I love the Post Office as much as I love the flag that flies over it. In every city or small town in Montana the American flag flies proudly over the buildings that house the oldest public service in America. It was founded in 1775 and Benjamin Franklin was its first postmaster. I do not understand the attacks on a public institution that is older than America, itself, whose people go the extra mile to deliver service promptly and pleasantly. The only objection I can fathom some people having against it is that it is not run by a private company, to which I say, “Good!”
The President says, “The Post Office is a joke.” Here is a man, I bet you, who has not been inside a post office to buy a stamp or mail a package in over half a century. The people who actually use the Post Office like it. They like it a lot. Last spring, the Pew organization polled Americans on how they viewed the performance of government services in America. Ninety-one percent of those polled thought the Post Office was doing a good job. That is slightly more than double the percentage of those Americans who think the President is doing a good job.
There are a lot of things to say in defense of the Post Office that are important, but the first is that it is a symbol of whatever communities we live in. There are two institutions which define where we live, one is the local school, the other is the Post Office. When a community loses a school because of a lack of students there is a public outcry followed by a sense of mourning. When a school closes the community begins to lose its sense of identity. When a Post Office closes the community has died. Why else would people in Montana towns like Ingomar (with about nine postal patrons and the Jersey Lily Saloon) fight to keep their Post Office open? When the Post Office in my mother’s hometown of Barlow, North Dakota, closed a childhood friend sent her a post card that said, “Last letter from Barlow.” She kept that letter until her dying day. The Post Office is the thread that links every American town together.
