I worked in the Post Office during a Christmas vacation of long ago. The Democratic Party had me on their politically approved list; I was home from school and reported one Monday morning to the James A. Farley Post Office Building in mid-town New York City.
Jim Farley had been FDR’s Postmaster General and the Karl Rove of his day. As you may have guessed – some things never change.
Built in 1912 by the fabled architects McKim, Mead & White it occupies nine acres and bears the famous legend, “Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.”
Langer: “Damn it, no snickering. This is serious stuff.”
While signing in I ran into a basketball playing acquaintance who suggested I see a movie on 42nd street with about a dozen others. I declined, not from moral qualms, but in fear of “capture” and exposure.
As you may have guessed – some things never change.
In retrospect I was an innocent – then.
They checked in, quietly left, saw several movies, came back and checked out.
Their check (I am a smidgeon cynical) probably included overtime and mine didn’t.
Moving on.
The United States Post Office, named as an entity in the Constitution, (Article I, “To establish post offices and post roads”) has been around since the beginning. Its ups and downs are legendary with downs almost always followed by a rate increase.
As you may have guessed – some things never change.
We citizens are essentially receiving our mail in the same manner we did in 1790 and since then both the paper clip and rubber band have been invented. (I believe Dave Barry at this point would suggest Rubber Band as a fine name for a small musical group.)
The Post Office has, to their credit, tried everything to revise their credit picture upward. Your very own picture on a stamp comes quickly to mind.
It has delivered the goods through the snows, and gloom of nights treasured by economists, satirists and novelists.
It has also closed OPEN windows at my approach and told us, often enough, “if it fits in one of their boxes it could be delivered to Fargo, North Dakota or New Orleans, Louisiana for the same price.” This apparently does not apply to the body eulogized in “Weekend at Bernie’s.”
During my youth it also featured WANTED posters naming people such as John Dillinger who was ultimately whacked by the Feds before he could post an on-line review of a movie he had just seen in Chicago. It also WANTED Willie Sutton who robbed banks because he astutely guessed it was where the money was.
These posters are now available on the Internet which is also home to the genesis of the Postal Service Problems.
Currently losing umpteen billions annually it is subtly asking for our financial assistance. (“$27 for this letter and we won’t shoot your dog.”)
Blame it on e-Mail, blame it on Steve Jobs, blame it on Barack Obama – whatever the cause – raising rates won’t solve the problem.
My suggestion is, in this one instance, to follow the Republican Road and sell the system to the highest (or even the lowest) bidder.
FedEx makes money, UPS makes money, Microsoft and Google make money, Cisco makes money and so does Oracle which leads me tentatively to this suggestion.
I would assemble their leaders alphabetically around a large round table and to provide a modest sense of urgency lay a submachine gun (See J. Dillinger) on the table and snarl (See G. Raft) “nobody leaves until you tell us what to do and how to do it.”
My hope is they will arrive at a suitable answer that will make everybody happy and home for dinner.
We, poor citizens of this vast country, will ostensibly make an entirely unreasonable profit along with the leaders of these great companies who are already raking it in.
The resulting entity could be called George or Sam but what we now call “mail” will arrive in your house, computer or phone a lot quicker and for a lot less money.
As for those who don’t have a computer, house or phone – well our Knights of the Round Table will resolve that problem also.
My dough, as always, is on Arthur, Lancelot, Galahad, Lerner and Loewe.
Will the unions scream? Of course they will.
Will current post office workers scream? Of course they will.
Once again the Knights of the Round Table will ride to our rescue and this time they might bring in Robin Hood and his crew.
Just in case.
Summary. It won’t happen overnight but it will happen and it will be in a form similar to that pictured above.
No kidding.
PS: And yes, they already tried the Pony Express. It too lost a barrel of money.
Warren Langer
Blog: Still Liberal at 83.
Still liberal at 84 
You must be logged in to post a comment.