Postal Riders and Raiders

by W. H. Gantz

The purpose of this law was to give the United States government a monopoly of the mail-carrying privilege. The law was first enacted in 1845, and, although the statutes have been revised from time to time, it stands today in precisely the form herein given.

On the face of the law the express companies are law-breakers. But it is not enough to look at the face of a law. Everybody except the government is prohibited from carrying letters and packets—but what are “packets?” A letter is a letter; but what is a packet?

Foolish question? Yes, it ought to be—but it isn’t. The whole express business rests upon the answer to this question. When the law was enacted, there was no doubt about the meaning of the word packet, because there were no express companies to raise the question, and everybody knew that packet was a synonym, used more frequently then than now, for “parcel.” Express companies did not come along to raise the question until forty years ago.

Even the express companies, when they began business, had no doubt about the meaning of the word “packet.” This is proved by the fact that whenever they handled packets, they required shippers to affix postage stamps. But recognition of the government’s mail monopoly had a strong tendency to curtail express business, and there came a time when the express companies decided to evade the law, leave off the stamps and openly compete with the government.

See how ridiculous the express companies have since made your government. In 1883, a mail carrier who had stolen tea from a packet, made the defense at his trial that since a packet of tea was neither a letter nor a parcel, the law which prohibited tampering with sealed letters or parcels could not be invoked against him. United States Judge McCreary, who sat in the case, was not so minded. He told the jury to disregard the prisoner’s defense. In other words, a package was not only a parcel, but presumably a packet. The judge split no hairs about definitions. The mail carrier had stolen tea. That was enough. He was sent to prison.

See how another judge, years later, construed “packet.” Nathan B. Williams, of Fayetteville, Ark., brought suit in the United States Circuit Court to prevent express companies from carrying packets. When the last judge had had his guess about the conundrum, Mr. Williams was judicially informed that the government mail monopoly, so far as packets are concerned, extends only to “packets of letters.” In other words, a packet is a packet of letters; that and nothing more. Here are the judge’s words:

“While Congress has full constitutional powers to reserve to the postal department a monopoly of the business of receiving, transporting and delivering mails, and, in the exercise of such rights, may enact such laws, regulations and rules as will effectively preserve its monopoly, yet this monopoly is intended (see the Judge read the mind of the Congress of 1845), to extend only to letters, packets of letters, and the like mailable matter, and Congress has never attempted to extend this monopoly to the transportation of merchandise in parcels weighing less than four pounds, nor to prohibit express companies from making regular trips over established post routes, or from engaging in the business of carrying such parcels for hire.”

That is what the court says—and what the court says goes. Here is what the present Attorney General of the United States says—and what the Attorney General says does not go. The Receivers’ and Shippers’ Association of Cincinnati asked the Attorney General to join in Mr. Williams’ suit, which the Attorney General declined to do for this reason:

“The department has made a very complete study of the proposition and agrees with Mr. Williams upon the law, except as to the one point, namely, that there has been an administrative construction against the proposition for over forty years, and the chances are that a suit will be defeated on that ground.”

In other words while the Attorney General believes the express companies have been and are violating the law, the postoffice department, for forty years, has let them do it, and it seems useless to try to enforce the law.