Allow the Post Office to Deliver Parcels and Break the Express Companies’ Monopoly, 1910

From the Thursday, June 9, 1910, issue of the Watauga Democrat

Whenever the bill for the parcels post comes up in Congress there is a great outcry about the country merchant. A parcels post it is said will ruin the country merchant. The country merchants are not making the outcry. It is the express companies. They overcharge the country merchants and oppress them to the full extent of their opportunities and then get behind the country merchants to protect their monopoly.

The parcels post would not hurt the country merchant. On the contrary, it would enable him to do an order business for his patrons and retail country products in the cities. A vast amount of food goes to waste on every farm at a time when people in the cities have to pay big prices for it. The cost of transportation and distribution is too great. A family in London makes an arrangement with a farmer to send a dozen fresh eggs by mail every morning or two. Boxes for this purpose are made and the cost of carrying a dozen eggs from any part of England to the front door of a house in London is 5 cents. The London family can buy a pound of fresh butter this way, and other articles of food can be obtained in the city by this quick and inexpensive method. Both the consumer and the farmer in this country would profit enormously by this plan.

In England the post office seems to be conducted for the convenience of the people. In the United States one of the main objects seems to be the emolument of the railroads and the protection of the express monopoly.—Baltimore Sun