Albert S. Burleson - Biography

Biography

In 1913 he was appointed Postmaster General by Woodrow Wilson. To his credit, he initiated the parcel post and air mail services, increasing mail service to rural areas. However, Burleson was one of the most reactionary politicians to have served as Postmaster General, and for that reason (and several others) his term is often seen as one of the worst in the history of the post. Burleson persecuted African-Americans in the mail service, segregating workers and firing Southern black postal workers. He drew criticism from labor unions by forbidding postal employees to strike. Business leaders were angered by inefficiency and almost dictatorial heavy-handedness in government control of communications.

Soon after taking office in 1913, he aroused a storm of protest, especially on the part of the large daily newspapers, by declaring that he would enforce the law (requiring publications to print, among other things, a sworn statement of paid circulation), which had been held in abeyance by his predecessor until its constitutionality might be confirmed. The Supreme Court enjoined him from doing this.

During World War I, he issued, in 1915, an order barring unneutral envelopes and cards from the mails. After America became a belligerent, Burleson vigorously enforced the Espionage Act, ordering local postmasters to send to him any illegal or suspicious material that they found. The movement of major radical pamphlets such as Emma Goldman's Mother Earth and Max Eastman's The Masses through the mail was slowed drastically, and often such pamphlets were never delivered. Anti-war material was banned from the mail. It was impossible to draw an ideal line and the result was a general alienation of the press. From June 1918 until July 1919, the Post Office Department operated the nation's telephone and telegraph services, an arrangement Burleson had advocated at least as early as 1913.

Following the war, he continued to advocate permanent nationalization of telephone, telegraph and cable services, but acknowledging that Congress would be hostile to the idea, oversaw the return of the communications infrastructure to its various corporate owners. He introduced the “zone system,” whereby postage on second-class mail was charged according to distance. In 1919 he became chairman of the United States Telegraph and Telephone Administration and in 1920 chairman of the United States Commission to the International Wire Communication Conference, soon retiring in 1921. Burleson died of a heart attack and is buried in the Oakwood Cemetery in Austin, Texas.