Competition With The U.S. Post Office Department
Spooner's intentions were founded on both an ethical perspective, as he considered government monopoly to be an immoral restriction, and an economic analysis, as he believed that five cents was sufficient to send mail throughout the country. From its inception, the Company was a vehicle for legal challenge. "Mr. Spooner, the head of the American Letter Mail Company, has transmitted to the Department at Washington, a written admission of his conveyance of letters, &c., with all the necessary facts in the case, to make it a purely legal question, so that the Postmaster General has nothing to do but take the whole subject to the Supreme Court of the United States, as soon as it can be got there." The American Letter Mail Company was able to reduce the price of its stamps significantly and even offered free local delivery, significantly undercutting the 12-cent stamp being sold by the Post Office Department. The federal government treated this as a criminal act:
United States v. John C. Gilmore--This was action instituted by the Government of the United States, to recover the sum of $50 for an alleged violation of the laws regulating the Post Office Department, embodied in the act of Congress of 1825...
Calvin Case, another of the persons alleged to be in the office, or connected with "Postmaster General Lysander Spooner's American Letter Mail Company," was arrested and held to bail in the sum of $100, by the United States Marshal, in, on Friday, on the ground of conveying letters contrary to the laws of Congress.
Although the business was forced by the U.S. Government to close shop after only a few years, it succeeded in temporarily driving down the cost of government-delivered mail.
Read more about this topic: American Letter Mail Company
Famous quotes containing the words competition with the, competition with, competition, post, office and/or department:
“Never before has a generation of parents faced such awesome competition with the mass media for their children’s attention. While parents tout the virtues of premarital virginity, drug-free living, nonviolent resolution of social conflict, or character over physical appearance, their values are daily challenged by television soaps, rock music lyrics, tabloid headlines, and movie scenes extolling the importance of physical appearance and conformity.”
—Marianne E. Neifert (20th century)
“Mothers seem to be in subtle competition with teachers. There is always an underlying fear that teachers will do a better job than they have done with their child.... But mostly mothers feel that their areas of competence are very much similar to those of the teacher. In fact they feel they know their child better than anyone else and that the teacher doesn’t possess any special field of authority or expertise.”
—Sara Lawrence Lightfoot (20th century)
“Such joint ownership creates a place where mothers can “father” and fathers can “mother.” It does not encourage mothers and fathers to compete with one another for “first- place parent.” Such competition is not especially good for marriage and furthermore drives kids nuts.”
—Kyle D. Pruett (20th century)
“My business is stanching blood and feeding fainting men; my post the open field between the bullet and the hospital. I sometimes discuss the application of a compress or a wisp of hay under a broken limb, but not the bearing and merits of a political movement. I make gruel—not speeches; I write letters home for wounded soldiers, not political addresses.”
—Clara Barton (1821–1912)
“The human face is the organic seat of beauty.... It is the register of value in development, a record of Experience, whose legitimate office is to perfect the life, a legible language to those who will study it, of the majestic mistress, the soul.”
—Eliza Farnham (1815–1864)
“While the focus in the landscape of Old World cities was commonly government structures, churches, or the residences of rulers, the landscape and the skyline of American cities have boasted their hotels, department stores, office buildings, apartments, and skyscrapers. In this grandeur, Americans have expressed their Booster Pride, their hopes for visitors and new settlers, and customers, for thriving commerce and industry.”
—Daniel J. Boorstin (b. 1914)