Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1912-01-26
THE PARCELS POST.
Charles s. Barrett Says the Farmers
coud Get il if They Would.

Charles s. Barrett Says the Farmer,
coud Get it If They Would.
President Charles S. Barrett Of the
Farmers Union, has sent out the fol-
lowing statement with reference tc
the pending parcels post legislation:
THE main reason the American
farmer is not now and has not for some
years been enjoying the benefits Of q
general parcels post, Is his own lazi-
ness Added to that, perhaps, is his
practice of letting the politician give
him a toy to play with and distract
his attention when he begins to Sc
riously demand general parcels post
The same rule applies to other needed
Legislation.
| The hardest reforms or measures
to enact into law are those favored by
the overwhelming majority Of people
but for which this same majority will
not develop sufficient energy to get out
and make a fight. There are no rea-
sonable men in America opposed to q
general parcels post. except those few
who have, or think they have, a selfish
interest in defeating 1t or postponing
It, Yet we have the spectacle these
years Of representatives Of the farm
ers striving in vain to obtain the crys-
ltalliZing into legislation Of a measure
self-eyidently just and self evidently
popular.
1.-THE express companies have been
charged with maintaining rich and
powerful lobby against the parcels
post. Other interests have been plas-
tered with the same indictment, il
would not be surprising or unnatural
If either. or both, these accusations
were well-founded,
But all the express lobbies and all
the other lobbies in America couldn't
prevent the enactment Of a general
parcels post, II the American farmer
whose vote controls congress, brought
sufficient pressure to bear on his rep
lresentative and senator to get results
Under treaty agreements, we now
have general parcels post with con-
siderably more than half the civil
lied nations of the world. 1t Is possi-
BILE to mail an eleven-pound package
from San Francisco to London, to St
Petersburg, Vienna, Paris, Berlin,
Hong Kong, to the negroes in Port
au- Prince, Hayti, for IL cents pound
But 1t costs 16 cents pound to
mail the same package from your
county to the county seat adjoining
and even then you have to split the
bulk into three or four parcels.
The president has recommended q
parcels post on the rural free delivery
routes, with an investigation az to
the advisability of q general parcels
post. That Is progress. but 1t Is OF the
crab variety-very slow and tortuous
Just suppose you sit down right
now. write your representative and
senator, and make your support OF
him in the next election contingent
upon his supporting a general parcels
post bill. Talk about practical poll
tics That's practical politics with
| q vengeance. You must insist upon q
straight answer, though. and then you
must follow up the answer with let
ters prodding him until his vote is ac-
tually recorded for a general parcels
post. Be from Missouri. You would
everlastingly keep your eyes peeled to
keep yourself from being skinned IN
horse trade. You'd think 1t disgrace
to admit you had palmed off on you
a spawned or ind-galled nag. Ye,
you get skinned time after time In i'm.
portant political measures by the fel.
low you're paying to represent you and
attend to your business. Isn't 1t about
time you applied the same vigilance
| to politics you do, or ought to do to
horse trading and business generally?'
|