The Kalispell bee. [volume] (Kalispell, Mont.) 1900-192?, 1901-01-24

Postmaster Barnard thinks the vi
cinity of Kalispell the best place in
Montana for the postofiice department
to experiment with the rural delivery,
which is SO popular in the eastern
states. petition is to be prepared
with the required number of sigma
lures ana sent to Montana's represen-
tatives at Washington at an early
day.
The circular issued by the depart
ment states that no route can be es-
tablished less than 20 to rs miles in
length or which serves less than 100
families. Three or four very desir-
able routes could be covered to great
advantage around Kalispell
A route about 40 miles IN length
crossing the river to Montford serv-
ing Creston, Sheldon and Holt, COM
ing back on the west side Of the riv-
er would furnish the right distance
and the roads nearly all the year are
very good. Another route with good
roads is the east side ofthe Saltwater
to about Is miles then crossing the
river and returning to Kalispell None
Of the families on this route have
postoffice service. Still another
could be started or the west side.
south of Ashley creek crossing the
creek at Redan and returning to Kali
ispell on the north side of the creek.
Rural free delivery has come 1T
last and come to stay says Pearson's.
Year by year the appropriations for
this service have been increased by
congress from $4,000 to $150,000,
then to $450,000, and lastly for last
fiscal year, to $1,75O,000. All this
has been brought about in response
to the irresistible demands of the
plain people, who, having once tasted
the service, demanded more. One year
ago only Idaho, Montana, Mississippi,
Utah and Wyoming were without
practical examples of the new service.
Each of these states, Mississippi and
Montana excepted, has since been
supplied with rural free delivery. Two
hundred and fifty new services, each
averaging 25 miles in length, ana
serving about 1000 persons are being
started every month. 1t is conf
IDENTIFY expected that the appropriation
for the rural delivery of mails will
not be less than $5,OOO,OOO for the
present year, and nearly every cent
of this expenditure will come back
into the treasury in the shape of in
creased postal receipts or reduced
cost of collateral postal service. Yet
strange to say, there is still much
public ignorance regarding this limo
walton in United States postal meth
DDS. 1t has been deemed such a
far-off thing, and so wholly imposs
bic with our present poor roads, that
when heard of, it has been taken
for granted that it was merely ar
experiment, not to be considered as
permanent, and never to be extended
over the whole country within tho
lifetime of any living American
That rural free delivery should b,
such novelty as to excite genera
feeling of distrust concerning it.
primary application, is all the more
remarkable when it is taken into con
slderation that the United States is
the only country among all those
comprising the international posta
union that fails to deliver the mail:
to rural addresses. England has has
an approximately perfect system fol
years and so have Belgium, France
and Switzerland. Yet when the Hon
Perry S. Smith first asked for an an
preparation of S15OOOO, with which I,
further experiment in the matter O
delivering mail daily to farmers, ar
eastern senator said to him:
You have acted unwisely in thi:
recommendation You will have these
farmers demanding a rural deliver,
OF mail and causing no end C.
trouble.
Mr.. Heath replied that if the farm
ers did so demand they would b,
strictly within their rights and poin,
ed out that during the past year tn,
farmers after supplying home de
mands sent abroad $s56.OOO,O 900 wort
OF farm products and that they bea
burden of taxation sufficient to Jus
tify the government in giving then
every facility which can be rendere
to citizen.
AS recently as 1898 the postmaster
general reported to congress that tn
Introduction of AMI system of rura