The postal contract meant more to the town overall than most of them realized. I knew the stipulations regarding newspaper delivery and I fully meant to take advantage of that rule. I wanted our newspaper in every fort, town, village and burg up and down the Missouri river. There had been an old wooden printing press in one of those lots I bought (or sold myself) at auction. I hadn’t thought much of it besides that it came with a bunch of cheap newsprint and ink; I thought those two would be useful and bid the entire lot based on that. It was a cheap purchase either way.
As part of this gambit I would be spinning up a local newspaper. This would be one of my private businesses: every smart dictator owned the news media outright, and I would get to decide which lies we told. I had some of the equipment; now I just need the right team to run it. I didn’t plan actually on being a dictator. The idea just seemed like too much work. I thought the idea of being the revered, old wise man of Rulo sounded a hell of a lot better, and less stressful to boot. Just imagine it: you would be sitting in your comfy rocking chair while the younger folk with ‘responsivities’ showed up with their current problem. You send them on a simple quest: good warm supper and excellent whiskey. When they return with their offering you reward them with sage advice which is actually more questions than answers. They leave to study your sage advice while you enjoy your warm meal and excellent bourbon. That is the life for me.
Reflecting on these and other thoughts that I’d had earlier on my long journey here alone, I turned to the committee and started. I began the conversation on an upbeat note.
“First of all, after reviewing it carefully, I’ve decided to accept the offered contract to provide mail delivery service for the U.S. Postal Service, or whatever they’re calling it these days. We will vote on this after I’ve delivered my entire proposal. This contract offers us an opportunity for growth, a whole lot of growth.”
“To do this we will leverage the interest we have in the companies we’ve created here. More importantly we will grow these companies and extend their reach, allowing us to market to everyone from St. Louis to Fort Atkinson.”
I expanded the idea from there, “We currently have one steamboat. It’s small, but fairly fast by comparison: perfect for mail delivery. We also have a lead on more steam motors down in New Orleans, so we can create additional fast boats. I will invest a part of my rapidly diminishing treasure hoard to create more boats. Our engineers are looking at the designs trying to figure out easy changes to increase reliability and power output; that’s about the best we can hope for with our current situation.”
“With every delivery run we will deliver newspapers, as stipulated in the contract. Included will be the ‘Missouri Valley News’ which I am founding, starting tomorrow. That newspaper will offer up the freshest regional news…but also advertising. Rulo advertising. Everything we can make or sell will be in there – shoes, for example. Every little village or settlement from Atkinson to St. Louis will be buying Rulo goods because we can and will deliver, and deliver quickly.”
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At this I saw the dawn of understanding on my fellow Twitchers’ faces; we could become the market makers in any product we could produce ourselves or resell from distant producers. We could also generate a 'second hand goods’ market to purchase, refurbish and resell anything someone no longer needed. The Amazon.com of the 1820s, if you will.
“As part of this effort we will also print and distribute catalogs to allow mail order service for other items. We want to get that catalog in the hands of every person from St. Louis to the riverhead. This will require us to expand our trade houses down the river to the gulf itself. It will take some time and investment capital, but we have plenty of both. This new company will be called ‘The Missouri Valley Trade Emporium’. The Emporium will have to be separate from Rulo Trade & Transfer for a number of reasons, but as a related company it will have a mandate to prefer RT&T whenever fiscally reasonable. We don’t want to handicap a business line with our current geographical limitations.”
Pushing ideas was somewhat exhausting, and I took a few seconds to sip my bourbon-laced coffee before I continued on. “We will also extend outward with the native colonies, starting with the Pawnee. The hope is to deliver mail and catalogs to them. The Emporium will trade with them for resources and manufactured goods. That would be basically anything they can offer up, including furs and precious metals or gem stones.”
“This will put us firmly at odds with the Hudson Bay and the smaller but nearly as vicious American fur companies. Those people won’t hesitate to use violence to stop our trade overall and in particularly with the Pawnee and their friends. We won’t be asking the Pawnee for preferential treatment, we will simply offer them a better deal. Since Pete is part of this I’m sure we’ll be offering them the best deal for both sides of the trade. We will also go armed and ready at all times, because this might easily evolve into a shooting war.”
Now I was running out of steam. “That’s it for the moment folks: a lot for everyone to think about, and a winter to prepare and plan to put this into action. I will be leaving in the next few days to make our first mail run. We will stop at every settlement, burg, village and town on either side of the river between Ft. Atkinson and St. Louis. I’ll meet with the leader of each community and define our mail service to them. There won’t be very many runs before winter sets in and I’ll only be on this one.”
“We need a Postal Committee, so put together some nominations and I’ll meet with them tomorrow after supper. Other committees will be formed going forward. That’s all I got folks, and I’m happy to reconvene in the morning after we’ve had some time to consider.”
At that I sat down and pulled out a cigarette, before lighting it I stood up and added, “Again, do not discuss this with anyone until we’ve voted on and made our decisions. If someone needs to have a say invite them to the next meeting and we’ll hear them out then. And at that, good night to you all.”
I grabbed my gear, whistled up Brin and walked out the door. It was time to go home and face the music there.