_INTRODUCTION_[A]
_THE CHARACTER OF EXPRESS SERVICE_
The express companies of the United States are unique organisms, and
have no counterparts in any country outside of North America. In Europe,
their services are performed by the parcel-posts or by the railroads
themselves, often in conjunction with collecting and delivering
companies.
The express company in the United States collects from the shipper the
matter to be sent by express and delivers it to the consignee. The
charge for expressage may be either paid by shipper or collected from
the consignee. The transportation between different points is generally
furnished by the railroads, although steamship and stage lines are also
used to a slight extent; and the charge for this transportation, as well
as the charges for collection and delivery, are included within the one
fee levied by the express company. This one fee also automatically
includes insurance up to fifty dollars, there being additional fees for
additional insurance, to the amount of which there is practically no
limit. The goods shipped are sent in express cars attached to passenger
trains or on special express trains maintaining the speed of passenger
trains. Because of the speedy transportation thus afforded, merchandise
large enough to be sent as freight, such as machinery and live stock, is
often forwarded by express; but by far the greater part of express
traffic in normal times is composed of articles weighing less than one
hundred pounds. The larger companies conduct their activities in foreign
lands as well as in the United States; and in addition perform a number
of subsidiary activities not connected directly with the transportation
of merchandise.
[Footnote A: The author wishes to acknowledge his indebtedness to the
studies of Mr. Davied J. Lewis, the one man in official public life in
the United States during the last decade adequately to realize the need
for investigation and agitation in the field of a Government express
service.
B. B.
January 25, 1919.]
_ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT_
The development of the express business in the United States serves
perhaps as admirably as the development of any other single public
utility to hold up the mirror to the economic ideology which prevailed
among the American people up to August 1, 1914.
The origin of the express business in this country is usually assigned
to 1839, but the Davenport and Mason Company claims to trace its
beginnings back to 1836. In July of that year, a railroad was opened
between Boston and Taunton, Massachusetts, a distance of 36 miles; and
with its opening Charles Davenport and N. S. Mason delivered valuables
and small packages to customers at those two towns. Even before this
time, however, the picturesque and half-legendary stage-driver had often
called for, transported and delivered articles entrusted to him for
persons living along or near his route. Similar service had been
frequently rendered also by steamboat captains and even by the
conductors on the first railroads, often, if not usually, as an
unremunerated personal favor. A. L. Stimson, one of the early expressmen
and the author of the most comprehensive history of the express business
in the United States, states that the need for some form of
transportation by express was so intense before 1840 that a person could
hardly make a trip between two cities without being deluged with
requests to deliver parcels, and that these requests would come not only
from friends and acquaintances, but even from total strangers.