The Owosso times. (Owosso, Mich.) 1897-1926, 1901-02-01
RURAL FREE DELIvERY.

RURAL FREE DELIVERY.
Mail Carriers May Demand Increased
Salaries.
WASHINGTON, ID. c.. Jan. 80, 1901.
Representative Bingham rep. Penn, J
father of the house" and member of
the Committee on Postoffices and Post
Roads. calls attention to one effect of
the rural mail service which it may be
worth while to watch. Mr.. Bingham
says that the rural mail carriers now re-
ceive a maximum of only $500 year,
and out of this sum have to take care of
their horses. 1t is upon the basis of
this rate of compensation that all the
estimates for the extension of the SER
vice have been made. The city carriers
begin at 5000, and are promoted until
81 900 is reached which is the general
compensation Mr.. Bingham believes
that these salaries will eventually be
equalized after the experimental char
acter of the rural free delivery has
passed away and it has become fixed
institution. Then its members will join
the same protective association as the
city carriers, and together they will
work for common advancement. The
weakness hitherto of the city carriers,
association for increase of pay has been
| that they were able to WELD an influence
only upon members representing city
districts, whereas an association of both
classes of carriers combined would be
able to control city and country mem
bers alike.
The subject has evidently been talked
over In the Postotfice Committee, for
another of its members said: you
will live to see a solid phalanx of 40, 600
rural carriers and $4,000 city carriers
marching upon Congress for salary of
not less than $1,000 year, their pay
having been raised to $1,000 in the
mean time. Already the salary of the
rural carrier has been twice raised.
When the first experimental appropri-
/ alton was allowed it was said that
farmers sons and others in rural dis
tricts having spare horses and little
ready cash would like to do this work
at $500 year. This was the sum
originally paid. The earliest estimates
of the cost of making the system
universal were upon that basis. 1t was
raised to S4OO, however, as soon as the
system gained greater hold upon Con.
gress and the public. In the same way
it has now been put up to $500, which is
a larger income, according to the testi-
mony presented before this committee,
than that of the average merchant in
the rural districts of the South. Just
now this salary rests in the discretion
of the Postmaster General, for technical
ly the whole service is experimental;
but as soon as it comes before Congress
a formal decision will have to be
reached. While everybody knows that
it costs more to live in the city than in
the country, it is very hard to get the
country members to recognize this fact
in an appropriation bill; they want
equal rights for their constituents, and
the constituents themselves want it.
/ do not believe that Congress will
sustain any such disparity as now
exists, between $500 and $1,000,
especially when the lower paid man of
the two has to care for his horse"
A popularity of the rural delivery
system, which is now attracting so
much attention, is that it leaves villages
begins, under the law, in places of ten
thousand inhabitants, or $40, 600 worth
of gross annual receipts. The rural
carrier is for distinctly rural com
munities, where he can cover about
twenty miles in day, serving in that
distance not fewer than one hundred
families. 1t is obvious that between
these two there are many places where
people would still have to go to the
postoffice. One remedy proposed for
that is to lower the present free delivery
limit to communities of five thousand
Inhabitants and by the consolidation of
delivery could be secured for much Of
the more thickly settled part of the
country. This. too, would cost money.
As an illust' alton of the difficulty which
the Government finds In getting a
uniform salary to apply to all parts OF
the country, an expei fence In the
Worcester district of Massachusetts, is
In point. A route was there laid out
many months ago, but the Postoffice
Department has been unable to get any
one to take the job at $500. In South
/ Carolina men are running over each
other in pursuit of similar openings
In the West where forage Is cheap,
there Is no trouble In getting men. On
the Pacific coast, however, these places
! are seized with less alacrity, while Ia
! the blizzard region of the northwest
they are decidedly unpopular. Any
: large private business concern adjusts
| its salaries to the local needs of different
districts, but 1t seems to be impossible
for the government to do this.