In response to the U.S. Post Office's plans to end Saturday mail service, historian
Richard R. John (Columbia University) has written an
op-ed in the
New York Times. John is the author of
Spreading the News: The American Postal System from Franklin to Morse (Harvard University Press, 1995). Here's a taste of the op-ed:
In 1899, Postmaster General Charles Emory Smith called the post office
the “greatest business concern in the world.” He had it wrong. The post
office is a public service with a civic mandate central to American
business, society and civic culture — not a business. But if it is to
survive, Congress must allow it to start acting like one.
The rest is
here.
1 comment:
Let's give a nod to Lysander Spooner whose short-lived privatization of the mails brought postal rates down back in the 1830s (or '40s?). Now in reverse it is the Post Office that keeps privatizers Fed-Ex and UPS prices in check. Here's a future headline that hopefully will be avoided:
'GOING POSTAL OVER THE POSTAL CLAUSE!"
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