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Show SUFFICE BIT OF IMS ROPEB. Usistant to Burleson Is Lake Visitor; Tells of Plans. PARCEL POST From Factories to sumer May Soon Be Delivered. )OStoffico department is not in said Daniel C. lioper, first postmaster general, when he i Suit Lake City yesterday. "I ;teudancc at the convention of s postmasters which was held t, and wanted to sec Salt Lake the Yellowstone park before . T haven't much limo, and I'Jiore will bo limited to a few iwould like to meet the Utah s, but work will tako up all of that I am here." per arrived over tho Oregon no at 5:10 o'clock yesterday . He is traveling alone. At st he was met by Assistant 3r A. P, Kesler and Postoffico .s L. A. McGee and I M. 1 pn. By these three he was tak-Jn tak-Jn ia. short spin about tho city, lU through the federal building, ctcrtained at luncheon at the hrcial club. He left over the JShort Line for Yellowstone park H.S o.'clock yesterday evening, and jSji u,tour of the park will go east, jig to slop nt Milwaukee and iron his way to Washington. ft seen in the postoffice yester-a yester-a jernoon, Mr. Eoper declared that c the intention of the department Vi out of politics, as the postof Qii tere established for the purpose frig all of the people all of the Discussing difierent phases of gr, Mr. Roper said: felp Workers. grder to aid the working pop-;&p pop-;&p in the postoliice department is . sting arrangements through ,ei1 arc el post to deliver at a iam expense goods direct from icfories to the consumer, n j iffpostal appropriation act for DTOi fiscal year contained a pro-.. pro-.. $iof appropriating $500,000 to jgr: Jended by the postmaster gen- Jid the secretary of agncul- ' 5 improving the condition of Ton which rural delivery serv-in serv-in operation. All expenditures VTT otme'nts from this appropria-i appropria-i I ire contingent on the state, or , Ejjthe local subdivisions there-Stribuling there-Stribuling double tho amount AY ii tile ty- the government for anv ENS project. At the outset ft " L DANIEL C. ROPER, first assistant postmaster general, who visited Salt Lake City-yesterday City-yesterday afternoon. . was planned to allot this appropriation appropria-tion in equal amounts among the several states and to undertake the work of improvement on such roads as might bo designated by the governors. gov-ernors. It subsequently developed, however, after months of almost fruitless correspondence and endeavor en-deavor that very few of the states were in a position to meet the requirements, re-quirements, mainly through lack of available funds, and most of the offers of co-operation wore then withdrawn. New Plan Approved. A new plan of operations was then approved by the postmaster general and the secretarj' of agriculture, agri-culture, which comprehended tho undertaking of co-operative highway high-way improvement in soctions of the country where different climatic, soil and topographic conditions prevail, pre-vail, and where, through the agency of well organized highway commissions commis-sions the states were in a position to raise immediately twice tho amount of tho govornment allotments. allot-ments. In Eeveral of the states, notably in Maine, Virginia, Mississippi, Missis-sippi, Ohio, Texas and Minnesota, the roads which it is proposed to improve or construct have been inspected in-spected by road engineers and all other requirements apparently having hav-ing been met, the government is about to proceed with the actual work of construction. The road usually selected is one about twenty-four miles in length, the average length of a rural delivery route, ancl various types of construction, I which necessarily vary largely in cost, have been agreed upon. This experimental work, which is the first of its kind oyer undertaken by our government, is now well under way and it is expected that the information in-formation thus secured will bo exceedingly ex-ceedingly valuable to congress as a basis on which to predicate future road legislation. A full report of their operations under this act of congress will bo made to congress by the postmaster general and the secretary of agriculture agri-culture some time this month. Rural Delivery Service. Rural delivery is an active and popular branch of the service and it is the policy of this administration administra-tion to extend it wherever it is desired de-sired and conditions suitable to its establishment are met. At the beginning be-ginning of tho present administration administra-tion it was found that considerably more than $1,000,000 of the appropriation appro-priation for rural delivery remained re-mained unexpended. While an immense im-mense number of cases involving petitions for new service and for changes in existing service were in the hands of inspectors, their reports re-ports weTO coming into the department depart-ment very slowly and there was no incentive to the extension of the service. The matter was taken promptly in hand and tho rocords show that the number of cases in the field for establishment of rural delivery has decreased from 852 on April 1 to 338 on July 15, and the number of cases involving changes in existing service from 1741 to 259. Since the beginning of this administration 236 routes have been established and 83 routes ordered or-dered established at future dates, a total of 319, while but 570 routes were established during the entire fiscal year 1912. Is Great Boon. The rural, delivery service has been a great boon to the rural population. pop-ulation. Before its establishment there were days and weeks when, bocauoo of stress of work on tho farm, stormy weather or other conditions, con-ditions, the farmer was unable to make a trip to the poatoffl.ee and had to do without mail, which, means that he was without knowledge knowl-edge of what was coing on in the world. The exchange of letters, receipt re-ceipt of newspapers and other pub-, lications, the transaction of money order and registry business and now tho parcel post all through the rural carrier has worked wonders in making, the farmers ' business more profitable and country life more attractive. The saving to the rural residents through the operation opera-tion of the rural delivery system, if it could be calculated, would run into the hundreds of millions of dollars. Much has been said about the cost to the government of the rural delivery de-livery service. The appropriation for its maintenance during the present fiscal yoar is 47,500,000, and but a small fraction of this amount will be croditod to the revenues reve-nues from rural delivery, but its value to the farming population is too(great to be measured by a comparison com-parison of receipts and expenditures expendi-tures and it will continue to jrrow and increase in uoafulne3B as a great public institution. |