In 1891, Postmaster General Wanamaker, managed to get Congress to appropriate a meager sum - $10,000 - to test the idea of rural free mail delivery but Congress never fully supported this idea and thus it was dropped. At that time, one member of the House of Representatives is reported to have said: “The delivery of mail by this government to the doors of the farms will destroy the rural life of which America is so proud.” Rural Free Delivery was finally enacted by Congress in 1896 and thus became a part of our mail service.