The American Postal Service / History of the Postal Service from the Earliest Times

by Louis Melius

While in the American Republic history is rapidly made and startling changes are not of infrequent or uncommon occurrence, it is, however, true that subjects which provoke discussion because cherished interests are endangered or settled opinions of public policy liable to be overthrown, require time in which to adjust themselves to changing conditions.

The student of political economy will be interested to note how these changes of time and condition affect the opinion and views of men identified with public affairs. What seems wisdom and good judgment in one generation is opposed and set aside in another, both acting for the general welfare and inspired by patriotic purpose.

The proper scope and purpose of government, in its relation to the people whom it serves, is always a matter of deep concern, not only as to the views held by those appointed to administer public affairs, but also in the opinions and ideas of the people themselves. While a great principle may remain in many minds the same, unchanged and reluctant to change, conditions may operate to produce views entirely dissimilar and completely at variance with those of another and previous period.

Two greatly divergent and distinctive opinions have divided the thinkers and the statesmen of our country as to the proper functions of such a government as this. This difference arising from the educational environment of many leaders of public opinion, easily became a matter of accepted political or party belief between those who held to the limitations of delegated authority and those who inclined to wider power and greater privilege. Both have had earnest and strenuous advocates, but the tendencies of the times conclusively point to the growing acceptance of the latter as more suited to a great and growing nation whose needs may not be fettered by tradition or obstinate blindness to the march of progress, but must recognize the paramount interests of the people whose welfare should always be the chief concern.

The Parcel Post is now a recognized benefit to the country. All classes and conditions profit by its mutual advantage. Its gigantic strides to popular favor cannot be measured or adequately described. The burdensome exactions of the high tariffs, which corporate enterprise so long interposed, have been lifted and closer relation established between buyer and seller, by which both are the gainer. As no compromise was possible where monopoly was concerned, it remained for the Government to set aside the question of limited powers and give the people of the country the benefit to which they were entitled, but which monopoly denied, viz., the opportunity to profit by the use of the facilities which were at hand and which have proven so thoroughly effective. Two names stand out prominently in this connection, the statesman whose thorough knowledge of the subject and whose earnest and intelligent efforts shaped and directed this great public measure, and the public official whose hearty cooperation assured its success. Hon. David J. Lewis, of Maryland, and Hon. Albert S. Burleson, the Postmaster General, deserve the thanks of the country for their work in this beneficial enterprise and the meed of praise will not be withheld.

The old-time belief in the necessity of curbing the ambitious designs of those who were striving to open the way to an enlargement of government privilege is strikingly seen in the attitude of Postmaster General Jewell in his annual report to Congress in 1874. In referring to the activity then already seen to widen the scope of the Post Office Department and engage in enterprises held by many at that time and the Postmaster General in particular, as foreign to the sphere of duties and intended purposes and powers of the Department, Mr. Jewell said:

“I would suggest that the time has come when a resolute effort should be made to determine how far the Post Office Department can properly go in its efforts to accommodate the public, without trespassing unwarrantably upon the sphere of private enterprise. There must be a limit to governmental interferency and happily it better suits the genius of the American people to help themselves than to depend on the State. To communicate intelligence and disseminate information are the primary functions of this Department. Any divergence from the legitimate sphere of its operations tends to disturb the just rule that, in the ordinary business of life, the recipient of a benefit is the proper party to pay for it, since there is no escape from the universal law that every service must in some way be paid for by some one. Moreover, in a country of vast extent like ours, where most of the operations of the Department are carried on remote from the controlling center, the disposition to engage in lateral enterprises, more or less foreign to the theory of the system, may lead to embarrassments whence extrication would be difficult.”

Although the advocates of the privileged rights of private enterprise have ever resisted the entrance of government into the field of national endeavor, the triumphant progress of the Parcel Post under Departmental direction has silenced all captious objection, for its admitted adaptation to the needs of the country and its growing popularity among the people, attests the fact that no limitations can be wisely set in public affairs which bars the progress of an intended benefit.

An attempt was later made in 1901 to check the growth of public sentiment favorable to the establishment of the Parcel Post, for which a bill has been introduced into Congress, by a concerted movement, by whom originated is not known, which aimed to arouse the merchants in rural sections in opposition thereto, a widespread propaganda, the object of which was to flood President McKinley with a stereotyped circular signed by these rural merchants all over the country, in order that such measure might not meet with his approval because of the wreck and ruin it would be sure to create. To what extent this movement was carried or what attention it received from President McKinley is not known, but the fears of Postmaster General Jewell or the alarm of the rural merchants were not borne out in the light of subsequent events, as the successful progress of the Parcel Post has abundantly demonstrated.

This popular measure was, however, not to be secured for the public good without strenuous effort, even in these later days when its early adoption was so clearly foreseen. It still had to encounter opposition, the lingering echo of previous struggle. Its friends had to meet and combat resistance, within and without the halls of legislation and it was only by determined purpose and a concert of effort that criticism was finally silenced and the measure written into the statutes of the nation. Congress passed the act, August 24, 1912, and the struggle of nearly half a century was at an end with the popular will triumphant.