The Postmaster General

Show Notes

Aughie and Nia explore the position of Postmaster General from 1753 to modern times in this episode of the Cabinet departments. Aughie explains how the Postmaster General went from running a large patronage system to running a large corporation that funds its own retirement system separately from the rest of the federal government under the reorganization into the United States Postal Service in 1971. 

What is Civil Discourse?

This podcast uses government documents to illuminate the workings of the American government, and offer context around the effects of government agencies in your everyday life.

Announcer: Welcome to Civil Discourse. This podcast will use government documents to illuminate the workings of the American Government and offer contexts around the effects of government agencies in your everyday life. Now your hosts, Nia Rodgers, Public Affairs Librarian and Dr. John Aughenbaugh, Political Science Professor.

N. Rodgers: Hey, Aughie.

J. Aughenbaugh: Good morning, Nia. How are you?

N. Rodgers: I'm excellent. How are you?

J. Aughenbaugh: I'm good. I'm particularly excited because listeners, we are continuing our series on US Federal Government Cabinet departments.

N. Rodgers: Yes.

J. Aughenbaugh: In today, Nia, we're not so much talking about a department as we are a position.

N. Rodgers: A general.

J. Aughenbaugh: Yet another general.

N. Rodgers: The listening audience could not see me, but I just saluted, Aughie, with a very poor solute because I have never served in the armed forces, but I was trying.

J. Aughenbaugh: But done rather enthusiastically.

N. Rodgers: It was enthusiastic, was almost put out an eye.

J. Aughenbaugh: I was afraid you were going to go ahead and take up your computer there.

N. Rodgers: The thing about these episodes that I love it's about every conversation that I have with you. There's always this learning experience that I have because I think that I know a thing. I think that I'm just sure of a thing. Then you're like, turns out that thing that you thought that you knew not so much or you knew it partially. I had no idea that the Postmaster General was not an American made tech.

J. Aughenbaugh: No. Yeah.

N. Rodgers: It's mostly because I'm an American and I assume that all things start with America. I have a bad habit of that. Unless you tell me something is from somewhere else, my assumption is that it's from America. Isn't that terrible? I should be a better world citizen. But I'm not. I noticed in your notes I'm like, wait, the British have Postmasters General? Wait, it wasn't our idea? We should note for our listeners, we have done a post office episode before, in Season 2, Episode 6.

J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.

N. Rodgers: We talked about the post office. If you will note it is the episode after our lovely episode with Hillary about stamps.

J. Aughenbaugh: That was really good.

N. Rodgers: We did a whole little postal thing there.

J. Aughenbaugh: That was really good, if you will, double episode.

N. Rodgers: But that was mostly about the why of the post office. This is more about the leadership and the early days of the post office and specifically the Postmaster General. Because what we're talking about are cabinet members for the president. That's why we're going through this individual. But anyway, who knew that the British have, well, I guess the British never had.

J. Aughenbaugh: Maybe they do. Maybe their citizens were like citizens of other countries.

N. Rodgers: They do all things, I think, at their post office. I think they can cash checks, they can post stuff there. Although our post offices also do cool things. What I think is great is the first Postmaster General of the United States was?

J. Aughenbaugh: Ben Franklin. Yes.

N. Rodgers: Was Ben Franklin. Then Franklin was a gossip. Like a huge gossip. If you know anything about your local post office, especially in a rural town, we have discussed this in past, that is where all the gossip lives. If you want to know what is going on in a small rural town, you hang out at the post office.

J. Aughenbaugh: You go to the post office.

N. Rodgers: It amuses me deeply that Benjamin Franklin, who as I said, was a known gossip. He always wanted to be in the know with who is doing what and where and how, that he was the first Postmaster General, that just makes me happy.

J. Aughenbaugh: Well in part, that is reflected rather nicely in the fact that for a good chunk of Ben Franklin's adult life, he was a newspaper publisher.

N. Rodgers: Again, I want to know and I want to tell other people.

J. Aughenbaugh: People, yeah. But Nia, you're talking about one of the reasons why you like doing this podcast is you end up finding out new stuff or cool stuff or your perception of a particular government document or institution gets somewhat changed. But that's also one of the reasons why I like doing research for podcast episodes is because I end up finding out stuff I never knew. I wasn't really aware that the office of Postmaster General had its roots in Great Britain, and I didn't know that that was one of those things that got transferred to the American colonies.

N. Rodgers: Of course, you need a Postmaster General, who knew that was a thing?

J. Aughenbaugh: Of all the things that I thought I knew about Ben Franklin's wonderfully diverse, accomplished life, I don't know why it never registered in my mind that he was appointed by the Continental Congress as the first Postmaster General in 1775. He had served as the Deputy Postmaster for the British colonies of North America since 1753.

N. Rodgers: He'd been doing it all that time. I had no idea that he had been doing it all that time till I saw your notes. I did know he was the first Postmaster General because it's often a trivia question in pub quizzes. But I thought that he just came cold to the job. Sure I'll be the Postmaster General. I don't know what that means, but I'll do it. I had no idea that he'd been doing it for 20-some years. I'm sure he was like, I could do this in my sleep. I've been doing this for 20 years. Then basically, he didn't stay very long.

J. Aughenbaugh: No.

N. Rodgers: I guess if you think about his age, that would have been one of the factors because if he had been doing it for 22 years and people didn't live as long as they live now. I do think it's interesting that they're like, hey, could you take all that expertise that you have and create a system that's now under the American government instead of under the British colonial government.

J. Aughenbaugh: From my research, he definitely set the norm or the culture for what in the United States Postal Service would end up becoming, which is a way to connect the country. He firmly believed in the fact that if the American democracy was going to succeed and flourish, that the postal system would play a key role in making sure that Americans knew what was going on in their government and they could be connected to one another and remember listeners, early on in US history, the country was with a few notable large city exceptions, was basically wilderness. How do you go ahead.

N. Rodgers: I guess when you think all the stuff in-between the cities, was more or less wilderness. It was what we would call rural.

J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.

N. Rodgers: Very rural. But what I think is an interesting question. We established, I think in our previous episode, that the post office was in large part because of the Commerce Clause where you have people selling stuff across borders and there's all questions with that and still are today that's still an active part of government. Policing is things that are sent through the mail. They have constantly looking for stuff like that. As we all know it, just as a side note, every single causal factor in the universe comes back to the Commerce Clause.

J. Aughenbaugh: Commerce Clause.

N. Rodgers: Why gravity works on you? Commerce Clause. Why the Earth revolves around the Sun? Commerce Clause. Why do you volcanoes explode in Iceland? Commerce Clause. It always comes back to that.

J. Aughenbaugh: Not withstanding.

N. Rodgers: Somewhat cynical and sarcastic view of the Commerce Clause?

J. Aughenbaugh: I was going to go with exaggeration.

N. Rodgers: Okay fine.

J. Aughenbaugh: The view of many of the framers of the US Constitution of the young country, was that one of the ways this young country could actually survive was the connections that would manifest because of commerce. Whether it is, goods and services and one part of the country that then could also be enjoyed by consumers in another part of the country, or innovations in New York. It could be shared with people in Virginia, or the Carolinas, whatever the case may be, that was definitely a view that you saw not only with Benjamin Franklin, but most prominently John Marshall, who ended up becoming Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court and had a rather robust or expansive view, as Nia just indicated, about the Commerce Clause.

N. Rodgers: Me and Marshall. I'm just saying. I'm sure that when his dog barked, he was like Commerce Clause. But you did point out something interesting about Ben Franklin and the beginning of the Post Office, which is that also he was interested in delivering news from one place to another. He was very much interested in the colonies being in communication with each other. That it was important for the burgeoning United States to have a communication system.

J. Aughenbaugh: Think about how important communication was in regards to the Revolutionary War. One of the easiest things that Great Britain could have done to thwart the rebellion is to pit one colony against another. To go ahead and say, for instance, South Carolina is loyal to the crown. But, having a functioning Postal Service allowed those across the colonies to communicate with one another about how, not only are we upset with the crown.

N. Rodgers: But so are our neighbors and our cousins in another state.

J. Aughenbaugh: Etc, etc.

N. Rodgers: If you cut communications, you tend to do better in a war than if you don't cut communication.

J. Aughenbaugh: That's right.

N. Rodgers: When you think about communication at that time, this is way before wireless, this is way before any system like that. Postal was the communication system. But I want to ask you, was Benjamin Franklin part of George Washington's Cabinet?

J. Aughenbaugh: No. In Ben Franklin and Washington knew one another quite obviously. But the Washington administration didn't think all that much about the Postmaster General. Washington appointed a Postmaster, etc. But the Postmaster General position did not become a cabinet position until 1829 in the Andrew Jackson administration.

N. Rodgers: Look that's like 50 years on-ish.

J. Aughenbaugh: We had Postmaster Generals. But it was Andrew Jackson, interestingly enough, who made it a cabinet position and by the way, and this is going to be a listener is one of the themes of the remainder of this conversation. It probably makes a lot of sense that Andrew Jackson made the Postmaster General cabinet position. Because for most of the history of that position, the Postmaster General was viewed as the distributor of government jobs, known as patronage.

N. Rodgers: Like an ambassadorship and that thing.

J. Aughenbaugh: You're talking about more than likely Nia lower-level government jobs.

N. Rodgers: You're going to be in charge of the local post office or you're going to be in charge of the state or the colonial in your area post office. As we know, since that controls communications, it has a huge influence on slowing information down or speeding information up.

J. Aughenbaugh: Again, in our previous podcast episode, remember Nia, we talked about how in many rural communities, the United States post office is the face of the federal government.

N. Rodgers: Is highly respected.

J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.

N. Rodgers: That's a good job to get. If nothing else, just because the pay is good and the perks and the benefits of having that job are a good, solid middle America type job to have.

J. Aughenbaugh: That's right. But if you think about the Jackson administration, Andrew Jackson ran for president in part arguing that most federal government jobs could be performed by average Americans. He had a huge problem with the elites in American society. He had a huge problem with the elites in both political parties. In part remember, he thought he lost the 1824 for presidential election because some of the elites in his own party, when the election went into the House of Representatives, because there was no victory in the Electoral College, Jackson thought that some of the elites in his party sold him out so he was considered a populist, and part of his populist, if you will campaign, was most government jobs could be performed by average Americans and when he took office as president, he made the postmaster general a cabinet position and basically, well into the 1930s, the postmaster general became the distributor of the spoils of government. This is the reason why it becomes known as the spoils system. What are the spoils of government jobs?

N. Rodgers: I was going to say decent paying jobs.

J. Aughenbaugh: That's right.

N. Rodgers: With a fair bit of security.

J. Aughenbaugh: That's right. You reward your supporters.

N. Rodgers: With a nice middle-class secure job that will train them voting for you each time they go, because it's in their best interests to do that.

J. Aughenbaugh: As long as you did what your political superiors wanted you to, you kept your job. If your political party may continue to win elections, guess what, you were able to keep your job.

N. Rodgers: In the modern vernacular, we would call that nepotism.

J. Aughenbaugh: Sure, or cronyism.

N. Rodgers: Right. Or buoy network, that thing.

J. Aughenbaugh: But as I point out in my public administration courses, you may not hire in patronage, the best person for the job. But it does promote democratic accountability because the people elected individuals to represent them and those people gave government jobs to their supporters and you only keep your job if you're talking about democratic accountability.

N. Rodgers: You only keep your job if your boss keeps their job and they keep their job by keeping the voters happy.

J. Aughenbaugh: There you go.

N. Rodgers: That feels a little slimy, Aughie, I'm just saying.

J. Aughenbaugh: But that's fine. But how often do we hear even today, Nia?

N. Rodgers: That's fine except.

J. Aughenbaugh: But how often do we hear today that the career civil servants in the bureaucracy are largely unaccountable to the public? We hear that all the time.

N. Rodgers: We do hear that a lot in certain circles. There's a lot of argument about that. Usually if you don't like what they're doing that tends to be your feeling.

J. Aughenbaugh: It goes in cycles and write to the political parties.

N. Rodgers: Right. Exactly.

J. Aughenbaugh: Right now Republicans don't trust the experts in their bureaucracy. At various points in the past, there were Democrats who are like those interests civil servants are unresponsive to the base of our party. But in terms of democratic accountability, the patronage system furthers that. But you don't necessarily get the best person to do the job because you've got the job because of who you know, who you knew instead of what you knew.

N. Rodgers: Can I just though say that in defense of middle level bureaucrats that you may have been who you knew to get the job but generally people rise to the occasion. It has been my optimistic experience that most of the time when some government official is harming me in some way, it's because they don't know they're harming me. If they knew that, they would generally say, oh, let me see if I can work the system and figure out a way not to harm you. But I think maybe I am a Pollyanna, maybe I am optimistic. But I think that probably a lot of people would be grateful to get those jobs, would want to keep those jobs, would want to do a decent job in part because, and hear me out on this, they were in the community with people they knew.

J. Aughenbaugh: Well, that is the positives of patronage.

N. Rodgers: I think when you're talking about a reinforcing of the democratic principle, you do get to this point of there is some level of accountability to your neighbors, to your close associates where people would say, I know that eigenvalue even worth a day and you need to get him out of there, and they might in fact say that to a politician. Because those aren't always you don't get that job and keep it forever, sometimes they get rid of you because you're so unpopular in your local area that they're like, you've burned every bridge, we can't keep you there.

J. Aughenbaugh: In part, you keep your job if your political superiors keep their jobs. There was a motivation to go ahead and satisfy a majority of potential voters in your community, in your state, etc. You're not going to go ahead and maintain that support I would argue. If you are frequently giving bad service or you're not delivering what the government set, promised the people of your community that it would deliver.

N. Rodgers: It works both ways. If you are really cruddy at a local job, you could harm the person selection chances, which will remove both of you from those jobs. I will allow that there is accountability. I was originally thinking Aughie has got that wrong. But turns out your 37 years of administrative law experience are probably playing in here.

J. Aughenbaugh: In how I explain it to my students is that civil service and patronage are not diametrically opposed.

N. Rodgers: Right.

J. Aughenbaugh: Because even career civil servants know that they can do a better job if they have the support of the public they are supposed to serve.

N. Rodgers: Right.

J. Aughenbaugh: Likewise with patronage, if you are a politician and you're giving out government jobs to a bunch of incompetence. Who end up upsetting large swaths of your electorate.

N. Rodgers: You'll be removed.

J. Aughenbaugh: You're going to be removed. It's more of a sliding scale instead of polar opposites. Because the way it's usually presented in academic textbooks is that patronage is good in terms of furthering democratic accountability and career civil servants are good at producing, "good government". What other scholars have suggested is it's more of a sliding scale.

N. Rodgers: If they don't produce good government, they are punished by either being removed by their patron or their patron being removed, and so it behooves them to be somewhat good at the job.

J. Aughenbaugh: For career civil servants, as we have discussed in other podcast episodes, if you don't make the public aware of your programs. If you don't take their responses into account, you're not going to do a good job, and it may harm you in the next budget cycle. Or the next president appoint somebody to run your agency, that is going to force significant reform and change. You can't be completely unresponsive as a career civil servant. Nia, just think about this. For instance, in many ways you and I are civil servants who work for a state agency.

N. Rodgers: Right.

J. Aughenbaugh: If we are unresponsive to the students that we're supposed to teach and help, and guide their research, etc. Think about how that affects our annual evaluations and whether or not we end up getting future contracts to work for VCU.

N. Rodgers: Exactly. At some point, they will let me go if I don't do the job that I am payed to do. They will stop paying me to do that. If you think that doesn't happen in the universities, that's wildly inaccurate, happens all the time that they say, this will be the last contract that we offer you. Good luck finding a new position.

J. Aughenbaugh: Sure.

N. Rodgers: Which is the university's way of firing you gently. But they do let people go all the time. I want to ask you so you gave dates?

J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.

N. Rodgers: For the Postmaster General being a cabinet position?

J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah, 1829 and 1971.

N. Rodgers: What happened in 1971? Was that Nixon? Did Nixon just feel like, no Postmaster General for me.

J. Aughenbaugh: No, we talked about this before because in the previous podcast episode, right now listeners Nia is giving a fake question. Because in 1971, the United States Congress reorganized the post office department into the United States Postal Service and made it in effect government corporation.

N. Rodgers: The Postmaster General is now a CEO?

J. Aughenbaugh: Yes, and is technically a pointed by the Board of Governors of the United States Postal Service.

N. Rodgers: Thus needs a different skill set than previous persons who were in that service?

J. Aughenbaugh: That's correct.

N. Rodgers: Because a person who's really good at distribution, like Ben Franklin, like you were talking about being a newspaper individual. That's not what is important, as important now as a person who can manage people and budgets and time and all those. This person is now a CEO of a corporation that is a different skill set.

J. Aughenbaugh: It's not completely, but it requires somebody to in effect run a corporation.

N. Rodgers: Which is why since 1971, they have been people who have run corporations. We look to the private sector because we turned it into a cooperation and we're like, you know what we need? We need a CEO. We should go find one. Don't be surprised when they act like that. Don't be surprised when they make decisions that are clearly based in the business aspect. But they're already suggesting that there will be a huge slowdown at Christmas. Because they simply do not have the person power.

J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.

N. Rodgers: Then things are going to be more expensive. Trucking is going to be more expensive. Gasoline is going to be more extended, all these things. There are saying you should just gear up for the fact that we're a business and we're going to have to act like one. People are up in arms about that. That's interesting, we don't get to have it both ways.

J. Aughenbaugh: Well, in particular, when the United States Postal Service was created by Congress, it gave the Postal Service a rather specific mandate. Like any corporation, it's expenditures are not to exceed its revenues.

N. Rodgers: You have to make money. Ask Amazon how hard that is for the first seven or eight years of their corporation, they did not make money.

J. Aughenbaugh: Unlike some of our other government corporations. I'm looking at you Amtrak. The United States Congress has not provided any subsidies to the United States Postal Service.

N. Rodgers: They have to be independently.

J. Aughenbaugh: Physically balanced.

N. Rodgers: Right.

J. Aughenbaugh: Let's face it, most federal government agencies are not run in the black.

N. Rodgers: They're not.

J. Aughenbaugh: The ledger doesn't look good for most federal government agencies. Which could be a completely different podcast episode. But the United States Postal Service has that requirement, and we saw this last Christmas. As gas prices were rising. We still had restrictions related to the pandemic. The current head of the United States Postal Service. He came up with a reform plan last year that had members of Congress in both political parties irate. But his attitude or his approach was you hired me. The Board of Governors of the United States Postal Service hired me in part because they wanted somebody to change the service.

N. Rodgers: Well, and he just raised the rates from 58 cents to 60 cents for a stamp. I know you and I are probably the only people in the United States other than the elderly who you stamps. But that rate increase had to do with the cost of delivering mail. They have gasoline, they have maintenance on vehicles, which right now, good luck with that. Because of the way the supply chain is working. There's all issues and they're dropping their forces dropping because as people retire, other people are not taking those jobs. There's also some of that involved. But people get all mad at him and I'm like, but he's doing what we asked him to do, which is to run a corporation that stays in the profitability margin.

J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.

N. Rodgers: He doesn't get to have one of those calls with his stakeholders the way Target does and say, well, we're down about 42 percent this quarter. He doesn't get to do that.

J. Aughenbaugh: No, because even things like raising the price of an individual stamp has to be approved by the Board of Governors, right?

N. Rodgers: Right. His hands are a bit tied. It is still held to all these.

J. Aughenbaugh: This is a remarkable transformation and, Nia, I'm glad you went in and honed in on this. The Postmaster General went from basically the head of federal government patronage to now running a corporation. Let's face it, when you're the head of federal government patronage, yes, you can make enemies, but you make a whole bunch of friends because you're basically giving a whole bunch of people what?

N. Rodgers: Candy.

J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.

N. Rodgers: You're giving them all the things they want. You're giving them permission and prestige, and money and power and they love you. In 1971, we come along, we go, it turns out. We're going to need you to fund your liabilities going forward.

J. Aughenbaugh: Well, that's a huge one. We've talked about [inaudible]

N. Rodgers: Your retirement. We talked about that in the previous episode.

J. Aughenbaugh: The only corporation in the United States that is legally required to have enough cash reserves to cover current pension liability and future pension liability.

N. Rodgers: You notice that there are many things that I've said I wanted to be. I do not want to be Postmaster General. The tying of your hands in that job are just amazing. Everybody hates every decision you make. Nobody ever says, gosh, I love that Postmaster General. That's not. Ben Franklin was probably the last loved Postmaster General. It's so unfortunate because it's been, I don't know.

J. Aughenbaugh: Nia, think about this. The United States Postal Service is going to have a huge issue in regards to its vehicle fleet.

N. Rodgers: What's going to happen in California when their vehicles can't run on gas?

J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.

N. Rodgers: Oh, my goodness, there's so many follow-on effects that people don't think about with the terms of, you know how many vehicles they have that they would have to replace just in California?

J. Aughenbaugh: I know I'm somewhat of a policy geek, probably gross understatement.

N. Rodgers: I like how you said somewhat. I like how I can hear laughter from your students in my apartment.

J. Aughenbaugh: When the United States Congress recently, in regards to when we record this podcast episode, passed the Inflation Reduction Act, a huge chunk of that law was to provide incentives for Americans to no longer buy gasoline powered automobiles.

N. Rodgers: Then California followed that up with by 2035, there will be no more new vehicles that run on gasoline only in California.

J. Aughenbaugh: But here's the thing that got me thinking, that law also applies to federal government agencies.

N. Rodgers: Right. When California sneezes the entire country, even the federal government gets a cold.

J. Aughenbaugh: I wasn't even talking about California's law.

N. Rodgers: Oh, you mean the Federal Reduction Act.

J. Aughenbaugh: The Federal Reduction Act is to provide incentives for Americans in the next 15 years to buy more electric vehicles.

N. Rodgers: The federal government is going to do that with its own fleets.

J. Aughenbaugh: Fleets. One of the largest fleets in the entire world is the United States Postal Service. You're running the United States Postal Service right now.

N. Rodgers: You finally gotten it into profitability just by like we made $20 this year. We feel really good about that and they say, oh, we're going to need you to replace your entire fleet in the next 10 years. You're like, what do you mean? I didn't even think about that, Aughie, that's terrible.

J. Aughenbaugh: I was just like.

N. Rodgers: I see that's one of those unintended consequences listeners that, Aughie, always warns us about where we're like, we're going to go forward and we're going to do this thing and it's going to be completely fabulous. We're going to build this dam on this river. He's like, you know that's going to flood the 16 cities and cause all these people to be homeless. We're like, oh, okay, well, maybe that's not a good thing. This is the law of unintended consequences.

J. Aughenbaugh: Unintended consequences. We don't have enough supply of non gasoline powered vehicles now.

N. Rodgers: This is going to be so bad. I'm laughing in some whatever hysterical way because I did not even think about. See, that is so Administrative Law of you to be like, you know, if you pass that, this is one of those consequences of that is that unless you can ramp up production.

J. Aughenbaugh: Now we're going to be back to a situation to once again, the United States federal government is going to get pressure from automobile companies for subsidies.

N. Rodgers: You want us to make these fleets.

J. Aughenbaugh: To change our inventory.

N. Rodgers: Hire more people and have more lines.

J. Aughenbaugh: You want to talk about inflation now. If we don't address the potential demand for non gasoline powered vehicles.

N. Rodgers: The 20 percent of the 70s will look idyllic.

J. Aughenbaugh: I'm just like before we start incentivizing and requiring new customer in demand behavior.

N. Rodgers: We should probably make sure we can cover that. That's an excellent point. We should feel really sorry for the Postmaster General because that's about to be a terrible job. Like it was already a rough and tumble job. Can I just note by the way, you said that the general is appointed by the Board of Governors, but don't they still have to go through Senate confirmation?

J. Aughenbaugh: Technically, no.

N. Rodgers: No. Okay.

J. Aughenbaugh: When we were talking about the current head of the United States Postal Service, the Board of Governors appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate. You see what I'm talking about here?

N. Rodgers: It's one removed. Got you. Can we talk for just a couple of minutes about some of the more noteworthy? We have had a lady. There has been a female Postmaster General.

J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah, Megan Brennan. She was appointed at the tail end of the Obama administration? Yes. There's not been a person of color as the Postmaster General. There's a couple other noteworthy Postmaster Generals that I highlighted in my research notes. One was the Postmaster General appointed by President Woodrow Wilson. His name was Albert Burleson. Burleson is known in part because he used the authority given the then United States Postal Department. He was given authority by the United States Congress to restrict any mail that spoke against the World War I mobilization effort. Think about that. Let's just say for instance, you were a member of an organization who thought the United States should not participate in World War I, and your organization, they printed up and sent out a bunch of fliers, etc.

N. Rodgers: I'm just going to say, this is a court case, isn't it?

J. Aughenbaugh: While this actually led to Schenker versus the United States. Schenker was a socialist, produced a whole bunch of pamphlets, some of which he mailed. No, he actually advocated that people just not register.

N. Rodgers: Burn your draft card but just don't register. Burleson said, you can't do that. You can't use our system to subvert our system. I'm not going to allow that. I'm not sure that I disagree with that. There's a part of me, it's like, First Amendment Rights where the First Amendment rights to say certain things but there's another part of me that says, but should the government have to provide to you.

J. Aughenbaugh: The medium.

N. Rodgers: The medium through which you do that? That's a sticky, thorny question. That's not an easy question to answer.

J. Aughenbaugh: The classic dilemma in constitutional law.

N. Rodgers: Should the government allow you the open green to stand up and say the government needs to think like, do they have to provide you that space?

J. Aughenbaugh: Particularly since, you're talking about a government authority that's clearly established in the US Constitution, the war power.

N. Rodgers: That's interesting. That just takes me to the place of, if you're on campus should campus required to provide you a space where you get to complain about the university administration? We do at VCU. We actually have spaces.

J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.

N. Rodgers: Or complaint because we believe in First Amendment freedoms and the right to complain.

J. Aughenbaugh: Once the university creates a public forum for that speech, then the universities hands get restricted in regards to regulating speech.

N. Rodgers: Because they've given you an open place too. Oh, I see. In Burleson's argument, part of that may have been, if we open the store, then it will be a flood gate. We do not want to open this door because then it calls into question.

J. Aughenbaugh: The United States Congress, also during the 1940s, 50s and '60s, gave the United States Postal Department again before it became the United States Postal Service. The postal department had the authority to prosecute individuals for distributing obscene materials via the mail.

N. Rodgers: They still have that, don't they?

J. Aughenbaugh: Yes, they do.

N. Rodgers: Because if you mailed something that was clearly illegal, child pornography, for instance, or some other thing, they would swoop down upon you.

J. Aughenbaugh: Oh, my goodness.

N. Rodgers: We're okay with that actually, especially in that instance. But also they check the mail for illegal substances. They check the mail for all things like that.

J. Aughenbaugh: Particularly post 9/11 .

N. Rodgers: I know that in some instances, the way you get around that is you don't have it outside of a State. It doesn't become an interstate thing, it is only an intrastate thing. But no, they have to check for things like anthrax and all crazy stuff that gets sent in the mail. It is hard to be a poster worker sometimes, I'm just saying. Sometimes you walk in there and they're all chatting and hanging around and stuff and you think, oh, it's pretty easy job and then you think, yeah, until somebody mails a bomb to somebody or something. Which we had a period in the '70s where people were doing that. That's how the Unabomber, anyway.

J. Aughenbaugh: I certainly would not want to work in a post office at Christmas time.

N. Rodgers: Or in Washington DC where lots of angry people mail things. I would say tough work.

J. Aughenbaugh: There's two other Postmaster Generals and I want to mention before we conclude our episode, Nia. One and I'm not going in chronological order was William Blount. He was the first postmaster general appointed by the governors of the newly created US Postal Service in 1971.

N. Rodgers: He was the first CEO.

J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah, first CEO. But probably the best example of a Postmaster General as the distributor of patronage, and I saw him referenced in easily five different books and articles that I read, was James Farley, who was the Postmaster General for President Franklin Delano Roosevelt from 1933-1940.

N. Rodgers: This is under the patronage system, not under the CEO system.

J. Aughenbaugh: That's right.

N. Rodgers: Was he just amazing at doling out, incredible patronage?

J. Aughenbaugh: The president himself, basically deferred to Farley on Farley's decisions to reward or punish people in regards to government jobs.

N. Rodgers: That's saying something because the FDR was a bit of a micromanager.

J. Aughenbaugh: Oh, sure he was. But it was Farley belief that those who supported FDR's campaign should be compensated for their loyalty. If you're a member of Congress and you're a member of the Democratic Party and you didn't support the new deal.

N. Rodgers: Oh, man, he made you sorry, you woke up in the morning.

N. Rodgers: Farley would go ahead and fire people in post offices, in your congressional district or state.

N. Rodgers: Until you caved.

J. Aughenbaugh: Until you saw the light.

N. Rodgers: Wow, so James Farley, not a man to be messed with.

J. Aughenbaugh: I was reading some of these examples, Nia, and I was just like you don't argue.

N. Rodgers: I think we forget sometimes just how corrupt a system can be.

J. Aughenbaugh: This is power politics 101.

N. Rodgers: When people talk about now in the system, I'm like, well, you need to think about the bosses of cities.

J. Aughenbaugh: Oh, yeah.

N. Rodgers: You need to think about Huey Long, when apparently you need to think about James Farley.

J. Aughenbaugh: Farley. The FDR just basically was just like you need to speak to James. You need to speak to the Postmaster General. People were like how? But he just went ahead and fired the entire staff of the post office.

N. Rodgers: I want relief. Well, then you should agree with us and he'll give you some more people to work there. Wow.

J. Aughenbaugh: There were reported instances where Farley actually walked into the Oval Office and told the president, "I know you just promised so-and-so a government job, but you need to run that by me, Mr. President."

N. Rodgers: Actually I can't imagine. It's just such a weird. But you know what? If you put someone in charge of stuff like that? You want that guy.

J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.

N. Rodgers: You want. An enforcer. You want somebody who looks longingly at other people's kneecaps while they're holding a stick.

J. Aughenbaugh: This is the Dean of discipline for a high school.

N. Rodgers: You need a toughy for that job. Because it's going to be rough and tumble. Mr. Farley.

J. Aughenbaugh: When I was reading some of that stuff, I was just like, wow. We're talking about one of the most powerful presidents.

N. Rodgers: Ever.

J. Aughenbaugh: Ever.

N. Rodgers: Right.

J. Aughenbaugh: Think about it Nia.

N. Rodgers: Somebody is saying to them, you're going to need to run that by me before you do something else like that, wow.

J. Aughenbaugh: Nia, think about the conversations we've had on this podcast, with our good friend and colleague Bill Newman about how so many presidents of the second half of the 20th century and into the 21st century have mirrored or modeled their behavior on Roosevelt as president.

N. Rodgers: Right.

J. Aughenbaugh: He's a really good example of the modern president. But yet the Postmaster General.

N. Rodgers: If I wanted this job, what I would need to do is become president. Somehow get the 1971 laws changed.

J. Aughenbaugh: Law changed.

N. Rodgers: We could go back to the way of doing things in the old days, and then I could take the position.

J. Aughenbaugh: Because I was reading this and I was just like, my goodness.

N. Rodgers: Maybe it's good, we don't have that anymore.

J. Aughenbaugh: Listeners, I know we've explained how difficult the current Postmaster General position is. But like so many of the cabinet departments in this series, the position has evolved and changed over time.

N. Rodgers: Right.

J. Aughenbaugh: It's just utterly fascinating how the position has changed in response to how the country has changed.

N. Rodgers: Exactly. I was going to say the expectations of the country. As we move away from positions where patronage is the norm. Then we expect the government to be different from that.

J. Aughenbaugh: This idea of a career civil service. In listeners, I'm going to take you back to some of our earliest episodes where Nia and I talk about what one needs to do to become the secretary of Department and how running the post office requires a lot of the same skill sets that you see with cabinet secretaries.

N. Rodgers: Right. We were talking about modernly though. We were not talking about these guys back in the day but you're right.

J. Aughenbaugh: Historically, yeah..

N. Rodgers: We were talking about unicorns.

J. Aughenbaugh: Looking for people who are subject matter experts of that department, who can run a large bureaucracy, who are politically astute.

N. Rodgers: Who can manage a budget.

J. Aughenbaugh: Who can manage a budget. Who have demonstrated their fidelity to whatever party or president who has picked them. You're talking about a rather unusual person to be a Cabinet Secretary.

N. Rodgers: Then you say on top of that, I'm going to need your department to run.

J. Aughenbaugh: A balanced budget.

N. Rodgers: A balanced budget.

J. Aughenbaugh: Deliver people's mail.

N. Rodgers: Every day.

J. Aughenbaugh: Every day.

N. Rodgers: I personally would say, I'm sorry, somebody else's calling on the other line. I got to go, sir. Bye.

J. Aughenbaugh: Thank you for the opportunity.

N. Rodgers: Exactly. Thank you for this opportunity to serve, but I don't think so. Awesome, Aughie, thank you so much. I honestly had no idea about this patronage system. I'm going to have to go read up on Mr. Farley because he sounds like quite the character.

J. Aughenbaugh: Very interesting person. Like so many who operated or moved around in prison and FDR's orbit.

N. Rodgers: We should do a whole season, some time on just the ins and outs of World War II and FDR in the whole. We'd have to write books probably.

J. Aughenbaugh: We should probably ask Bill Newman back, to go ahead and discuss the executive office of president. Because it is just utterly fascinating now, the office of president has evolved and changed over time. But anyways, that's for a different theories. Yes.

N. Rodgers: Awesome. Thank you so much.

J. Aughenbaugh: Well, thank you, Nia.

N. Rodgers: Listeners, we'll be back with the next cabinet official next week.

J. Aughenbaugh: All right, bye.

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