Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 34, Number 76, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 May 1902 — OF HOOSIER ORIGIN [ARTICLE]

OF HOOSIER ORIGIN

An dndianian Made Hural Delivery a Permanent Part of the Postal Service. A THOUSAND ROUTES IN INDIANA Will Be in Operation Scon After the Beginning of the Next Fiscal Year— The. Service Has Enjoyed Exceptional Popularity in Indiana—lts Rapid Development. Before the close of the' coming summer more than 1,000 rural carriers will be distributing mail over Indiana routes,'equaling in aggregate length the circumference of the globe. It is a point of special interest to Indiahians that the father of this “most striking new development in the con tinned and rapid growth, of the postal service” was a Hoosier, Perry S. Heath, who as first assistant postmaster general, found the service in the earliest experimental stage and made it, before the close of his administration, a vital part of the work of the postofflce department. The appropriations made by congress in 1894, 1895 and 1896 for experimentation in a service originally suggested by Postmaster General Wanamaker, were rendered futile by the skepticism with which Postmasters General Bissell and Wilson regarded the innovation. With the administration of Mr. Gary and Mr. Heath a new attitude toward the plan for extending daily mail facilities to the farmer was assumed by the department. As a result nearly 10,000 routes are in operation at this time, while the liberal appropriations for the service made by the present Congress insure increased* activity in the establishment of routes after the beginning of the next fiscal year.

The Service in Indiana. From the beginning lndiaaa led in the number of routes, and is the piopeer state in the matter of rural free delivery. From Indianapolis is directed the work of extending the service in one-third of the states of the Union. In number of routes established Indiana has been in the front rank, not only because of the disposition of General Heath, in the earlier stages of the development of the service to favor his own state and the activity of her members of congress, but because Indiana is blessed with an unusually intelligent and progressive rural population. Indiana is a state of good roads, of schoolhouses, libraries, newspapers and magazines. Her people write and receive as many letters per capita 4s those of any other state in the Union. In the number and quality of her newspapers she surpasses most of her sister states. All these things ' have combined to make rural free delivery a popular institution in Indiana, as shown fry the number of petitions for additional service now pending in the division offices at Indianapolis. Extent of the Service. In the last report of the postmaster general are found some interesting Tacts concerning the rural service. -At

this time nearly 6,00P,000 persons living on farms are favored with daily mall delivery. More than one-fourth of the eligible territory and population are now covered by the service. It is estimated that within less than four years mail can be delivered at. every door in the United States except In the most inaccessible localities or in villages where the postoffice Is near at hand |o every resident. Applications are now on file in the department sufficient to more than double the extent of the service, and despite increased facilities for the investigation of routes the demand for the location of routes far surpasses the possibilities of immediate, favorable action. With the increased appropriation soon to become available, it is expected that the work of investigation will be pushed with unprecedented rapidity, and localities where the installation of the service has been long delayed, will soon be favored. The Farmer Favored. <>■ The argument that the farmer Is the least favored by legislation of any factor in American citizenship no longer holds good. In the matter of postal facilities he has been given during the past five years, more than it seemed at all probable he would receive within a generation—certainly more than he could have expected to obtain within that time had the postal policy prevailing In 1896 been continued. Rising value for the land the farmer owns, increased prices for all that he has to sell, growth in the market value of livestock on American farms alone duringlhe past five years sufficient to pay the national debt, a department of agriculture active beyond precedent In the development of American agricultural interests, and the widening of markets for products of American agriculture abroad, a discharge of mortgage indebtedness on American farms far greater than has ever before been known within a similar period, and, along with all this, the inauguration of a movement look- * ing to daily mails for practically every rural resident, would seem to Indicate, that the American farmer- is at last coming into his own.

< A South Carolina cotton factory has \ just started 40 tona.of cotton drilling for Manila, and a Georgia mill has sent 22 tons of cotton cloth to China and Japan. It is a gootf thing for Democratic leadership that the Southern states do not vote the tray they ship.