Ottumwa semi-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1899-1903, 1903-01-15
RURAL DELIVERY GREAT HELP.
Makes Life on the Farm More Desir.
able.

4 I do not think that any development
of recent years, not including irriga-
ton, the opening of the vast tracts of
country by transcontinental railroads,
nor the extraordinary expansion of our
foreign commerce, has done one-half
so much for the farmer as rural free
delivery, says writer to the Omaha
Bee. The benefits of this service has
been two-fold-frst, social; second,
commercial.
place the social advantages first
of their: little community Then the
Just think of farm house five miles
or more away from the postoffice, with
nothing to relieve the monotony of the
daily life, with no newspapers, no
magazines and no correspondence, eX-
cept when the old man finds it conven-
lent to ride to town. Think also of
the necessary delay in work that this
ride to town involves, and the possible
temptations of the village grocery
store, in which the postoffice is posi-
bly, situated.
Bear also in mind the educating in,
flueflce upon him and his family of
daily newspapers received on the day
of their issue, and all the wholesome
magazines which together bring the
country people into active commune
cation with the affairs of the world
| All these can reach him at an expense
of dollar or two at the outset, and
without any further assessment. His
boys can grow up with knowledge OF
all that is going on in athletic sports
| and other matters in which boys take
interest. His girls can obtain the lat
est fashions and go to church equip
ped in modest costumes of city make
His wife hears the news of the world
| out and begins to feel that she is moi
alone. MARY Jane" out in the coun
| try, but that she knows something
| that she can talk about to her neigh
bors of the doings of people outside
I, of their own little community. Then the
boys, instead of each of them growing
up as "own brother to the OK with 8
hoe in his hand, begins to feel thai
they can make themselves factors il
the world. They learn from the news
papers that this country is becoming
practically the granary of Europe
that the crops they help to till viii
be transported to other countries
where the soil is insufficient to sup
port the population, and that they arr
moving a great world center of civil
ization, and are not merely clod-hop
pers upon their native farm land.
l believe that in no movement OF
modern times are there so great ele
ments of progress and improvement
\ as in rural free delivery. By bringins
4 the city into close communication
with the country you destroy the ten
dency of the farm boys to gravitate
\ to the cities; you give them all the in
| formation they could obtain in the
cities except such as it is not desirable
for them to acquire; you enlist in then
an active concurrence in political life
and whether they grow as democrats
or republicans they are likely to do sc
4 upon sound thinking basis born oil
/ information. That is what rural free
delivery is doing in the educational
sense.
In a commercial sense it is achieving
results even more apparent. Some
time ago a distinguished democratic
congressman from Missouri stated tc
the department that one of his constit
uents was about to ship 100 head OF
| fat stock to market, when, by the rura
carrier, he was informed that the mar
kets were glutted with fat stock at
that time and that the prices had