The Black Hills union and western stock review. [volume] (Rapid City, S.D.) 1904-19??, 1907-11-15
OPINIONS WANTED
On PARCELS POST
BY THE UNITED
STATES POSTMASTER
GENERAL.
The Opinion of the Rapid City Busi-
ness Mems Club is Wanted by
Postmaster General.

United States Postmaster General
,aeyer has announced that at the
coming session of congress he will
5ecommend the passage of parcels
post bill In order to secure an
idea of the opinion of the business
m@n Of the nation on the subject,
The postmaster general has addressed
. letter OF inquiry to the secretary of
every business mems organization in
the country. Granville Jones, secre-
tary OF the Rapid City Business
Mems Club, recently received one of
those letters, and not wishing to
assume the responsibility of answer
.ng the same he has addressed the
'ollowing open letter to the business
men of Rapid City:
Rapid City, S. d., Nov. 13, 1907.
The office of the Business Mems
Club is in receipt of a communica-
ton from United States Postmaster
General Geo. l.. Won Meyer, outlin-
ing recommendation which he in
tends to make to the forthcoming
session Of congress with reference
to the parcels post matter, and ask
ing an expression from the club as
10 our opinion of the merits or de-
merits of the proposed law. The
secretary cannot, Of course, assume
'to speak for the club or our business
men in general and hence submits
the proposition through the Journal,
asking that adj interested parties
drop a card to the secretary express
ing their opinion. AS is we'll known,
parcels can now be sent by mail, but
the rate is 1G cents per pound, and
the weight limited to four pounds.
AS we understand the postmaster
general, he intends to propose
change that will reduce the rate to
IL cents and raise the weight limit
to eleven pounds. This is the rate
and amount used in doing business
with foreign countries, and the law
will be general. In addition to this,
he proposes to have the law so
amended that on all rural free de-
livery routes the rate shall be 5
cents for the first pound and 2 cents
for each additional pound up to
eleven pounds. This would only ap-
ply to packages sent from the dis
tributing Office of each route, or to
packages sent from one residence to
another in the same district. In
Elk creek was to order package by
mail from Rapid City, supposing that
to be the point from which his rural
delivery route started, it would cost
him 25 cents for eleven pounds, while
If he ordered 1t from any other point
it would cost him 12 cents per
pound, or $1.33 for eleven pounds.
This discrimination in the rate is
designed to protect the retail mer-
chant against the mail order houses.
OF course, as we do not have the
rural free delivery routes as yet, the
question Is not so interesting to us,
but 1t is only question Of time when
we will have them. The policy OF
the department is to establish routes
where as many as eighty families in
the county can be reached by travel
ing twenty-five miles on round
trip. 1t will not be long until a
route twelve miles down Rapid creek
and back up Box Elder will reach
the required number of homes. At
any rate, the secretary of the club
would like to hear an expression of
opinion on this subject, that the
same may be transmitted to the
postmaster general.
Respectfully,
"Granville Jones'"