In 1775

Just as I got up from dinner this day yours of the 15 & 18 came to hand; No desert was ever more welcome to a luxurious palate, it was a regale to my longing mind: I had been eagerly looking for more than  a week for a line from the best friend of my heart.

   [Mercy Otis Warren to James Warren, September 21, 1775]

The roots of postal services go deep—and were closely linked with what we call the media today. Mail delivery was typically assigned to newspaper publishers in for what seems a practical reason: they were already delivering paper goods to clients. Benjamin Franklin became the post master of Philadelphia in 1737 because he was a publisher. The post master had the right to decide which newspapers would be delivered free of charge; indeed, Franklin’s predecessor, also a publisher, had barred Franklin’s own Philadelphia Gazette from moving by mail. Much later, as the first Postmaster General of the United States, Franklin did away with this right and decreed that all papers would be delivered, each for a small fee.

The earliest post offices? They were designated coffee houses and taverns. You went to check there to see if you had mail. The first such was Richard Fairbanks’ tavern in Boston, designated in 1639, principally as a depository for mail going to or coming from Europe. Distribution remained informal for a long time; individuals were asked to carry mail as occasions arose. The Post Office as we know it was established in 1775 by the Second Continental Congress (in July). It took some significant time before the services developed.

The letter I cite from, published in a favorite of mine, Women’s Letters: America from the Revolutionary War to the Present, presents in its initial paragraph how the late colonial mail system (if such it can be called) performed. Mercy Warren, who was a poet and writer married to a politician, reports receiving two letters from her husband, the first written six, the second three days before the letters arrived. She was living in Plymouth, MA; he was attending the Massachusetts Congress in Watertown, MA some 40 miles away. Not bad, you might say. They didn’t have trucks then. These days, I’d guess, it would take a day. And in 2075? Now that’s something for futurists to ponder.

The Post Deserves Support

Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds. [Herodotus (484 - 425 BC)]

The Postal Service is deeply rooted in our history. It was established in 1775, thus before there was a United States of America, and the first Postmaster General was Benjamin Franklin. The quoted motto—most people believe that it is the USPS’ own—was actually written by the ancient Greek historian, Herodotus, in praise of an even older postal service, a kind of pony express operated by the Persians; and Herodotus was celebrating the stalwart behavior of those forerunners of our men and women in blue. The motto appears carved into the stone of the General Post Office in New York City located at 8th and 33rd Street. And it applies to our own. Indeed it applies, all around the world, to mail carriers everywhere, one of the least noticed but ubiquitous living symbols of genuine civilization. For some statistics on our own postal service I refer the reader to today’s post on LaMarotte (here) where, as here, I advocate support of this venerable service lest the acids of modernity begin to eat away at it and we shall be obliged, in some future time, to reinvent it.

Postmaster General John E. Potter, in company of other postal execs, appeared yesterday before a group of postal clients, congressional aides, and union representatives. He urged several changes—including reduction in the number of post offices, elimination of Saturday delivery, and changes in the Service’s contributions to retirement benefits. The reason? The USPS projects losses of $238 billion over the next ten years.

The changes projected are neither dramatic nor threatening. Congress, for once, is unwilling to act. The unions are opposed, of course. So are the big postal customers. Nonetheless, we must become alert. I’ve become gun-shy. I don’t want another pillar of civilization thinned down, reshaped, or even painted a new color. Hands off the Postal Service! Subsidize it, dammit! Raise taxes, if you must. No way, José. Let’s not tolerate the nose of the camel under the tent flap. First you cut this, then you cut that. Pretty soon its privatized. Once we had a decently operating airline system and a coherent system of telephone communications. If it hadn’t been for Enron, we’d be bombarded daily with calls urging us to shift electrical, gas, and water suppliers. I say No! Fie on you, Progress. Fie on you, deregulation!