While concentrated opposition and partisan hurdles help to account for the delay of parcel post, they are insufficient as explanations.
Accordingly, many writings on the struggle for parcel post have stressed its origins in agrarian ideology.
The creation and expansion of parcel post would take almost exactly the form he presaged.
Agrarian organizations cared little if at all about postal efficiency - especially in cities - and both rural delivery and parcel post split rural communities.
As a policy vision, however, parcel post entered the national stage during the heady days of the agrarian depression after 1880.
The most persuasive argument against parcel post from the 1890s to 1910 emphasized the inability of the department to manage a parcel delivery system.
Certainly the concentrated opposition to parcel post had much to do with its delay.
While many of its member businesses stood to gain from the implicit subsidization of package delivery under parcel post, others did not.
