The Bamberg herald. [volume] (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, 1915-03-18
BURLESON AND FREE DELIVERY.
Postmaster General Denies Desire to
Curtail Service.

not want to curtail the free delivery
service. Stories have been publish
ed all over the country to the effect
that he wants to do away with weak
routes and make the patrons thereof
go further for their mails. So alarm
ing did the reports finally become
that Representative Lever, Of South
Carolina, wrote to find out about the
matter.
Mr.. Lever wrote as follows:
Il have been thinking great deal
about the matter of our conversation
the other day relative to your policy
in regard to the rural delivery SER
vice in the country. The more l
think about it the more fully con-
vinced l become that if you put into
effect the plan you have in mind of
curtailing rural delivery service, you
will not only work serious injury
to the people-but make it impossi-
Bile for the Democratic party to hope
to win the next presidential election.
THE postal service was never in
| tended to be a profit making con-
cern. 1t was established for the con-
venience and education of the peo-
pie: and you can as little afford to
curtail that service as Secretary
Houston can to curtail the construc-
tive work of the department Of ag-
riculture. l am writing this as your
friend, and as a friend of the ad-
ministration from President Wilson
down to the humblest member of it.
l earnestly beg you, and l know l am
voicing the sentiment of every DEM
ocratic member in congress, not to
put into operation any plan by which
rural delivery service will be hurt.
The country people are entitled to
as good postal service as the city
people, and we must do nothing that
will show any discrimination against
them"
Nlr. Burleson's reply is as follows:
This is to acknowledge receipt OF
YOUR letter of February 6, in relation
to the rural service, which l have
carefully read.
Il fully concur with you in the
view that the postal service should
not and must not, be conducted as
a profit making concern and that
the rural delivery of mail was estab-
ished for the convenience and edu-
cation of the people, So fixed am
in this conviction that it shall be my
policy 20 increase and extend, instead
of curtail, this very important postal
facility so that, not less, but MORE
= of the American people shall be fur
nished the advantages which it af-
fords. Coordinate, however, with
this policy good administration de-
mands that satisfactory postal facili-:
ties be given to the people at the
least possible expenditure of public
funds.
1T is sincerely regretted that in
times past this desirable service was
not always established or maintained
in well populated communities where
it could be utilized for the conven-
ience and education of the people,
and that the expenditure of thou
sands of dollars for unusual or un-
necessary mail facilities has inter-
fered with the proper application OF
available resources for the extension
of this service Therefore, many OF
our people cannot be provided with
these means of convenience and edu-
cation that are more than literally
supplied to others.
Then, again, there are other In
eoualities. For example: In COM
munities where road conditions and
population are similar, the mail ia
cilities afforded should be equal.
There are certain sections of the
country where one community will
have a route affording tri-weekly
services and another where the con-
ditions are identically the same, a
route providing daily service. Now,
either the community with the trl-
weekly service is entitled to daily
service or the community with the daily
service is entitled to only the trl-
weekly service. In other words, the
service should be established with
regard to the actual needs of the
patrons of the particular route and
should be equitably distributed be-
tween communities where the condl-
tions and requirements are identical'
" the same. The logic and justice
of this is apparent both in the In
terest of good administration and
fairness to the patrons of the postal
service. That some communities
should have more service than is es'
sential and others less or none at all