Evening Star Newspaper, December 29, 1929, Page 82

Blazing the Postal Trail From Pony Express To Airmail. Story of the Nation’s Rise and Growth Is . Paralelled in the Development of the o- U. S. Postal System Now One Hundred and Fifty-Four Years Old—Same Spirit That Characterized the Service in Early Days of Territorial Expansion Guides the Course of Today’s Mailplanes. BY FLOYD MONTGOMERY. ESQUICENTENNIAL anniversaries of salient factors contributory to the Nation’s birth have been celebrated during the past five years by nearly - a score of communities in various sections of the East. Important battles, campaigns, conquests and Reroic episodes have been relived and revered forefathers who contributed their share in mak- ing possible the Nation we know today have been duly honored. * Among the first and by far the most out- standing of these celebrations was the world tion at Philadelphia commemorating the anniversary of the Declaration of Inde- pendence. Only a few weeks ago three large American cities—Savannah, Baltimore and Washington— observed with elaborate ceremonies the anni- versary of the death of Count Casimer Pulaski, intrepid young Polish cavalry officer, whose service in the cause of American freedom came to an abrupt end when he fell mortally wounded in the battle of Savannah, October 9, 1779. Ten of the celebrations assumed sufficient moment to warrant the issuance by the Post Office Department of special commemorative stamps. These special issues include the battle of Lexington and Concord, the sesquicentennial at Philadelphia, the battle of White Plains, the Vermont sesquicentennial, the Burgoyne cam- paign, the Valley Forge campaign, the con- quests of George Rogers Clark and the Sullivan expedition. Surcharge stamps also were issued in honor of Molly Pitcher and in commemora- tion of the battle of Monmouth, ; the Post Office Department, responsible s for the issuance of stamps memorializing other events, passed over its own birthday without a pause in the delivery of America’s mail. The best known and perhaps most im- portant governmental service in the daily life of the people modestly permitted its anniversary Photographic illustration by Lejaren a’Hille “Message Carriers of All Ages.” This, of course, was one of the gaudy coaches of the old days. b to go, the day of all other days, unhonored and unsung. On July 26, 1929, it was 154 years old, its creation having been one of the first acts of the Continental Congress following the adop- tion of the Declaration of Independence. To describe the metamorphosis of the postal service from its skeleton formation of 1775 to the complicated structure of today is to meas- ure the advance of the Nation itself. The story of no other human activity more closely parallels the story of the Nation’s growth than that of the postal system. The two have ever marched hand in hand. Wherever intrepid pioneers penetrated forest fastness there followed the postal service, main- taining the invisible thread of communication that told of the bounty of nature in the new lands and induced more and yet more emigrants to follow in the footsteps of those who had gone before. Outposts on the great American desert were linked to those on the rim of civilization by the malils, and these, in turn, were cemented to the more stable settlements in the East by regular, though precarious, transportation of letters and newspapers on horseback, afoot or in skiff. With the discovery of gold in California and the rush to the Golden Gate by sea and by land, bridging the vast and trackless interven- ing space, unpeopled except by redskins, the task of making mail contact with the new ter- ritory was one which only the pioneering spirit abroad in those days could have successfully accomplished. But it was done; first, by steamboat, using land connections across Gentral America; later, by the lumbering stagecoach invading the un- profaned wilderness of the Indians, and, finally, by the romantic Pony Express, which filled the hiatus until bands of steel could be laid for the iron horse that was destined to supply the final and lasting connecting link between the two oceans, DURING the tempestuous days of the Civil War it was the stagecoach and the pony express that maintained the slender and hazard- 1HE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, DECEMBER 29, 1929. Giv $ilse aeadi s Woreesio e Waodnesays canl Satundays, and s e Bsening ¥heo §oowr il REEREET R ook Lept uf Wesson's, Providencs, s e CEARE THREE DOLLARS.. Pravidence, Ot A New England mail stage poster of 1821. ous line of intercourse with the Far West. Had this line been broken, the result would have been, no doubt, the creation of a separate em- pire on the Pacific. It is, indeed, not inconceivable that America might today have been a land of many separate States had postal officials of earlier times been less diligent in forcing and maintaining coureir routes into remote districts on the very heels of the early adventurers. * Having credited the postal service with a large share of responsibility for the territorial expansion of the United States, it does not re- quire a considerable degree of mental gymnas- tics to extend to it similar credit for the very existence, as such, of the United States of America. While that may appear, on its face, as an extravagant statement, it has for its authority no less a personage than former Postmaster General Harry S. New. While actually Mr. New gave this credit to Benjamin Franklin, it was Franklin’s administration of the postal system that called forth the tribute. It was in 1753, more than 20 years before the Revolution, that Pranklin was named, with r, printed by permission from the June page of W hite & Wyckoff’s 1928 calendar william Hunter, as joint Deputy Postmaster General for the colonies under the English crown. At that time there was only a nominal excuse for the existence of a postal service. The roads, or trails, were so wretched that there was little travel and almost no intercourse be= tween the several colonies. The fact that the inhabitants of no two of them were drawn from the same class, the same sect or the same geographical division of the mother country was largely responsible for the absence of incentive for intercommunication. Virtually the only thing in common between them was the inter- mittent warfare waged against the Indians. If there was a feeling of relationship at all it was one of jealousy and envy. Each colony traded directly with England, and, except for the fact that each paid allegiance to the same King, they were not unlike 13 independent nations. Franklin changed all this. Despite the miser« able roads and the hardship of travel, he im- mediately made a tour of inspection on which he visited every post office under his jurisdiction save that ef Charleston, S. C. The extent of this undertakin~ is difficult to comprehend in these days of fast trains and automobiles, but some conception of the rigors of his arduous jonrney may be had when it is recalled that often six weeks were required for the post rider to forge his way from Philadelphia to Boston. Many faults Franklin found with the service and these he instantly sought to remedy. His first step was to inaugurate the penny post in large cities. Then he increased the frequency of trips between New York, Philadelphia and Boston from once a week in Summer fo tri- weekly and from twice a month in Winter to once a week. Everywhere he straightened routes and sped up post riders, cutting the dis- tance of travel, as well as the time, in some’ cases as much as in half. Newspapers were ad- mitted to the mails without discrimination and unclaimed letters were advertised. Under his watchful eye the service grew to dependable efficiency—something unknown bee fore. The assurance of delivery brought am added incentive to letter writing and commit- tees on correspondence were formed later in various colonies to foster it. It was four years, however, before the in- creased efficiency brought the postal revenues to the credit side of the ledger, and during this time Franklin, instead of drawing a salary for his labors, was paying the deficit out of his own purse, a deficit that amounted, by 1757, to £900. Then the tide turned, and, in 1760, with all previous indebtedness paid, Franklin proudly turned into the British treasury a surplus of £278, followed the succeeding year by £494. But of far greater significance was the im- mediate effect upon the colonies. Franklin's cheap postage and dependable service had en- couraged communication and communication had encouraged intercolonial trade, which brought with it a closer relationship, a better understanding, and the realization that the wel- fare of the different communities, no matter how diverse their interests, lay very much along the same course, Roads, which before had been but blazed trails, became well traveled highways, over which Franklin's mounted couriers galloped with intercolonial mall, stagecoaches moved with travelers who had previously preferred the safe- ty of home surroundings to journeying over the illy marked forest paths, and freight vans care ried commodities from one colony to another, Roads sprang up where there had been ne roads and the colonies gradually but surely be-