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Time For Reform _
Suppose a new store opened in your town, selling groceries, furniture. automobiles, or anything else. And suppose this sign appeared above the doof* “Owned knd Operated by the United States Government."
You’d be amazed—and you’d be shocked. For it obviously isn’t the government’s business to go into trade—and it is equally obv ious that . the private’ citizen would have a mighty tough time trying to meet this kind of competition. Yet the fact is that there are comparable cases in existence right'now.
Take, for instance, the parcel post service of the post office deparf, mrnr. It was established primarily to supply transportation facilities • in r^ir.tl areas, at a* time when there seemed to be a real need. But, like mo't governmental functions, parcel post has expanded and outgrown the original concept. It now transports a huge volume of purely commercial traffic between communities where privately operated services are more than adequate.
Then, to make a bad matter worse, it has usually operated at a deficit—and all the taxpayers, whether they ever use parcel post or not. ’ /rnyf-chip in to pay that deficit.
To quote a Hoover Commission report. "The private enterprise svste-n is the basis of the military strength of this Nation and of its unlleled
standard of Jiving." In the light of thftt. it is certainly not
rising that the Hixiver Commission—like other authoritative ! ,J r-—has strongly recommended sweeping reforms of the parcel post . svstem.
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