The Washburn times. [volume] (Washburn, Wis.) 1896-1976, 1900-05-02
Rural Free Delivery

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"The credit of rural free delivery be-
longs almost exclusively to the McKin-
ley administration" said Hon. Perry s..
Heath, First Assistant Postmaster Gen
eral. "A movement to broaden the free
delivery of the mails was begun by
Postmaster General Wanamaker under
the administration of Gen. Harrison. 1t
took the form of village free delivery,
and extended, as an experiment, the
plan or delivering mails by carriers,
as existing in cities OF 10000 popula-
ton or $4,000 gross postal receipts, to
forty or fifty selected villages of less
population and smaller postal receipts.
The experiment was a success as far
as 1T went, but the succeeding Demo
cratic administration, fearing it's effect
in poularizing Republican principles
and disseminating Republican litera
ture, ordered it dropped.
1T was a Republican administration
that conceived and executed the idea
Of Frightening the home OF the farm
err, educating his children, increasing
thN 'piuC VI lio IttllNi, luO
improvement of his roads, and giving
him ready access to a market for his
crops by carrying the United States
mails to him on his farm.
''Snce the 4th Of March, 1897, nearly
100000 rural homes in all parts Of the
United States have been brought into
close touch with the rest of the world
by daily visit Of the rural postman.
1.-THE initiation of some form OF free
delivery which should reach the here
tofore isolated rural communities, was
forced upon the last administration in
it's closing year by Congress, responsive
to the wishes of the people. Forty-four
rural experiments We're reluctantly
started, some of them in communities
which neither asked nor appreciated
the service 1t was difficult to find
such localities, but some were found,
and the service was started there, ap-
parently with the purpose of bringing
rural free delivery into disrepute and
demonstrating it's impracticability.
ut is possible this result might have
been achieved in time, but under the
vivifying influence Of Republican pos
tai policy, rural free delivery at once
sprung into vigorous life. The appro-
priatiOns were increased by Congress
from $4,000 the first year to $4,000
the second year, and $450000 the third
year. On the I'd of April, 1900, close
upon 1000 rural routes had been eStab-
lished, some Of them serving as many
as twelve or fifteen hundred people
daily, the average being $50 persons to
a route. Not one State which has asked
for the service has been left unrepre-
scented. The good work is still going
on. Nothing short of a revolution can
now check it.
''Three years experience has shown
that the rural free delivery service is
not Unfortunately expensive. 1t costs
very little more than the old colonial
style of postal service, which it super
sedes, and it invariably brings large
and compensating increase in the
amount of the mail matter handled, and
consequently in the amount Of postal
receipts turned into the treasury. But
even if it does cost more than the ObsO-
lete old plan, are not the farmers en-
titled to some Of the benefits of the
government which they help so LIBERAL
ly to support by their taxation?
''The country can we'll afford to con-
tinue and extend a system which
makes better citizens, happier homes,
and contributes so largely to the men
tall moral and material advancement
Of the plain people"