New Ulm review. (New Ulm, Brown County, Minn.) 1892-1961, 1911-09-27
A Farmers Argument Against thu
Parcels Post and Mail Order
Business.

= "A FARMERS ATSuuu0uS <A40AASs 80
Parcels Post and Mail Order
Business.
Continued from last weekly
Mary Chats nv wife) came to m
about Christmas time and said
"Tom, I wish you would put none!
order for S8 in this letter and mail
for me. l want q new hat" So
took few dozen eggs and what butter
We had to town and sold them at GU
rate to the country merchant to get the
%. 1t is true my wife made the butter
and thus in way was paying for the
hat, but she had not laid single egg,
and the overworked hens and roosters
we're victims of fragrant confidence
game. And when the hat came 1t was
a caution to snakes. The ribbons and
flowers were not in harmony with my
wife's complexion, though she was mad
enough when she saw it to turn almost
| any COlOf. IL ~ LOU SOIn0 AiSIo ~
home milliner it would have been re-
iected at once but the catalogue house
had the $500, and there was no help
for it. The whole family agreed that
it was money thrown away. Even the
dog barked his dissent when he saw
the thing and was frightened into q
noisy protest. OF course, this is only
one instance, but there are many
others even more distressing in their
results.
| know farmers who are always in
debt to their local merchants while
their cash has gone to the railroad for
freight bills and to the catalogue
houses for articles which do not rank
as either Injuries or necessaries, but
simply as leg-pullers to gull the un-
sophisticated. How would you ap-
preciate selling your stock and
products on credit and the purchaser
using his money to buy similar articles
in distant market for cash? Unless
we can stand together and refuse to
build up and develop this cormorant
which preys upon us we do not deserve
to have thriving towns for markets or
the advantages which always come
from being surrounded by q business
community. We have it in our power
to help ourselves or to help the other
fellow. So far the other fellow seems
to have the advantage while We
emulate the roll of chumps with
brilliant success.
noticed an article in the Mail Bag
on the second, by Mr.. D. Morgan, on
parcels post. l think if he bad his
way Uncle Sam would serve US
farmers our breakfast in bed. He
would throw so much work on Uncle
Sans shoulders that we would have
to take care Of the old gentleman in
an insane asylum. I think all we
should ask of Uncle Sam is to see that
the cards are not stacked and then
play the game ourselves. We do not
own our telephone and railroads as
he says they do in England, so we
would have to let out government con-
tracts for hauling the farm produce.
I think l read in the newspaper, not
long ago, that that was very expensive.
The article said that the contractors
of the Twin Cities got good price for
doing the job and little extra for the
officer that let them have the job.
I will never forget the Star Route
contracts that we're brougt up during
the Cleveland-Blaine campaign, where
it was proved that the government lost
several million dollars. It has beer
demonstrated many times that mar
can do a job himself for one-half wha
it will cost the government to do thu
same amount of work. I believe
would get more out of my potatoes b,
hauling them to town and selling then
on the open m arket, as I would have
chance to let several people bid or
them, than would if mailed them tc
party who paid twenty-five cents te
telephone me the offer for them. If
use the telephone and railroad very
much would not raise enough on thu
farm to pay the bills.
Mr.. Morgan says if we could senc
our eggs to town by mail it would
solve the cold storage problem. No
at all, the cold storage people woult
pay more than he would for eggs