The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1902-02-05
HIS SPEECH.
Congressman Levers appeal for
Better Postal Service.

| Of Representatives on Jan. ~. IL ad-
v0cacy Of extending the rural free de-
livry services:
Mr.. Chairman. t:lc;c is one item in
this bill which must appeal very
strongly to every member Of this
House representing rural constitu-
ency. That portion Of the bill pur-
posing to furnish the means for put
ting into Immediate operation l,SG0
rural routes. already having the favor
able consideration Of the Department
and only awaiting the passage OF this
bill to go into effect, must challenge
the active support OF those members
whose people are now suffering from
the lack Of sufficient mail facilities to
meet the ordinary demands Of enlarg-
ed business and advanced CIVILIZATION.
Members, many Of whose constituents
must 20 from one to eight miles for
their mails, will be pardoned when
they appear oyeranXiouS to see this
item remain in the bill.
They know what country life means
and they know that nothing contrib
utes so much to any monotony in
cident to that life as our inability to
get a daily mail at our doors, as do
our friends in the towns and cities.
1t can hardly be possible that
majority Of the members OF this House
can appreciate the true situation asit
exists in our Southern States. where
the population is sparse, railroads not
overnumberous, and roads bad. 1t is
not strange that members represent
ing city districts, where the mail is
deliverd from three to nine times per
day, can hardly realize or believe the
assertion that many Of our people, do
ing large business and employing much
labor, must send from three and as
much as eight miles each day for their
mail, furnishig boy and conveyance,
or else do without it, trusting to luck
to give them good market when
they haul their produce into town.
Yet this statement is true, as every
Southern member will testify.
To these people, situated thus, a
daily mail means something. 1t is a
blessing. 1t means the introduc-
tion Of the world to the farmer, the
introduction of the farmer to the
world. It means each will better
know the other, more thoroughly
understand the mutually dependent
relation that each bear the other, and
more correctly comprehend their rights
and relative duties. It means
the farmer, for once in his life,
will be brought in direct touch
with some of the benefits CT the
Government, and we feel safe in
assuring his deepest appreciation, for
there is class more grateful for
benefit, even if it does come as a mat
ter of right and justice, than the Am
erican farmer. 1t means the broaden
| ing of his vision, the sharpening OF
his intellect by contact with other in
tellects; and his conceptions Of new
ideas and new resolves. This, and
much more, it means to the farmer to
have a mail at his door each day in the
week save Sunday. II our Southern
farms are becoming depopulated and
our farmers becoming townspeople,
! the causes are not hard to find. Bad
roads, low prices, and no postal facil-
tiles will drive man almost anywhere.
The tide of population in those sec
tions which have come under my OBJ
servation has been downward. Nice
farm cottages have been given up, and
the former occupants are now opera
tives in some nearby cotton mill, where
their earnings exceed in the total by
far their earnings on the farm, and,
| in addition to this, theya are not troub-
lied with miserable roads or the equal
/ ly miserable, in sufficient mail accom-
Lodations. In town he finds better
wages, better roads, and more mail,
and so to town be turns his steps, and
valuable farming lands are left to groan
and perish under the JOINT laziness and
mismanagement Of the OK and negro.
Without discussing the dangers and
evils arising out of concentrated popu-
lations-these being known to every
one-it is the duty Of this Congress,
to remove, as far as possible, every in
fuence conducting to that condition.
When we have fully understood the
situation as it is, the necessity for
the appropriation in this bill for
rural-delivery purposes becomes ap-
parent. There is no deficiency in the
general appropriation for rural free
delivery, and the reason this amount
is urged by this bill grows out Of the
fact that the full appropriation for
this fiscal year can not be reached in
time to put on the 1900 routes now
waiting to go into operation as the
general appropriation for this fiscal
year becomes available, and, unless
this bill gives the funds, these routes
will be put on in q desultory way from
now until July /, when the new ap-
preparation becomes available. The
friends Of free rural delivery, the pat
rons along these 1900 routes, who
now have the most limited mail facii
ties, and the demands Of business call
for this appropriation, and without
delay. We want the routes, and want
them at once. We have been waiting
all our lives for some recognition OF
our rights under the law, and now
that there is some little chance that
our waiting has not been in vain we
can not submit to hope deferred. 1t
| is estimated that it costs $3.50 every
125 families to get their mail under
the old arrangement, and that is a
very small estimate, in my Judgment.
Each route Of 1900 that goes into ef-
feet atonce viii serve, it isjudged, 1875
families. The exact saving in actual
money is easily calculated from these
figures, and who more richly deserves
this saving than our American farm
ers. who for six years has heard the
whispers OF great prosperity" but