As the country grew, people in new states and territories petitioned Congress for even more post routes, regardless of their cost or profitability. The Post Office Department, and thus the federal government, had to decide whether to subsidize routes that promoted settlement but did not generate enough revenue to pay for themselves or to operate in the black.
The Department struggled with this issue. With congressional support and keeping fiscal responsibility firmly in mind, the Department ultimately made decisions in the 19th century that reflected public service as its highest aim. It funded post routes that supported national development and instituted services to benefit all residents of the country.
Also, before 1863, postage paid only for the delivery of mail from Post Office to Post Office. Citizens picked up their mail, although in some cities they could pay an extra two-cent fee for letter delivery or use private delivery firms. Among the postal reforms suggested by progressive Postmaster General Montgomery Blair in his 1862 report to the President was free delivery of mail by salaried letter carriers, which he felt would "greatly accelerate deliveries, and promote the public convenience."
The Post Office Grinds Mail Delivery To A Halt in 1960's
By the mid-1960s, the Post Office Department had deep problems due to years of financial neglect and fragmented control in the areas of facilities, equipment, wages and management efficiency. Highly subsidized rates bore little relation to costs.
In October 1966, the Chicago Post Office ground to a virtual halt under a mountain of mail. In less than a week, the logjam was broken, but so was confidence in the status quo. During February 1967 hearings before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Treasury-Post Office, Postmaster General Lawrence F. O'Brien said that the Department was in a "race with catastrophe." O'Brien described the crisis:
"At the peak of the crisis in Chicago, ten million pieces of mail were logjammed. The sorting room floors were bursting with more than 5 million letters, parcels, circulars, and magazines that could not be processed. Outbound mail sacks formed small grey mountain ranges while they waited to be shipped out."
The Chicago postmaster summed it up pretty well when he said: "We had mail coming out of our ears."
What happened in Chicago to cause the crisis? The answer is not that something specific happened in 1966, but that enough did not happen in the previous 33 years. " we are trying to move our mail through facilities largely unchanged since the days of Jim Farley when our mail volume was 30 percent of what it is today.45 After O'Brien spoke, Oklahoma Congressman Tom Steed, chairman of the subcommittee, asked"
"Would this be a fair summary, that at the present time, as the manager of the Post Office Department, you have no control over your workload, you have no control over the rates of revenue, you have no control over the pay rates of the employees that you employ, you have very little control over the conditions of the service of these employees; you have virtually no control, by the nature of it, of your physical facilities and you have only a limited control, at best, over the transportation facilities that you are compelled to use"... all of which adds up to a staggering amount of "no control" in terms of the duties you have to perform.
The answer was, "yes". Congress, the President, and the Post Office Department moved to improve this situation.
Going Independent
The Post Office Department was then transformed into the United States Postal Service, an independent establishment of the executive branch of the Government of the United States. The mission of the Postal Service remained the same, as stated in Title 39 of the U.S. Code:
"The Postal Service shall have as its basic function the obligation to provide postal services to bind the Nation together through the personal, educational, literary, and business correspondence of the people. It shall provide prompt, reliable, and efficient services to patrons in all areas and shall render postal services to all communities."
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