The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1902-06-03
FIVE THINGS YOUR CONGRESSMAN
SHOULD WORK FOB.

Farmer, perhaps the ablest farm paper
in the West, speaks of five things to
which the farmers of this country are
entitled and which "would give them
beyond question the opportunity of Sc
curing the maximum of the comforts
with the minimum of the d~iscomforts
of life" These five are rural tele-
phones, rural free delivery, parcel
post, postal currency, and postal saw
ings banks.
The Progressive Farmer is, it will
be remembered, a chronic advocate of
these things, but DIR. Wallace presents
such a neat summing up of their ad-
vantages that we make no apology for
reproducing herewith his editorial on
the subject. He says:
Rural telephone systems a now be
secured wherever farmers really feel
the need of them, and it will not be
long until they become general, if not
universal, thus doing away with much
of the isolation of the farmers life
and making him feel that he is an ac-
tive agent in all the work of the neigh
borhood, the county, the State, and
the world at large.
Free delivery has come to stay and
will be extended in a very few years to
all the more thickly settled portions
of the United States, bringing with it
as a corollary good roads. These two
improvements put five dollars per acre
additional value on all land thus
brought into direct connection with
the great throbbing world of human
life and cost less per annum than the
lowest interest on the increased value
of the land. Instead of being an ex-
pense, they are an actual increment of
value, the best improvements that can
be made upon the farm.
The farmers ought not to give Con-
gress any peace until they have a par
eel post and free delivery. By parcel
post, we mean the distribution by the
postal department of light merchan-
disc, say up to ten pounds weight and
of a certain defined bulk. European
countries nearly all have it. Canada
has a parcel post with the mother
country; the United States has a par
eel post system with Germany, and
why is it that we can not have the
same advantages among ourselves that
other nations enjoy? Parcel post
would enable the farmers wife to deal
directly with the merchants of the
cities, the farmer to sell butter, eggs,
and chickens directly to the city Gus
toners, and thus escape the extortion
of the express company and the TX
cessive profits of the local merchant.
Neither should the farming public
give their representatives in Congress
any peace until we have a restoration
of the old time postal currency in use
during the war. There is no sense in
the farmers being required to buy
drafts, money orders, express orders,
or even postal notes when the govern
ment without expense, in fact, with
great profit to itself, can furnish pos
tai currency for fractional parts of a
dollar and thus enable him to'be his
own banker in dealing with persons
at a distance to whom he owes frac-
tional parts of a dollar.
The last of the three greatly needed
reforms is postal savings banks. The
farming public is now the victim of
of all kinds of fraudulent schemes for
the purpose of gathering in his small
investments. The school teacher, the
preacher, and the man on a salary are
an even greater extent the victims
of the rapacity of these schemes. It
is very difficult now for the man with
small savings to know how to invest
them properly. The banks will give at
most but four per cent. interest, and
after he pays his taxes on these depos-
10 "0 CH0 Law" A0dulA00 H0 mas OAhJ
from two and one-half to three per
cent. for the use of his money. 1t is
this class of men which fall victims
to the companies who sell investment
bonds, mining stocks, oil we'll stocks,
and similar schemes, some of which
are frauds pure and simple and others
deceptive, all of which in the end will
prove disappointing. The government
might gather up the small savings of
these vast multitudes of people in
postal savings banks, giving a small
rate of interest, free of taxes, encour-