The Worthington advance. [volume] (Worthington, Minn.) 1874-1908, 1902-08-15
POSTAL FINANCES-RURAL
FREE DELIVERY. s.,


FREE DELIVERY.
A fact that speaks volumes for
the pl actical efficiency of the present
administration Of the postofice de-
partment is this thatthe excess of
expenditures over receipts for the
fiscal year 1902 is the smallest in
nineteen years, amounting to some
thing less than 81, 100000. Reform
ing the abuses of the second class
rate has produced gratifying results.
The prediction is SAT ely made that
Postln aster-General Payne will
show next June at the close of the
fiscal year 1908, not deficit but
perhaps al appreciable balance to
the good-and. this Notwithstanding
the continued extension of that
inestimable boon to the farming
population of the United States, free
deliveryrof mail in the rural dis
tricts. Indeed, it is asserted that
the extension of rural free delivery,
instead of tending to increase tho
deficit in the postof6ce accounts has
helped the good work of making
both ends meet
This result-the Very opposite of
what was expected-is easily ex-
planned. When rural free delivery
was first proposed it was strenuously
objected to ny the wacth dogs Of
the treasury, on the ground of
economy. They calculated the
immense additional expense which
would be put upon the department
by undertaking additional service
and exacting no additional compen-
sation. They overlooked the
economic law that improved service
attracts increased patronage, and
that what is done at loss on a small
scale may often be effected on a
large scale a profit. The follow
ing, from Washington letter to an
Eastern newspaper, contains some
facts of general notoriety together
with others not we'll known on the
subject for rural free delivery. It
will be read with interest:
The first experimental rural free
delivery routes we established more
than five yeas ago. but it has only
been within the past two or three
years that the seviceh as been suffici
emily extensive to indicate it's value.
Its effect on the postal revenues is
partly shown by the fact that during
the past fiscal year the rate of i'll
crease in postal revenues in rural
communities where the free delivery
was not in operation was about az
per cent, while in those rural
districts where it was in operation
the rate of increase was from 81 to
10 per cent. This does not by any
means represent the real increase
in revenue. Itaccounts only for the
increase which is due, to the increase
in the number of letters sent out
from the rural.:free delivery districts.
It takes no account of the increase
from the number of letters, circulars
and the additional mail matter Of
other kinds sent into the districts.
That increase helps to swell the
postal revenues from the large cities.
Many merchants and manufact-
urers have learned the value Of the
rural free delivery to their business,
and make it their business to get
lists of persons residing on various
routes and mail their circulars to
them. They find this much more
effective than sending circulars to
farmers addressed to country post
Offices. In the latter case they are
probably not taken from the post
Office for a week or more, and the
farmer is apt to throw them away
when he finds that they are
circulars. When they are sent by
the rural free delivery, they are
delivered at the farmers house and
go directly into the hands of the
women of his household, and it is
the women that the circulars are
generally intended for. The rural
free delivery has largely increased
the circulation of the daily news
papers among the farmers, and the
postofice department has been in
formed by an authority on the live
stock market that it's establishments
has been worth millions of dollars to
the raisers of live stock in the