The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1901-06-28
RURAL FREE DELIVERY.
It Does Not Interfere With as Many Coun.
try POstOfflces as Some Suppose

try Postoffces as Some Suppose
Washington correspondence Mime
apolis Journal:
Some absurd notions have acquired
currency in the country at large about
the changes which the establishment
of rural free delivery has wrought and
is still causing in the general organ
ization Of the postal service. Some
body started the report, and it has
gone the rounds most industriously,
that for each rural free delivery route
established ten fourth class postoffices
were wiped out of existence. As has
been stated before, it is not the pur-
pose of the department to establish
any route less than twenty to twenty
five miles long The average, taking
the country through, would be about
twenty miles, the endurance of
the carriers horses have to be taken
into consideration. If ten offices had
to be abolished because they lay along
side of a twenty-five mile route, it
would follow that the country was dot
ted with postoffices only two and half
miles apart on the average. Such a
supposition answers itself from COM
mon knowledge. But the fact is that,
SO far from abolishing ten Offices, the
average route abolishes not more than
one. Here and there petty office is
found which never had any right to
exist and whose work can be more
than made good by the changed sys-
tenn
The real revolution wrought by the
rural free delivery is the star routes
Where formerly the government was a
party to serious economic waste, it
is now sparing the repeated transversal
of the same ground by different persons
to accomplish the same end. To illus
trate. A railroad town which we may
call A, is the distributiong point for
three hamlets, B. G and D, connected
by one we'll kept turnpike twenty-five
miles long. The bulk of the popula-
tion who patronize the three offices
live along this turnpike. Under the
old system a star route contractor
drove a stage from A over the twenty
five miles of road, passing the homes
of all these persons, but delivering his
mail, only in closed pouches, at B, c
and D.
There the respective postmasters
opened the pouches and assorted the
letters and other matter, and the
farmers who lived along the turnpike
hitched up their horses once a day and
journeyed to the Office each patronizing
taking an hour or two of his time in
the busy season to make this trip,
though going over precisely the same
ground as the contractor. Under the
new regime the carrier takes his open
mail sack full of matter for distribu-
tion along his route, saving every one
of these patrons the trouble of harness
/ ing and the time of trip from one
| to three miles and return. But he takes
also closed pouches for delivery at the
several postoffices, containing mail ad-
dressed to persons who do not live
along the turnpike, but in the back
country not reached by his route.
These people have to have a postofice
as heretofore, and they will continue
to make their journeys daily, or SO
many times a week, until the rural
free delivery service attains a stage of
development where it covers the entire
county and not simply that which is
convenient of access.
About the only effect the new system
is likely--to have, therefore, upon the
country postofices, is to...diminish the
volume of their. business and thus
keep them longer out of the next
higher class. By slow degrees the
shrinkage is liable to reach a point
where it will no longer pay the post
master, the government or the people
of the neighborhood to continue GER
tain offices in existence, and they will
be extinguished. But, on the other
hand, improved mail facilities are
found to have marked effect upon
the life and business of a. small COM
munity, and what the postmaster loses
in the daily swarming of farmers at
his store, it is believed will be COM
pensated in the increased prosperity of
the neighborhood.