Postal Express As A Solution Of The Parcels Post And High Cost Of Living Problems

Excerpt from Postal Express as a Solution of the Parcels, Post and High Cost of Living Problems: An Adequate Express Service, Relief to Consumes and Shippers by a Reduction of Changes and Extension of Service to the Country Through Rural Delivery, a Study in the Economics of the Transport of Small Shipments Important elements of an adequate system: Collect and delivery, cost. Express contracts in re railway pay. Purchasing the contracts, etc. Public-service motive. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

The pamphlet is particularly timely in these days when the nation is endeavoring to formulate its policy regarding the future control of the express business. It is, moreover, the first concise and scholarly analysis of the express service in America that has appeared in recent years and is a distinct contribution to the literature on the subject. The author herein presents a vivid, bird's-eye view of the development of the express companies from the days of the stage-driver up to the present time. He portrays the rapid consolidation of express systems, their integration with the great railroads, their remarkable enlargement of activities, the growing competition of the parcel post with the private express systems and the increasing governmental regulation over this utility. This survey is followed by an analysis of the present status of the express companies, and a discussion of express profits. The relative service rendered by express and parcel-post is then dealt with, and the reader is treated to an illuminating discussion of the probable savings accruing from government ownership and management of the express industry, particularly as a result of consolidation of equipment, agencies, offices, etc.

"During the first century of the republic, two modes of communication at a distance - telecommunications - were etched into lands inhabited by Native Americans; contested by rival European powers; and occupied by the United States. Both telecommunications systems supported this expanding US territorial empire but, despite this overarching commonality, they branched apart in other ways. One network was owned by the state and the other by capital, and the two branches of the telecommunications system developed disparate rate structures, patterns of access, and social and institutional relationships. During the decades after the Civil War their divergence became politically charged. Would one model prevail over the other? Going forward, would it be the government Post Office or the corporate telegraph that set the terms of telecommunications development? The Post Office was the nation's originating system for communication at a distance. Both before and long after it was elevated to a cabinet department in 1829, furthermore, the Post Office was by far the largest unit of the central state. In 1831, the nation's 8700 postmasters comprised three-quarters of federal civilian employment; half a century later (excluding temporary postal employees and ordinary and railway mail clerks and letter carriers), some 50,000 postmasters accounted for perhaps one-third of all civilian employees in the executive branch. Though its relative weight as a government employer diminished after this, its workforce continued to swell. During the last two antebellum decades, meanwhile, an emergent technology - the electrical telegraph - was passed quickly from the federal government to private capital. The two systems' institutional identities immediately began to contrast in other ways"--

February issue includes Appendix entitled Directory of United States Government periodicals and subscription publications; September issue includes List of depository libraries; June and December issues include semiannual index