a territory 30 times larger than England at an average of not quite 3c per pound to a population only about twice as large as there is in England.

When the blind Postmaster General of England first introduced post parcels he reported the results of the measure, but found that there was an increasing deficit each year, and the reports were discontinued. It does not seem possible to get exact figures as to the cost of the system in England, but the presumption is that if there was a large profit in the plan they would parade the fact. As it is, can we expect to make parcels post in this country a profitable scheme? With an average haul of 540 miles to a population of but 23 to the mile, is it possible to carry goods at less than 3c per pound at a profit, if it cannot be done in those thickly settled countries at a much higher rate?

If it cannot be done at a profit, why should the government undertake a scheme that will result in a loss? Rural free delivery is costing the country $28,000,000 more than it is getting for the service, and only about one half of the rural population is supplied with the service.

If the government enters into the plan, it must needs have a monopoly, if successful, of the carriage of packages up to the limit of 11 lbs., else the express companies will take all the short haul packages and leave the long haul packages for the government to carry. Such conditions prevail at present. The express companies take all the short haul packages for less than the government charges and leave the long haul packages for the government to carry, with the result that there is no profit in the business to the government.

If there is a monopoly established on packages up to 11 pounds, what is to hinder the government raising the limit of weight?

Are we prepared to let our government enter into competition with private enterprise? Is it a function of the government to transport freight? Is it a province of the government to correct abuses of private corporations, in transportation and other lines, by entering into competition with them, and using the power the entire people has given it, to force corporations to be less greedy? It would seem that the recent decisions by the Supreme Court would justify us in believing that there is power enough in the laws of the land to protect the people’s rights.

Perhaps in Australia the government enters into more radical schemes than in any other country. And this fact is being developed. That the extension of the control of industry and business, and the activities in every field of production and distribution is but an incentive for a greater demand on the government for further movements in the same direction. The outcome of such policies is a final ending up in complete socialism. Do we want our government to be a paternal one? Are we ready to look to it for our transportation facilities? If we are is there any reason to feel that the government will stop at transportation? Will there not be other avenues of commercial enterprise taken over by the government? One of the great dangers to us, as a people, is the tendency to a centralization of power in the government at Washington and a willingness of a great many people to lean on the government for a solution of many problems that they should solve without the aid of the government.

Parcels Post and Postal Savings Banks, pp. 1-2.

Gilbert N. Haugen.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I want to direct attention to the suggestions made in a very able and interesting address delivered by Mr. Meyer, Postmaster-General, at a banquet of the New England Postmasters’ Association, Boston, Mass., October 12, 1907, a part of which I will read:

To illustrate the incongruities that exist: Any individual
entering the post-office here in Boston or in any other city or
town in the country, with two parcels, each weighing 4 pounds,
can send one parcel to New York for 64 cents, while for the
other parcel, which is addressed to some one in a foreign land
and goes via New York, he will have to pay but 48 cents, for
the reason that the rate to foreign countries is 12 cents a
pound, while the rate to our own people is 16 cents a pound....
Therefore I assume that our Representatives in Congress will
realize that they can not afford to stand for a policy that
compels our own people to pay 4 cents more on packages to
people living in the United States.

This statement is indeed misleading: not that I charge the Postmaster-General with any intent to deceive or mislead, for I regard him as a gentleman of integrity, intelligence, ability, and actuated with the highest motives and with a determination to do justice to all, and I am not questioning his motives, but will endeavor to present the facts in the light that I see them. When we have all of the facts, I will venture to assume that Representatives in Congress will realize that they can afford to stand for a policy that compels people living in foreign lands to pay more than people living in our own country. The Postmaster-General’s statement as to the sending of two pieces, each weighing 4 ounces, is correct in some cases, and the domestic rate in some cases is higher than the foreign; but in the majority of cases foreign rates are the highest. In his excellent address to enlighten members of the New England Postmasters’ Association and the country, he might have gone further by saying: “To illustrate the incongruities that exist, any individual entering the post-office here in Boston, or in any other city or town in the country, with two parcels, each weighing 1 ounce, can send one parcel to New York for 1 cent, while for the other parcel, which is addressed to somebody in foreign lands via New York, he will have to pay 12 cents, for the reason that the rate to foreign countries is 12 cents per pound or fraction thereof, while the rate to our own people is only 1 cent per ounce. Therefore the rate on the parcel addressed to somebody in foreign lands is 12 times as great as is the rate on the parcel addressed to New York.” And he might have referred to the report of the Second Assistant for the year ending June 30, 1907, pages 25 and 26:

Or he might have said: “If the two parcels referred to, weighing 4 pounds each, or 64 ounces each, or 128 ounces for the two, had been divided into parcels of 1 ounce each, and one-half of them directed to parties in New York, the rate on the sixty-four parcels would have been 64 cents to New York, and the postage on the sixty-four parcels addressed to London would be $7.68.” According to the Second Assistant’s report, rates on parcels addressed to foreign countries are not uniform. The rate to Bermuda is 12 cents per pound, and the rate to Ecuador is 20 cents per pound. The rate to Sweden, Peru, and Denmark is 20 cents per pound or fraction of a pound for parcels which require the use of the expensive transit across the Isthmus of Panama, and 12 cents per pound or fraction of a pound for parcels which do not use that expensive transit. So we find that rates on parcels weighing 1 ounce addressed to Sweden, Peru, or Denmark which require the use of the expensive transit across the Isthmus of Panama is 20 cents, or twenty times as high as the rate on parcels weighing 1 ounce addressed to New York. Why this incongruity in rates? Rates on mail matter between the United States, Canada, Cuba, Mexico, and Panama are fixed by treaty with each country and with all other countries by conventions of the Universal Postal Union. The last convention was held at Rome, 1906, and took effect October 1, 1907. The acts of these conventions are binding on these countries, but have nothing to do with domestic rates, they being fixed by Congress and the Department. The conventions are simply agreements as to international mail matter. The rate on parcels post is fixed with each country, or in thirty-five parcels-post conventions. The rate is generally 12 cents per pound or fraction thereof, the pound being the unit of weight. The rate is 1 cent per ounce. The rate on 5 ounces to the Philippine Islands is 5 cents and to London 12 cents.

Parcels Post. pp. 8-11.

S. C. Smith.

_In Foreign Countries_

The sentiment in favor of this new governmental service has been built up in this country chiefly by holding up to view more or less highly painted pictures of what is being done along a similar line in the countries of Europe. Any fair comparison of the postal service in those countries and in ours must take into consideration density of population, expanse of country or length of transportation routes, and the ownership of the means of transportation. The density of population and the relative size of the United States and of the principal countries of Europe having a cheap parcels post are shown by the following table:

+---------------+--------------+----------+-------------+------------+
| | | | | Population |
| | | Ratio of | | per |
| Country. | Area. | size. | Population. | square |
| | | | | mile. |
+---------------+--------------+----------+-------------+------------+
| | _Sq. miles._ | | | |
| United States | 3,602,990 | 100 | 84,154,009 | 23.35 |
| Great Britain | 121,391 | 3.36 | 41,976,827 | 345.79 |
| Germany | 208,860 | 5.79 | 60,641,278 | 290.34 |
| France | 207,054 | 5.74 | 38,961,945 | 139.87 |
| Belgium | 11,373 | .31 | 7,074,970 | 622.08 |
| Italy | 110,550 | 3.06 | 32,475,253 | 293.76 |
| Switzerland | 15,976 | .44 | 3,315,443 | 207.73 |
+---------------+--------------+----------+-------------+------------+

These figures are extremely interesting and important in connection with this subject. We constantly lose sight of the immensity of this country and its “magnificent distances,” as compared with the nations of Europe; but in considering a question of transportation, distances and density of population stand in the foreground. Let it be observed, for instance, that while our country is over 300 times as large as Belgium, the latter has a population of 622 people to the square mile, while we have but a fraction over 23. Yet we will hear it argued that “Belgium carries 132-pound parcels by mail; why can not we?” or, “If Switzerland can carry 110 pound parcels, why not the United States?” entirely ignoring or forgetting the fact that our country is 250 times as large as Switzerland and has about one-tenth the population in a given area. Postal authorities have estimated that the average distance traveled by a piece of mail, including letters, papers, and parcels, is 40 miles in Great Britain, 42 miles in Germany, and 540 miles in the United States. Of course it is still less in the smaller countries of Europe. The admission of paper mail to this calculation greatly reduces the average, since newspapers circulate chiefly in the vicinity of the city of their publication. Parcels of merchandise or produce would certainly move much farther on an average, because they would chiefly flow to and from the great cities. If one is going to trade by mail, and the cost of delivery is the same, why not go to “headquarters,” which, in the popular mind, means one of the larger cities in the country?

The maximum parcel carried by the principal nations is as follows:

Pounds.

United States 4
Great Britain 11
Germany 110
France 22
Belgium 132
Switzerland 110
Italy 11
Austria 110

_Railroad Ownership_

Another factor of equal importance is the nature of ownership of the means of transportation. In this country all routes are privately owned and operated. The railroads--the chief means of transporting the mails--have been constructed for the most part by private capital, without the aid of the government, and the government, like individuals, must pay a rate for its service which will yield a fair return to the owners. The roads in the foreign countries used in this comparison are largely owned by the governments, in which case it matters little whether merchandise and produce move by mail or by freight. In some of the countries, as in France, the government guarantees the interest on the capital invested in the roads, and in return has its mails carried free or at a nominal rate.

The English writer above referred to says of the mail-carrying situation in Germany:

The German post has no occasion to enforce heavy rates. It can
impose its own terms on the railway companies. By law these
have to carry free all parcels under eleven pounds in weight.
Thus the mistake which has crippled the activity of the British
parcels post has been avoided.

Of course there can be no just comparison between a service carried on under such conditions and ours, for the basic conditions are so fundamentally dissimilar.

The matter of railroad ownership lies at the very foundation of this question. If this government owned the roads and operated them, it would matter little what went forward as mail and what under another designation. But that is not the case now and it is to be hoped never will be. From this standpoint, as well as from those hereinbefore mentioned, it is manifestly unfair to argue that because other countries do so and so in their mail service, therefore we should do the same.

It is significant that no country giving a large service of the kind under consideration undertakes to say that its receipts equal the cost of the service. I have not been able to find any report showing the cost of the parcels department. It is stated by some pretty high authority that the general belief among these nations is that they are rendering it at a loss. It is hard to reconcile that condition of the business with any idea of fairness. We may properly carry on the educational feature of the mail service, in part, out of the general revenue of the government; but who will say that we may fairly carry the individual’s produce to market or his merchandise home for him at public expense in whole or in part? Why should all the people be taxed to pay a postal deficit created by moving freight for the people at less than cost of service? Is there any reason why this branch of pure business should be conducted at public expense which would not justify the performance by the government of any other department of business?

End of Project Gutenberg's Selected Articles on the Parcels Post, by Various