The Republican journal., 1919-10-23

received the muniticent salary of thirty =
six cents Bath, Biddeford and henne-
bunk were added to the Maine post offices
in 1891
The evolution of the postal service is
the interesting story of improved trans
portaton and business expansion. The
post rider of colonial days gave way to
the stage coach and the stage coach,
aft stubborn competition, surrendered
to the trains; then followed the railway
post office and the different systems of
individual delivery.
No great postal advance has been pro-
NOTED that did not encounter violent OPP
position both in Congress and outside,
and it has often been necessary to launch
improvements under the guise of expert
ments, Even when Colonial postal ser
vice was taken over and the new one
instituted, authority was found under the
dubious title, can Act for the temporary
establishment of post office" But the
experiments of today are the settled poll
cieS of tomorrow. The speeches in Con-
gress in condemnation of many of our
indispensable postal adjuncts are as
amusing today as the lurid forecasts of
some of our revolutionary fathers in their
resistance to the adoption of the American
Constitution. But great postal reforms
have finally succeeded and will continue
to succeed as public demand and changed
conditions suggest their necessity.
Repeated calls for money order sys-
TEN fell upon Indifferent ears in Congress
until the public, incensed over the dis
tressing losses suffered through soldiers
of the Civil war trying to send money
home, spoke in no uncertain terms. A
system was author zed in 1864, and on
November LIST of that year Augusta, Ban
gor, Eastport and Portland offered the
first money order facilities in Maine.
Rural free delivery was urged also for
years before authority for the service
was granted. The alarming decline in
rural life fastened the legislation. The
boys and girls were flocking to the cities,
farms were being abandoned, production
was falling off and the "old folks were
left behind almost as caretakers among
the scenes of former thrift and content
ment. How we'll remember the alarm
felt in many quarters as the Government
was about to embark in reckless extrava-
gance Rural free delivery started as an
experiment. On October 1, 1896, three
rural routes were installed in West Vir.
GINA by Postmaster General William l..
Wilson. Maine was alive to her oppor-
tunity, and on November %, 1896, three
Maine routes were authorized; one from
Gorham with John E. Manning as carri-
er, another from Naples, with Benjamin
F. GRAHAM as carrier, and the third from
Sebago Lake with Gilbert E. Moulton as
carrier. The service spread ike wild fire,
and miserly experimental appropriations
quickly gave place to generous allow
ances. Additional routes followed closely
and today 48O rural free delivery carriers
are delivering mail at the gate of more
than $50, 900 patrons in our State. The
daily newspaper was useless to the far
mer before rural free delivery. Now 1t
is necessity Thousands of our Maine
farmers get the latest market quotations
before dinner and are thoroughly inform
ed on the big news of the day. Even
Babe Ruth's latest proves at the bat
does not escape their argus eyes. What
wonderful relief rural delivery has
brought to the former isolation of farm
life! Approximately 43, 600 rural routes
are il operation in the United States,
supplying over one-fourth of our en- tire
population with daily mail. Such an en-
terprise almost defies description. If the
daily mileage of rural carriers were re-
duced to line, it would extend 1927, ITO
miles, distance equal to forty five times
the circumference of the earth. Rural
free delivery has been the great force in
farm life betterment; it has gone much
farther than speeding up the mails. In
almost inevitable sequence # has aroused
the public to the advantages Of good
roads, and good roads make the farmer
and the consumer neighbors.
But a. ieok out over prosperous rural
Maine, with her mail carriers, telephones
and improved highways, my mind runs
back to the old New Engla neighbor-
hood whose individuality-we must adj
mit-has faded as modern agencies have
made men independent. 1t seems to me
that out of the toll and sacrifice and de-
pendence of those days sprang a COM
radeship, the old neighborhood spirit,
that beautifully displayed the real New
England heart and life. Who among you
will write the story of the old New Eng
land neighborhood before the landmarks
disappear and while the sweetness yet
remalnsf
After forty years OF desutory effort,
Postal Savings gained recognition in the
Act of June %, 1910 But the force that
brought postal savings to the front and
kept it there until Congress acted was
the panic of 1907, when big financial in
stitutions trembled or fell and gold ran
into hiding. Eight years of practical OPP
Grafton has, | hope, fulfilled the prophe-
cies of it's advocates. Certainly the ap-
prehensions of it's opponents have been
dissipated. Six hundred thousand de-
positors are happy in the knowledge that
Uncle Sam holds Sl65, 000,000 of their
savings and will pay back every dollar
on demand But the real success of
postal savings cannot be measured in fig
ures. 1t reaches much further, as you
will see, when tell you that 90 per cent
of those savings stand in the names of
people born under another flag who
through groundIess fear will trust their
savings to the Government and the Gov
eminent alone. And | know, in these
restless and anxious days, that the Pos
tai Savings System is a wonderfully
comforting and steadying influence.
Postal savings promote thrift and econo-
my and thrift and economy lead from the
sweatshop to the school, from the alley
to the home. The banks are the
churches of saving; postal savings the
Salvation Army of thrift On January
8, 1911, the postmaster at Rumford open
ed the first postal savings bank in Maine,
4 Parcel post and postal savings ran to-
gether for time in their quest for Con-
gressional sanction. l remember that IN