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Origins of the Junk-Mail Controversy: A Media Battle over Advertising and Postal Policy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 October 2011

Richard B. Kielbowicz
Richard B. Kielbowicz
Affiliation:
University of Washington
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Extract

On 30 June 1971, the tradition-bound U.S. Post Office, long steeped in politics, ceased operating as a cabinet-level department. The next day marked the birth of the U.S. Postal Service, a government corporation. This transformation, arguably the most fundamental restructuring of a major federal agency in American history, ended 180 years of congressional postal ratemaking. By ceding ratemaking authority to a commission, Congress hoped to elevate sound pricing principles and scrupulous administrative procedures over the impressionistic claims and political influences that had characterized the legislative process. Yet the 1970 Postal Reorganization Act could not wipe away two centuries of history. Ratemakers—whether legislators before 1971 or administrators thereafter—frequently found themselves confronted with mailers invoking tradition, history, and social values to bolster their arguments. Nowhere was this more apparent than in the struggle to find junk mail's proper place in postal policy.

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Articles
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Journal of Policy History , Volume 5 , Issue 2 , April 1993 , pp. 248 - 272
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Copyright © The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA. 1993

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References

Notes

1. Postal Rate Commission, Postal Rate and Fee Changes: Opinion and Recommended Decision (Docket R90–1) (Washington, D.C., 1991), i–ii, V-157 to V-163.Google Scholar See also Jill Smolowe, “Read This!!!!!!!! [The Junk Mail Explosion],” Time, 26 November 1990, 62–70 plus cover.

2. “Newspapers’ Priorities Shape 1990 ANPA Activity,” presstime, January 1990, 5; Gregg K. Jones, “Competition Arrives via the Mail,” Ibid., 36.

3. U.S. Postal Service, Postal Rate and Fee Increases, 1974 (Docket R74–1) (Washington, D.C., 1974), 4:992–93 (testimony of Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.)Google Scholar; Postal Rate Commission, Report to the Congress: Preferred Rate Study (Washington, D.C., 1986)Google Scholar, App. A, “A Policy History of Selected Preferred Mail Categories.” On the ways in which historically accepted noneconomic considerations have confounded the goals of reorganization, see Biggart, Nicole W., “The Post Office as a Business: Ten Years of Postal Reorganization,” Policy Studies Journal 11 (March 1983): 483–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar “Its [the postal system's] character is stubbornly political; a two hundred-year history has ingrained expectations about inexpensive mail service as a public right.” Ibid., 489.

4. Kelley, Robert, “The Idea of Policy History,” The Public Historian 10 (Winter 1988): 35–39, quote at 39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5. Hunt's Merchants' Magazine, July 1845, 75; Act of 3 March 1845, 5 Stat. 733, 737; U.S. Post Office Department, United States Domestic Postage Rates, 1789 to 1956 (Washington, D.C., 1956), 10, 27–28, 33.Google Scholar

6. Act of 3 March 1879 (Mail Classification Act), 20 Stat. 359. The origins of postal privileges for the press are sketched in Kielbowicz, Richard B., News in the Mail: The Press, Post Office, and Public Information, 1700–1860S (New York, 1989)Google Scholar; Fuller, Wayne E., The American Mail: Enlarger of the Common Life (Chicago, 1972), 109–89.Google Scholar See Kielbowicz, Richard B., “Origins of the Second-Class Mail Category and the Business of Policymaking, 1863–1879,” Journalism Monographs, no. 96 (April 1986)Google Scholar, for the maneuvers and deliberations that led to the Mail Classification Act.

7. “Argument of A. H. Bissell, Esq., of the Post-Office Department,” printed in Argument of William E. Sheldon, Esq. of Boston, Before the Senate Committee on Post-Offices and Post-Roads (Washington, D.C., 1878), 16–17.

8. Richard B. Kielbowicz, “Development of the Paid Subscriber Rule in Second-Class Mail” (unpublished report for the Postal Rate Commission, Docket C85–2, 1985); “Our Post Office,” Printers' Ink, 15 February 1905, 18–19; “Post Office Reform,” Ibid., 5 July 1905, 10–19.

9. Kielbowicz, Richard B., “Postal Subsidies for the Press and the Business of Mass Culture, 1880–1920,” Business History Review 64 (Autumn 1990): 451–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar The 1917 law also created a preferential rate for nonprofit publications, a subclass that still exists, and exempted periodicals with small amounts of advertising from having to pay zoned rates.

10. Kennedy, Jane, “United States Postal Rates, 1845–1951” (Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 1955), 63.Google Scholar

11. Postal Rates: Hearings on S. 3674 Before the Subcomm. of the Senate Comm. on Post Offices and Post Roads, 68th Cong., 2d sess. 286–300, quote at 289 (1924) (testimony of Richard H. Lee).

12. Ibid., 300–306, quote at 300 (testimony of Charles W. Collier for DMAA).

13. “Mail Users Organize for Battle,” The Mailbag 9 (May 1925), 247–49; “Mail Users vs. New Postal Rates,” Ibid., 9 (June 1925), 321–24; “Postal Rate Hearings Begun,” Ibid., 9 (August 1925), 435–36.

14. H.R. Rep. No. 1006, 70th Cong., 1st sess. 10(1928).

15. 69 Cong. Rec. 5787 (1928) (remarks of Rep. Clyde Kelly).

16. Regulating Postal Rates: Hearings on H.R. 9296 Before the House Comm. on the Post Office and Post Roads, 70th Cong., 1st sess. 37 (1928); 69 Cong. Rec. 5655–56 (1928).

17. 69 Cong. Rec. 5790 (1928) (remarks of Rep. Blanton).

18. U.S. Post Office Department, Conference of Mail Users on Postal Regulations (Washington, D.C., 1930), 62–84, quote at 70 (remarks of Richard H. Lee for NCBMU).

19. Harder, Virgil E., “A History of Direct Mail Advertising” (Ph.D. diss., University of Illinois, 1958), 41–78.Google Scholar See Hall, S. Roland, Mail-Order and Direct-Mail Selling (New York, 1928), for early industry practices.Google Scholar

20. “A Plague of Circulars,” The Bellman 23 (November 10, 1917): 511.Google Scholar

21. The Postal Bulletin, 25 August 1953, 1–2; “Ground Rules for New, Simplified Addressing,” Reporter of Direct Mail Advertising, September 1953, 70–72, quote at 70 [hereafter cited as RDMA]; “Junk Mail to End,” Editor & Publisher, 1 January 1955, 7–8.

22. 1924 Postal Laws & Regulations 189, 225; 1948 Postal Laws & Regulations 262–63; Harder, “History of Direct Mail,” 156.

23. Harder, “History of Direct Mail,” 137; “Mur-Durr!!,” RDMA, October 1954, 41–45. 24. Quoted in “The War Is On,” RDMA, December 1954, 17–20, quote at 20; “Deluge of ‘Junk Mail’ Angers Taxpayers,” Pittsburgh Press, 21 October 1954, 21.

25. “The War Is On,” 17–20; Harder, “History of Direct Mail,” 165. See “H.R. 2988,” RDMA, February 1955, 23–28, for photographs used by newspapers to illustrate carriers supposedly overburdened with junk mail. The only identifiable pieces of mail were copies of Life magazine. See also New York Times, 7 February 1953, 56; Ibid., 21 April 1953, 26; Ibid., 20 June 1953, 48; Ibid., 13 December 1953, 26.

26. Letter from Pittsburgh Graphic Arts Council to the Pittsburgh Press, quoted in “The War Is On,” 19.

27. Harder, “History of Direct Mail,” 153; “Mur-Durr!!,” 41–45; “The War Is On,” Ibid., 17–20; “H.R. 2988,” Ibid., 23–28.

28. Post Office Department press release no. 3242, 30 December 1954 (U.S. Postal Service Library, Washington, D.C.); New York Times, 27 December 1954, 28; Ibid., 31 December 1954, 1; “The December 30th Story,” RDMA, January 1955, 14–16; “H.R. 2988,” Ibid., 23–28.

29. The Senate Committee's report and those of the contributing groups can be found in S. Rep. No. 1086, 83d Cong., 2d sess. (1954) [hereafter cited as the Carlson Report].

30. Ibid., 49, 64, quote at 53.

31. “How Postal Rates and Service Affect the American Economy: Results of a Survey Conducted by the Public Policy and Research Committee of the Direct Mail Advertising Association” (New York, [c. 1953]) (mimeograph, U.S. Postal Service Library).

32. Carlson Report, 22.

33. Postal Policy Act of 1958, 72 Stat. 134. In a contrapuntal fashion, the first three congressional findings about the postal system balance statements about its traditionally recognized noneconomic externalities (e.g., promoting unity, fostering social intercourse) with statements acknowledging its role as an adjunct of business and the economy. Ibid., 134. Key legislative documents that evolved into the act include S. Rep. No. 1321, 85th Cong., 2d sess. (1958); and the conference report, H.R. Rep. No. 1760, 85th Cong., 2d sess. (1958).

34. “A Dead Duck Still Lives,” RDMA, May 1955, 16–19; “The War Goes On,” Ibid., September 1955, 24–26; H.R. Rep. No. 2237, 84th Cong., 2d sess. 2–17 (1956); “The Postal Situation,” RDMA, March 1956, 29–33; “Postal Report from Washington,” Ibid., April 1957, 53–54; 104 Cong. Rec. 2732–33 (1958).

35. Summerfield had overspent the congressional appropriation and, when asking Congress for more money, threatened to curtail all service and to eliminate deliveries of thirdclass mail. “Empty Mailbag?” Newsweek, 15 April 1957, 31–32. Postal Rate Revision: Hearings on H.R. 9228 Before the House Comm. on Post Office and Civil Service, 84th Cong., 2dsess. 301–16, 623–45 (1956) (includes a booklet on direct mail's place in the economy); “A Report from Washington,” RDMA, February 1956, 18–21; “The Postal Situation,” Ibid., June 1956, 30; “Another Report from Washington,” Ibid., November 1956, 32.

36. “How Much Will Postage Cost Now?” U.S. News and World Report, 30 May 1958, 76; Postal Rate Revision: Hearings on H.R. 5836 and H.R. 5839 Before the House Comm. on Post Office and Civil Service, 85th Cong., lstsess. 234–35, 298–300, 358–77 (1957); Postal Policy: Hearings Before a Subcomm. of the Senate Comm. on Post Office and Civil Service, 85th Cong., lstsess. 256–58, 281–86 (1957).

37. Small Business Administration, Study of Effect of Bulk Third-Class Mail Rate Increases on Small Business (comm. print, House Comm. on Post Office and Civil Service, 1960), 2; Department of Commerce, Survey of Economic Effects on Third-Class Bulk Mail Rate Increase (comm. print, House Comm. on Post Office and Civil Service, 1960), ii. For the data on which the report is based, see Department of Commerce, Statistical Supplement, January 1961, to Survey of Economic Effects of Third-Class Bulk Mail Rate Increase (comm. print, Senate Post Office and Civil Service Comm., 1961).

38. Postal Rate Revision: Hearings on H.R. 11140 and Related Bills Before the House Comm. on Post Office and Civil Service, 86th Cong., 2d sess. 101 (1960); Post Office Department, The Impact of Postal-Rate Increases (comm. print, House Comm. on Post Office and Civil Service, 1960), 2–26.

39. Small Business Administration, Third-Class Mail Rate Increases, 3; Department of Commerce, Survey of Economic Effects, 25–27, quote at 26.

40. Postal Rate Revision: Hearings on H.R. 11140 and Related Bills Before the House Comm. on Post Office and Civil Service, 86th Cong., 2d sess. 102–6, 193 (1960); Postal Rate Revision: Recommendation of the Postmaster General of the United States (comm. print, House Comm. on Post Office and Civil Service, 1961); Postal Rate Revision: Hearings on H.R. 6418 Before the House Comm. on Post Office and Civil Service, 87th Cong., 1st sess. 127–68, 171, 270–71, 381–88 (1961); 113 Cong. Rec. 28418–25, 28614, 33984 (1967). For a lucid explication of the various formulae and terms used in postal costing and pricing, see Sorkin, Alan L., The Economics of the Postal System (Lexington, Mass., 1980), 51–58.Google ScholarBaratz, Morton S., The Economics of the Postal Service (Washington, D.C., 1962), 20–43, reviews general cost and price principles for the 1950s and 1960s.Google Scholar

41. “Bulk Mail Gets No Subsidy, PMG Blount Says in Interview,” Direct Marketing, July 1969, 41–45, 53, quote at 41; James Hargrove, “New Cost Analysis Figures Throw Light on Postal Costs,” Ibid., May 1970, 26–30; Sorkin, Economics of the Postal System, 54. 42. Hargrove, “New Cost Analysis Figures,” 26–30, quote at 30. See also his testimony in Postal Rates and Revenue and Cost Analysis: Hearings Before the Subcomm. on Postal Rates of the House Comm. on Post Office and Civil Service, 91st Cong., 2d sess. 1–22 (1970).

43. Postal Rates and Revenue and Cost Analysis: Hearings, 202 (testimony of John J. Daly of DMAA). The Post Office apparently was not unanimously behind the social-acceptance standard. Assistant Postmaster General Ron Lee believed that “nobody in the Post Office Department should make any such determination,” of third—class mail's social acceptance. Quoted in Ibid., 223. Rowan v. Post Office Department, 397 U.S. 728, quote at 736 (1970).

44. Rates and Revenue and Cost Analysis: Hearings, 205 (testimony of Daly for DMAA), 221–25 (testimony of Day). On the limited use of social principles in American public utility ratemaking, see James C. Bonbright, Albert L. Danielsen, and Kamerschen, David R., Principles of Public Utility Rates, 2d ed. (Arlington, Va., 1988), 164–78, 514–44.Google Scholar

45. The lower rate applied to “a person who mails for himself, or on whose behalf there is a mailing…” 81 Stat. 613, at 619. This permitted mail preparation firms working on behalf of retailers to qualify for the lower rate. On the origins of this rate break, see H.R. Rep. No. 1013, 90th Cong., 1st sess. 44 (1967); 113 Cong. Rec. 35836 (1967).

46. “Monroney Lashes Back at Cole over Letter,” RDMA, August 1968, 52; “ATCMU Changes Lobbying Strategy,” Ibid., October 1968, 96; “Election Results Set Up Wave of Speculation,” Ibid., December 1968, 53.

47. “Obstacle to Communication,” Commonweal,” 30 March 1962, 3–4; “Stamping Out a Deficit,” Time, 6 April 1962, 46; “Battle Over Mail Rates,” Business Week, 7 April 1962, 74; Editors of the Reader's Digest, “Second-Class Rates Can Ruin First-Class Magazines,” reprinted in U.S. News & World Report, 26 March 1962, 120; “Postal Hike Viewed as Threat to Economy,” Printers' Ink, 23 February 1962, 15. In 1967, mindful of how important third-class mail had become in obtaining new subscribers, magazines again lobbied to keep postage on direct mail low. See John Fischer to Dan Brooks, 20 February 1967, Willie Morris Papers (Manuscript Division, Library of Congress).

48. “Is It Really Junk?” Business Week, 22 September 1962, 120. Newspapers’ use of the third class to distribute their own advertising sheets (called total market coverage) is discussed in the last section above.

49. The Postal Revenue Act of 1967: Hearings on H. R. 7977 and 7978 Before the Subcomm. on Postal Rates of the House Comm. on Post Office and Civil Service, 90th Cong., 1st sess., 627 (1967); ANPA, Special Report: How to Comply with Postal Regulations on Pre-Printed Advertising Supplements (New York, c. 1965)Google Scholar; H.R. Rep. No. 1013, 90th Cong., 1st sess. 44 (1967).

50. Bob Stone, “Direct Mail/Mail Order Marketing—Newspapers May be Biting the Hand That Feeds Them,” Advertising Age, 11 May 1970, 60.

51. John L. Shimek, Billions of False Impressions (Chicago, 1970).

52. Ibid., 17–23, 45, quote at 17 (emphasis in original).

53. Mail Advertising Corporation of America, C.O.P.E.: Concepts of Postal Economics (release No. 12, c. 1967), 6.

54. 116 Cong. Rec. 10650, 11281, 14777, 15981, 18824 (1970); Postal Rates: Hearings on H. R. 7977 Before the Senate Comm. on Post Office and Civil Service, 90th Cong., 1st sess. 248 (1970).

55. Postal Rates and Revenue and Cost Analysis: Hearings, 226–27 (remarks of Rep. Johnston).

56. President's Commission on Postal Organization, Towards Postal Excellence (Washington, D.C., 1968), 148, quotes at 48, 123, 129.Google Scholar

57. Ibid., 87.

58. Ibid., vol. 2, quotes at 5–4, 5–5, 5–8.

59. For a lineup of those favoring and opposing postal reorganization, see “Moves to Reorganize the Postal System,” Congressional Digest 48 (March 1969): 67–96Google Scholar; “How the Proposed Postal Corporation Would Work,” Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report 27 (13 June 1969): 1034–36Google Scholar; “Mail Carriers and Users in Conflict over Postal Plan,” Ibid. 27 (20 June 1969): 1095–98, esp. 1097. For the direct mailers’ ambivalence about a postal corporation, see Post Office Reorganization, Pt. 1: Hearings Before the House Comm. on Post Office and Civil Service, 91st Cong., 1st sess. 81 (1969); Pt. 3, 877, 895, 1015; Postal Modernization: Hearings Before the Senate Comm. on Post Office and Civil Service, 91st Cong., 1st sess. 559–62, 907–8 (1969).

60. President's Commission, Postal Excellence, 127–32, quotes at 127 and 132.

61. “Kappel Commission Urges Market Pricing for Postal Service,” RDMA, August 1968, 50–52, quote at 50; Tierney, John T., Postal Reorganization: Managing the Public's Business (Boston, 1981), 121.Google Scholar

62. Key statements in the legislative history of the ratemaking provisions are H.R. Rep. No. 1104, 91st Cong., 2dsess. 17 (1970); S. Rep. No. 912, 91st Cong., 2d sess. 15(1970); H.R. Rep. No. 1363, 91st Cong., 2d sess. 47–48 (1970).

63. 84 Stat. 719, 760. Value of service is not akin to social acceptability; it reflects the economic value to mailers and recipients of such features as mode of collection, privacy, and speed of delivery.

64. S. Rep. No. 912, 91st Cong., 2d sess. 11 (1970).

65. The most sensible assessment of the postal system since 1971 is Tierney, John T., The U.S. Postal Service: Status and Prospects of a Public Enterprise (Boston, 1988).Google Scholar See also Gilbert, Michelle, “Postal Politics—The Interest Groups Find Out That Pressure Can Still Work,” National Journal 15 (30 July 1983): 1598–99.Google Scholar

66. Tierney, U.S. Postal Service, 186–90.

67. Presort discounts gave lower rates to bulk mailers who organized their mail by zip codes and even by carriers’ household-to-household delivery routes; raising the maximum weight for the most favorable rates enabled direct mailers to combine more ads into one mailing; and detached labels permitted direct mailers to print recipients' addresses on small cards separate from the bundle of identical ads left at each household on a route. On these technical matters and the policy disputes they triggered, see Tierney, U.S. Postal Service, 189; Smith, Ken, “The Use of Coercive Conduct by Newspapers to Enhance Their Competitive Position Against Shared Mail” (paper presented to the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, Boston, August 1991)Google Scholar; Effectiveness of the Postal Reorganization Act of 1970, Part 2: Joint Hearings Before the Subcomm. on Postal Operations and Services and the Subcomm. on Postal Personnel and Modernization of the House Comm. on Post Office and Civil Service, 97th Cong., 2d sess. (1982) 689–92 (remarks of Lee Epstein for the Third Class Mail Association); National Academy of Public Administration, Evaluation of the United States Postal Service (Washington, D.C., 1982), 156–58Google Scholar; Postal Rate Commission, Postal Rate and Fee Changes: Opinion and Recommended Decision (Docket R84–1) (Washington, D.C., 1983), 517–23Google Scholar; Rambo, C. David, “Newspapers and the Postal Service,” presstime, January 1986, 20–27.Google Scholar

68. Smith, “Coercive Conduct by Newspapers”; “ANPA, Others Argue for No Change in Rules for TMC,” presstime, March 1986, 46; “New Postal Rules Stifle Delivery of TMC Products by Mail,” Editor & Publisher, 29 March 1986, 15.

69. Postal Reorganization Act Amendments of 1976, 90 Stat. 1303, 1311.

70. Postal Rate Commission, Postal Rate and Fee Changes: Opinion and Recommended Decision (Docket R87–1) (Washington, D.C., 1988), 363.Google Scholar

71. Smith, “Coercive Conduct by Newspapers,” reports that a majority of all forty-one nondaily newspapers in Utah editorialized against junk mail, or contacted lawmakers, or supported trade groups' actions, or some combination of all three.