Off the Publisher’s Desk 1-3-24

How is your mail service?

Over the past couple of years our office has fielded several calls weekly from our good subscribers that question us; “Where is my paper?” We have received reports that subscribers that have been accustomed to receiving the copy of this newspaper the day after publication are now getting it two days late and some report that two issues arrive the same day.

Most of these delays are to subscribers who are outside of the 540 and 547 Zip Codes.

Back in early 2021 the Wall Street Journal reported about the Post Office’s new plan was to, …“receive more packages, higher prices and a longer window to deliver first class mail underpin the U. S. Postal Service plan over the next decade to overhaul the agency’s operation and avoid more then $100 billion in projected losses.”

Last week as I was traveling on a local road a postal delivery person was retrieving packages from the back of her vehicle and I noticed several packages that I thought were usually delivered by some private delivery company. It made me wonder if the post office cut their rates to get that business.

So if you are getting your mail later than what you have become accustom to, that appears to be one of the post offices goals.

Over the past two years the post office has increased rates five times under what they call “Delivering for America” and I can attest to that as rates for mailing this newspaper have also gone up and that will be reflected in the subscription rates.

Some time this month the cost of a first class stamp will increase again from 66 cents to 68 cents, so everyone stock up at the lower rate.

A history of the post office and “Rural Free Delivery” (RFD) noted, “in 1890, nearly 41 million people, 65 percent of the American population, lived in rural areas. City dwellers had enjoyed free home delivery since 1863, rural citizens had to pick up their mail at the Post Office. 

“John Wanamaker, who served as Postmaster General from 1889 to 1893 thought it made more sense for one person to deliver mail than for 50 people to ride into town to collect their mail. … Rural people needed the important information provided by newspapers yet did not always have time to walk or ride to the Post Office. Young people might stay on the farm if correspondence and magazines eased their isolation.”

I was told that newspapers were delivered free of postage charges during the first few years of the RFD.

“The increase in the number of rural routes led to a decrease in the number of small Post Offices. In 1901, the Post Office Department operated the largest number of Post Offices in American history, 76,945. The next year, there were 1,000 fewer, and the number continued to decline.

In 1892 a bill was introduced for RFD but the House balked at the $6 million price tag and it was not until 1896 that RFD service began in Charles Town, Halltown, and Uvilla in West Virginia. Within a year, 44 routes were operating in 29 states. RFD became a permanent service on July 1, 1902 and the word “free” was dropped in 1906.”

Thanks for reading!     ~Carlton