Arizona republican., 1908-11-13

ties the mail order houses send their packages by mail, paying 16 cents a pound, or will pay F cents, and may send a package weighing II pounds or less, but it is into these same rural communities that the de- partment is going to carry parcels
 weighing Il pounds for cents a pound, after the first pound, which costs , cents, and these packages must originate in the immediate vii cinity of the rural route upon which they are to be delivered, and what
 store keeper can not compete with the mail order house in prices when he can deliver his goods for one fifth the cost the mail order house
 must pay, 25 cents for an 11-pound package as against $1.32 charged by the mail order house? The country resident will with ease telephone his orders to the merchant, or drop him postal, and the store keeper will send his goods to his customers on the route for cents a pound, and they in turn can send butter, eggs produce of all kinds in small quanti-
 ties to the store for cents a pound, and the ease and rapidity with which commodities can be exchanged and delivered will greatly stimulate trade and increase consumption in all lines. The country store keeper should ap- preciate this fact, as well as the commercial traveller, and the jobber and wholesaler would benefit equally with the small merchant and the man in the country.
 Tn recent years the parcels post has become a prime necessity of civilization. The rapid advance in internal development of some Eu- ropean countries, particularly Ger many, has largely been due to the rapid and cheap internal transpOr- tation of merchandise through the pOstoffice departments. Hostility to it's extension in this country has been confined to interested parties, but this hostility has been a mo- toriously selfish and unpatriotic. It has come largely from monopolistic carrying companies which cling to their privilege of charging from two to ten times what the service is worth. These greedy monopolies have also stirred up the country store keepers to oppose the parcels post, and the latter class have. l believe, been led into a policy as short sighted as selfish. But granting that the argument of the express compa- nies were true-that the village me chants business in part were di verted to the mail order house, which is a fallacy as has been repeatedly proven, and as the policy advocated by the department would further prove-we still ought to have it, be- cause where one man would be in jured thousands would be greatly benefited. The profits of small group of individuals should not out weigh the welfare of the rest of the people.
 AS a matter of fact, this system would only be another factor along with the telephone, the rural de- livery of mail and better roads to develop rural industry, increase the country population, and create an in creased demand for goods throughout the territory served by the village store keeper.
 "The great social demand of today is for the improvement of the en-
 
 conference of charities in New York declared that the only effective moral uplift we can hope to have must begin in the country, and for years Presi- dent Roosevelt has urged improve ment of conditions in rural com munities. It is certainly not too much to say that the welfare and future of this country depends upon the logical and intelligent develop ment of country districts and such depends greatly upon the facilities for mutual communica tiOn and easy access to markets both to buy and sell, which the parcels post as proposed by the department is intended to supply. and the lack of which communication invariably deters the growth of a district and makes the inhabitants dissatisfied and restless. There is nothing that the government can do for the rural that should not be done, and I believe this system to be an immense advantage to this class of residents, as well as a step forward in reducing the general cost of in ternal transportation of merchandise to all our people.
 From a purely financial point of view, it is estimated that if only three packages at the maximum weight were forwarded each day on each rural route, the deficit of the postoffice department would be en- tirely wiped out, thus affording the for material reductions in other lines of postage, as the aim of the department is merely to be self sustaining and not to create revenue for the use of other branches of the government.
 POSTAL BANK.
 "The question of the establish ment of postal savings Repositories is of particular importance to this western country-much more so than to the more thickly populated dis tricts of the east where banking fla cilities are ample. West of the Rocky mountains the average dis tance from a postoffice to a bank of any kind is fifty-five miles, and it is easily seen what useful func- tion postal savings banks will per form in this country where every money order office will virtually be a bank, open from early morning until evening, where money can be deposited with the government with the whole credit of the government behind it. This money will not be subject to check but may be with in XUbOle in mart bV the