Goldsboro weekly argus. [volume] (Goldsboro, N.C.) 1885-1909, 1907-10-24
THE FUTURE OF The RURAL DE-
LIVERY.
Raleigh News and Observer.

The visit of Hon. P. V. De Graw,
Fourth Assistant Postmaster General,
was of peculiar interest owing to the
ia ct that he is in charge of the rural
free delivery service of the department.,
the most popular and probably the
most valuable function of any govern
mental department. Mr.. De Graw is a
personal genial gentleman, who has
risen to his present position through
merit and long service as an expert
later as reporter and manager of the
United Press, which fifteen years ago
supplied many papers throughout the
country with Geographic news service.
In this way, MIR. De Graw gained an
appreciation of the value of publicity
in the daily life of the people that pecu-
liarly fitted him to undertake the work
of the rural delivery and that added to
his enthusiasm in perfecting and ex-
tending 1t. Since his incumbency he
has become very popular with the de-
partment generally and the rural car
riers particularly, through his just and
intelligent administration of that great
work, and the thousands throughout
the country who are the beneficiaries
of the system owe to him more directly
they get from the service.
The establishment Of the rural de-
livery was, in many respects, the most
significant event of a generation in
American life. Its great work, Of
course, is that it tends to remove en-
barrassments and Inconvenience form
erly incident to country life. It tends
to make the farm more prOftab BILE and
the farmer more intelligent. 1t keeps
the CT dntry and the city knit together
in mutual interest and understanding
through daily communication. Farm
life has it's MONDAY daily paper, where
the city gets it in b early morning.
The farmer who has housed his crop is
the markets. More important, yet, the
family of those who live on the farm,
are touched with the force of current
events in the world, gain a larger I'M
d~erstanding and a more vital interest
in pressing problems of the day, are
inspired to reading and to education.
AS he great popular schoolmaster,
preacher and entertainer, the Rural
Delivery has no rival in benefit in the
Nations life.
Since Tbos. Watson secured the first
appropriation for the rural delivery, a
few years ago, the service has grown
from an experiment into a system that
embraces the entire country. Its pow
er for good and enlightenment is meal
culable. It takes forty thousand rural
carriers merely to deliverits daily mes
sages from the world to the farm. The
result,o course, is of the greatest value
D. E. Finley, the senior Democratic
member of the House Committee on
Postofices and Postroads, ofSouth Car
DINA, estimates that the mere increase
in country real estate values traceable
to the rural delivery is probably in the
neighborhood of $3.50, O0O, O00; and that,
in the time saved to farmers through
not having to go to town for the mails
amounts in dollars and cents to as
much as fifty or sixty million dollars a
year in addition. And the saving, is
of course, enhanced by increased pro-
duction and by more progressive meth
DDS induced by the educational and
news value of the service.
Mr.. De Graw and Superintendent
Spilman are both highly enthusiastic
over the work and unsparing of them
selves in efforts to extend and better it.
They look ahead to the time that any
thoughtful man can see when, with the
rural delivery perfected and improved
and the country further equipped with
telephones and good schools and good
roads, the ideal state of preference fol
country life will have arrived and wher
big cities will exist as the overflow
rather than as b drainage pools o
small, happy and intelligent farmers.
! Surrender of CORVALLIS.