The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1899-12-10

TEN in the world. The increase in learn
ing among the rural population has
widened greatly the field of readers
and writers. Then, more recently, the
Spanish American war has given the
popular Imagination great stimulus
and the interest Of the country people
in nation and international affairs has
been brcadend and c,ickened. The
volunteer soldier, returning to the iso-
Hated hamlet, wants to be informed
daily through the medium of the press
as TO the doings in the great world of
which he has but recently learned that
he is a part.
Farmers Have Been Sighted.
while of course urban free delivery
is one of the Indispensable factors in
modern city life, it might be urged on
good grounds that the farmer will be
saved much more labor and time
through the delivery of his mail to his
home than is the average dweller in
the city. A trip to the postoffice in the
city is little hardship. 1t is accom-
plished generally by few minutes
walk over good pavements. In the
country such a trip is a matter of the
loss of a half days time in many cases.
Often il is necessary to hitch up a
horse and travel many miles over bad
roads. 1t is little wonder, then. that
more correspondence under such con-
ditions than is absolutely necessary.
In times past the farmer has felt
somehow that he was hefng sighted by
the government. An occasional trip to
a fourth class pOstoffice is unfortunate
ly in too many cases the only con-
tact the farmer has with the govern
ment. With an emisSary of the
postoffice department calling on him
daily for the purpose of bringing him
the latest news of the world. of the
markets and from his friends. this feel
ing will inevitably die out. The farmer
will realize that it is good thing to
have some one bring him his mail every
day and save him a trip to the post
office on the morrow to mail his letters.
Spread Of Good Literature.
Again, there is the bigger and the
broader aspect of a thorough system
of rural free deliyery-the effect upon
the people who dwell in rural districts
and upon the nation at large of the
increased dissemination of good litera-
ture and the opportunity for receiving
and reading the daily newspaper. In
the long days and evenings of winter
the residents of our rural districts have
time and opportunity for wholesome
reading and study that the people who
dwell in cities are either too busy or
amuSements. pleasures duties and OBJ
legations which fall to the lot of the
city man do not distract his attention
With the facts presented to him on
the great public questions, which are
coming up in increasing numbers as the
years go by. through the Fledium Of his
daily paper and through the magazines
and other publications he has chance
TO think and. to develop the solid citi-
zenship and the hardy civic virtues
which are necessary TO keep America
at the forefront os the nations of the
world in all those things which go to
make a nation truly great"
The idea of free rural delivery is by
no means new in this country. 1t was
proposed and condemned in the. Fifty
third congress as scheme impossi-
BILE of execution. Later, in 1894. Postmas-
of an appropriation of $4,000 made to
test the feasibility of the scheme on
the ground that the proposed plan Of
rural free delivery. if adopted. would
result in an additional cost to the peo-
pie of $20000.0G0 the first year"
1t was net until 1886 that Postmaster
General William L. Wilson placed on
its feet an infant rural free delivery
system provided for by $4,000 appro-
priation from congress. He establish
ed some forty-four widely divergent
routes in twenty-nine different states.
This was the beginning from which the
present extensive system of expert
ments has grown.
The Idea Grows.
AS might have been anticipated from
any experiment of this nature many
of the routes proved useless to their